After his stay in the USA, Tang Jinsheng came back in 1992 and planned to restart the Zhonghua project, after the Guangdong failure.
He got help from some authorities, especially from vice-premier Zhu Rongji, who was enthousistic about the concept of the plastic car.
In 1994 Zhonghua restarted in the Beijing Fengtai district, under the name of the ‘Beijing Zhonghua Automobile Manufacturing Co’. The formula was the same as in Shenzhen: plastic bodies, Daihatsu doors and engines, tubular frames, small assembly workshop. Very low production figures, in 1996 30 were made.
The bodies were made of composite plastic, here is more about it.
Mainly there were two models produced, an mpv-like station wagon and a sedan.
Both cars were sold under the name Zhonghua Soloman. Some had a logo on the front, others the name Soloman.
Besides of a CHB code, Zhonghua also used the CHS code.
The mpv was made since October 1994. This time the cars were nationally licensed, the code was CHB6401, later CHB6411. Even as they could be bought out of Beijing, most of them were taxi’s in Beijing. The nickname of the car was Bullet Head, in Chinese Zidantou.
One of the problems with the car was the missing rear door, omitted to keep the body stiffness. Especially for taxi drivers no rear door was a big miss.
The Zhonghua logo was based on the huabiao, the traditional totem column on Tian’anmen square in Beijing.
Some technical info: LxWxH 4010mm x 1620mm x 1580mm, wheelbase 2420mm. Curb weight 800kg, price 50.000 yuan. A choice between engines: Tiannei TJ376Q (Xiali), Beinei BJ475Q or Dong’an DA475Q. Maximum speed 150 km/h.
The taxis replaced the small ‘mianbaoche’, minivans, like the Tianjin-Dafa Huali. Zhonghua made 400 cars for the Huaqi Taxi company.
The Bullett Head (Zidantou) was made from 1994-1999. Taxi drivers were not happy with it, many problems, especially the friction of the plastic body, not withstand by the tubular frame, which caused cracks and broken front windows.
There was a ‘semi-illegal’ copy (yes also within China!), the Dongfeng EQ6400PL Baolai Xideng.
Production: 10 each day, 13 on a good day.
In the last years of the ‘Zidantou’ production, there were some front updates.
The second model, made in quantities was the sedan. Production started in 1995 and ended in 1999. Also in use as taxis in Beijing.
Zhonghua Soloman CHB7090A taxi (1.60 yuan per kilometer), photo copyright Erik van Ingen Schenau, Beijing 1996.
Sizes: LxWxH 4250mm x 1620mm x 1410mm, wheelbase 2420mm, curb weight 500kg, max. speed 150 km/h.
The codes were CHS5011T, CHB7090A and QCJ7090. The QCJ-designation was obtained from the Qinchuan factory in Xi’an and made sales possible all over China.
In 1996 the ‘Zhonghua-Benz’ was shown, a version of the Soloman sedan, with a bigger 1.6-litre Nissan G16 engine. I have no idea if the car was produced.
From sohu.com: The factory of Beijing Zhonghua Automobile Manufacturing Co., Ltd. is located in a small village in Fengtai District, Beijing. It is called a factory, but it is more like a small workshop. This factory has no assembly line, let alone automation. The frame production workshop is just like the cold processing workshop of an ordinary machinery factory. The frame is welded with two main steel pipes. The painting workshop is just an ordinary spray painting workshop and a single drying room. The body production workshop looks like a fiberglass product production workshop on the surface. It uses the fiberglass production process. The assembly workshop also has no assembly line, but is just a street stall-style factory.
Like with the mpv, there were also some updates from the sedan.
Zhonghua made a lot of prototypes and testcars, all with the composite plastic body. Here follows a series of examples:
The Zhonghua CHS6600 Kaosite was a 19 seats bus. LxWxH was 5950mm x 2030 mm x 2500mm. Wheelbase 2600mm.
Sizes of the CHB6480: LxWxH 4650mm x 1750mm x1395 mm. Wheelbase 2600mm. 15 Seats. Engine 491Q, 2237cc.
Based on the Beijing BJ6485 made by the Beijing No.2 Auto Works or the Zhengtian SQ6480P made by the Shijiazhuang Auto Works.
Production figures 1996: 30; 1997: about 3.700; 1998: 1.009; 1999: 1.105; 2000: 99 vehicles.
