Author: Erik Van Ingen Schenau

Toyota production by Beizhi. Brochure  collection mr. Bai Guang.

When Japan invaded China it needed the shortest supply lines, and it was for that reason that the Japanese regime encouraged truck assembly at several places in China. These factories assembled Japanese trucks for military and also for civilian use.

So after describing the American influenced Minsheng (Zhongshan) and the assembly of the German  Mercedes, I will write here about the third country involved in the 1930s-1940s Chinese truck production.

Continue reading “Japanese trucks made in China before and during the Second Chinese-Japanese war.”

Two side windows or three side windows? Beijing Limousine, 1958.

This is a difficult subject. With my friend Robert Jablonski I have a heavy discussion about the existence of a  long wheelbase version of the 1958 Beijing Limousine (first generation).

I have written before about this car.

Continue reading “The long wheelbase Beijing limousine”

It is amazing to see how many small factories and workshops have developed cross-country vehicles in the 1950 and 1960s. I wrote already about them: “Jeeps made before the production of the BJ212.”
But it stopped not after the introduction of the BJ212. That was in 1966, at the beginning of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.
I will show you here some of the more exotic cross country vehicles made during and just after the Cultural Revolution.

Continue reading “Jeeps made after the production start of the Beijing BJ212.”

This is the history of the Dandong Auto Works.

The Andong Automobile Refit Works had the guts to make a copy of one of China’s most important cars: the Dongfeng CA71 made by the First Auto Works. It was chairman Mao Zedong himself who had ordered the design and production of the Dongfeng and Mao personally sat in the backseat of the first car on  May 21, 1958.

Continue reading “The Andong car.”

Our research is most often a success, this is a story of a failure. Till today I am unable to solve the problem I am going to describe here.

I showed you some time ago the products exhibition in 1959 of the Nanjing Auto Works. I wrote about the two cars present: a clear copy of the Russian GAZ M20 Pobeda and an American style sedan.

Continue reading “The Mystery car from Nanjing.”

During the late 1970s Shanghai Auto Works worked in two directions: developing a successor for its SH760/SH760A saloon and filling in the gap between the Shanghai saloon and the Hongqi limousine.
We have seen already the bigger models (SH762/SH763) developed during the Cultural Revolution.

This story is about  the Shanghai SH771, according my opinion a wonderful project which flirted with the Mercedes Benz W116 S-Klasse (1972-1980). Continue reading “The Chinese Mercedes S-Klasse”

The history of the factory with the proud name “Chengdu Auto Works” goes back to September 1970, when there is a small reel in Renmin Ribao (People’s Daily): “Chengdu 120 lorries are being made in Chengdu”. The Cultural Revolution is there, what that means for the automobile industry we have decribed before.

Continue reading “The Morris Ital Made in China.”