Spotted in China: FAW Jiefang CA6400UA, the Chinese made Austin Maestro

Today we share with you the Chinese made Austin Maestro. Not the Maestro van or the Frankenstein Montego/Maestro van, but the original hatchback on which they were all based. I found this car in Luoyang, Henan Province in April of this year.

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Spotted In China: FAW Jiefang CA5020XJH ex-Ambulance

FAW Jiefang

A wondrous white FAW Jiefang CA5020XJH ex-ambulance, seen on the streets of Wangjing District in northeast Beijing. Sadly and badly it didn’t run anymore, it was stripped of its ambulance lights and used for storage, the poor thing was loaded to the max with scrap carton and boxes.

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The BAW Leichi Is A Chinese Variant Of The Jeep Cherokee XJ

BAW Leichi

This is the BAW Leichi, a Chinese variant of the Jeep Cherokee XJ, looking beautiful in black in what seems to be a holiday village. And check those front fenders! What was the Leichi, and how did she come to exist..?

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The other FAW CA6440UA, a Chinese made Austin Montego Van.

Here we have the extremely rare Montego faced FAW CA6440UA. I found this particular car in Suzhou in late 2015. I’ve discussed technical details regarding the CA6440UA before in a previous article here, so please refer to it for more detailed information and sources. This article is more like a gallery.

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The Shuanghuan SHZJ213 Is Not A Jeep Cherokee XJ But Not Totally Not

Shuanghuan SHZJ213

This fine Chinese vehicle is a Shuanghuan SHJZH213. It looks a lot like a Jeep Cherokee XJ but it is not. It is however not totally-not a Jeep Cherokee XJ. Here is why:

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The Liming YQC6460NL, a Chinese wagon with a Japanese face

This is a 1998 Yi Zheng Li Ming YQC6460NL.

Li Ming was a name given to cars manufactured by the Yi Zheng Automobile Factory in Yi Zheng city in Jiangsu province. There were quite a few Li Ming products made in the latter half of the 20th century and we will cover more of those in a later post.

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A Daihatsu Charade But Different: The Geely Mini Pickup Trucks

Geely Mini Pickup Truck

In the late 1990’s and early 2000’s Geely manufactured two mini pickup trucks and one mini-mini van. All were based on the Geely Haoqing hatchback which in turn was based on the Tianjin Xiali hatchback which in another turn was based on the Daihatsu Charade.

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The Buick Lacrosse Hybrid Taxi, a short lived Expo dream

This is a 2010 Buick Lacrosse Hybrid. Back in 2010 Shanghai hosted the World Expo and in an effort to improve its taxi fleet a lot of money was spent by the taxi companies to buy new cars. They initially bought 3,650 Volkswagen Tourans and 350 Buick Lacrosse Hybrids to be put into service. I remember clearly reading articles about all sorts of New Energy Vehicles being brought into service before expo, including Super Capacitor buses! The Lacrosse Hybrids were part of this push for a “green” expo. Actually they should have said blue because they shut down a lot of factories in and around Shanghai during the Expo and we had endless amounts of lovely blue sky. Those were the days…

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