Tianqi Meiya T3, another car we never met in traffic.

At the Guangzhou Fair, outside, there was always a small auto exhibition. Here you could see some small makes, which were not exposing at the Beijing or Shanghai Auto Show. Tianqi Meiya was one of them.

In April 2010 Tianqi Meiya showed at the Guangzhou Fair some pickups and suv’s (that were their products), but also a picture of a small hatchback. No explaining text.

The car was unveiled at the 17th Tianjin Fair in June, the same year.

Tianqi Meiya is short for Tianjin Group Meiya Automobile Co. Ltd., a joint venture erected in 2003.  The partners in the venture were the Beijing Jiameiya Co. and the Tianjin Automotive Industry Corporation (TAIC). The production took place in the facility of Tianjin Sanfeng. Meiya made low-price suv’s and pickups.

The design of the T3 (Meiya named it an mpv, in fact it was a hatchback car) was made by CH-Auto, also named Beijing Great Wall Design Co. CH-Auto became later famous with its sports car designs, like the Qiantu. (This company has nothing to do with Great Wall Motors from Baoding, yes, there are many companies named Great Wall in China.)

The T3 was driven by a 1.5-litre VTT-i engine of Toyota. The sizes were (LxWxH) 3998x 1708x 1535mm, wheelbase 2500mm. The tyre size 185/65xR15.

The idea was to produce the T3 with a Toyota 1.3-litre engine too, like the Tianjin Xiali.

The logo on the rear side of the vehicle was the logo of the TAIC. It shows some kind of highway with a viaduct.

Though the final product was a bit more traditional then the CH-Auto design, it still was a nice little thing.
This is the dashboard. A lot of people didn’t like the instruments in the middle.

The T3 (TM6400) was not serially produced. The project was abandoned. In 2012 the test cars were sold for a low price to the workers in the factory.

But later, Meiya tried to offer the T3 again, now with an electric engine. (TM5010XYZBEV).

The post car was equipped with a 15kW Tianjin Qingyuan electric engine, the QYEVM0101, which  replaced the Toyota ice engines. With this engine, the car could reach 100km/h. The empty weight was 1160kg, the gross vehicle weight 1440kg.

Between 2013-2017 there was a lot of uncertainty about the fate of Tianqi Meiya. The TAIC was merged with the Tianjin Baili Equipment Group Ltd. (Benofo). Via a bit complicated route Tianqi Meiya production qualification came into hands of the Tianjin Iconiq New Energy Automobile Co. Ltd.  Meiya’s production seem to have stopped in 2016, when they sold the last party of 500 pickups and suv’s.

But in 2022 a new big mpv was approved by the MIIT, this car was named Tianqi Meiya Lingshi G200 (TM6450QHEV), with LINXYS written on the rear. It was a 4520mm long hybrid [1590cc Wuling engine (65kW)+ 80kW electric engine].

Like the “New Glow” design , the T3 disappeared. And re-appeared.

Rainchst (or Richauto, or Ruichi) in Weifang City, Shandong province, a design and production company of lsev’s, had the T3 in the 2014 program as an electric vehicle. It was referred to as the ‘A-class’.

But even there was no future for the T3. Rainchst prefered to make smaller LSEV’s.

So that was the end of a nice little design.

There is still a website of Tianqi Meiya, but it seems that it not has been updated since a long time: http://www.tianqimeiya.com/.

Production numbers of Tianqi Meiya fluctuated over the years but stayed very low.  The highest was the year 2009 with 4434 vehicles, the lowest 2015 with 20 vehicles. I have no statistics for the T3.