Late 2000 the company was closed and liquidated.
The reason: no money to improve the quality of the products.
In the end a technical problem: in January 1999, the Beijing Municipal Government stopped the registration of Zhonghua Automobile because it did not have electronic fuel injection equipment installed.
That was the end.
links:
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beijing_Zhonghua_Automobile_Industry
.https://carnewschina.com/2016/11/29/spotted-in-china-zhonghua-chb6401ta/
.https://carnewschina.com/2012/02/21/history-the-plastic-zhonghua-car-from-beijing/
.https://www.chinacarforums.com/threads/zhonghua-plastic-car-from-china.618/
How the cars ended; the metal doors rusted, the plastic body detoriorated, the tyres were flat.
Any car left? Not that I know. Haven’t seen them in a museum either.
When I visited the factory in 1996 I asked for a testdrive. No problem, I got the keys of one of the just finished cars. No license plate, no assurance. So I only drove around in the neighborhood. It was a pleasant drive.
Very nice article Erik, i havent heard of the more obscure models! That “Toyota style SUV” is still based on Cherokee i think, when looking at the sides.
Also funny, one of the facelifts of the MPV has on the hood the new “Brilliance/Zhonghua” logo! I wonder if the car was actually rebuilt after an accident and not a facelift…
The Brilliance logo: very well noticed, JFK! Many Chinese car owners used stickers of other cars, mostly foreign, to índividualize their cars. I don’t think it is an one-off; look at the totally different direction indicators.
[…] its active community a person going by the name Snapu has made a beautiful model of the legendary Zhonghua CHB6401TA from scratch! It can be downloaded from here. It goes without saying that it looks absolutely […]
Do you think Erik there was any cooperation with Geely? I have remembered a Geely CJB6410, very similar looking car. I am not sure if the body was plastic or not, I only ever seen this picture of it (courtesy of Marshall_Isl)
Hi JFK, there was no cooperation with Geely, at least I have never heard or read about any.
The Zhonghua mpv’s failure in the taxi market also had to do with the general perception that these cars were very unsafe. My mother worked for a state architectural firm during the 90s in Beijing where she had to travel regularly for site inspections, and she used to tell me that her and her colleagues made an agreement to never take a Zhonghua taxi as apparently the plastic bodies would shatter in a crash. Also on the car’s nickname. Growing up in Beijing in the early 00s, these were always referred to as a “滑溜” meaning ‘slippery’, a reference to… Read more »
not “滑溜”,it’s“骅骝”.
Hi JJ, thanks for your personal report. You remember that Zhonghua (Shenzhen) earlier said that you could easily bump the car with 50 kilometers an hour without any damage. I am sure they never tried that when they themselves were aboard.
Has Hualiu not something to do with a brown horse?
And I am happy that I could show you something (the facelifts and the sedan) that you didn’t know!
I wonder if that has anything to do with the plastic becoming brittle as it aged.
And I believe Marshall_Isl is correct on this, I’ve personally never seen the name spelled out and had always assumed it referred to the body shape.
There’s an anecdote in a comment from one of the articles about the zhonghua circa 2011 (forget which), where the person claims they heard about someone who died in a crash from plastic shrapnel getting lodged in their throat. There is a high level of abstraction since it was even like 3rd hand information from the commenter, but it’s something. Supposedly tsinghua crash tested one and the windshield remained intact, but I couldn’t find any information on this and I have not reached out to them. FRP isnt necessarily brittle by nature (there are fiberglass lead springs out there), but… Read more »
There are a lot of articles on the web which speak about the ‘Zhonghua Zidantou’. See https://m.youcheyihou.com/news/60705; https://chejiahao.autohome.com.cn/info/3101631;
https://kknews.cc/zh-my/car/j36lqpy.html; https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1724564372548280455; and others.
Thanks Erik.
This article has unique information.
I have to admit, one of the facelifted cars’ front lights look like they were taken from the Toyota Camry xv20, and the shantou Shenyang plastic car takes the front lights from a Honda civic.
Do you have any more pictures of that van? It’s something I’m really interested in.
I L T C; can you tell me which car you call ‘the van’? I have a lot more pictures of the mpv and the sedan.
Zhonghua CHB6480
No, I am sorry ILTC, I have no other pictures of this minibus.
l knew this brand before but didn’t know it also has beach buggy and suvs.Nice article ！