About the History of Cars in China
We know the Tianjin Auto Repair Works from the Heping saloons made in 1958. People name this factory as developing the first Chinese car. For two reasons, the 1946 Feiying closed three wheel vehicle and the 1951 station wagon.
Continue reading “The first products of the Tianjin Auto Repair Works.”
During long years, I am on my quest for finding more details of the Minsheng truck. Strangely the trucks is also well known under the name Zhongshan.
Dear friends,
I have a very good reason to write this item today.
Continue reading “Unique chance to drive your veteran car in China!”
Like our reader Wei Tian already mentioned, we still have to describe the jeeps made in Beijing and Tianjin which were the predecessors of the famous Beijing BJ212.
The most important Chinese cross-country vehicle is the Beijing BJ212. Developed in the early 1960s, in production since 1965. Yes, still in production!! The introduction was during the mass-movement Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, chairman Mao using it to inspect the Red guards.
Continue reading “Jeeps made before the production of the BJ212.”
In a recent entry, describing some cars made in North Korea (see here), I introduced you to an unknown car made in the 1970s/1980s. This car showed up in a second movie, named Uliga saneun geoli (1982).
Continue reading “Paektusan and Kaengsaeng from North Korea.”
Not only Beijing made minicars in the late 1950s (see our entry “Minicars made by the Qinghua University in Beijing.“), also Shanghai did an effort to replace the pedicab and the rickshaw by small motorized vehicles. There was one big difference: in Beijing it was the Qinghua University which was behind all these efforts, in Shanghai it were several small workshops. It is possible that some factories were differently named in press releases, and that these products were in fact from the same manufacturer. But that is difficult to find out after 60 years. Here we give you the factory names as found in books and newspapers.
Not content with the physical labour people offered to transport others: the rickshaw and the pedicab, the Chinese authorities stimulated in the 1950s the development of minicars, to be used as taxicabs. The Automobile and Tractor Department of the Qinghua (Tsinghua) University in Beijing developed in the years 1958-61 a whole series of them, I counted 5 different models with 11 different versions which I will introduce here. Qinghua worked together with the Beijing Second Repair Works.
Continue reading “Minicars made by the Qinghua University in Beijing.”
This picture shows four Hongqi CA72, three Beijing CB4 and two Tianjin Heping 2-type, together on Tian’anmen square in Beijing in 1959 or 1960. It is a very interesting gathering of the three candidates for manufacturing state-limousines for the People’s Republic of China. The chances are already clear taking into account the number of cars present: 4 Hongqi, 3 Beijing and 2 Tianjin.
Yes, it was Hongqi that won. And Beijing and Tianjin were the losers. Recently new photos have been found of the limousines from Beijing , which we will present here.
Continue reading “The lost Beijing and Tianjin limousines of China.”
According several sources the engine of China’s first car, the Dongfeng CA71, is based on a Mercedes engine. A 1930cc engine, square: bore and stroke 85x85mm, 4 cylinder in line, delivering 52 kw at 4400 rpm.
Continue reading “The engine of China’s officially-first car.”