About the History of Cars in China
Writing for China Car History is sometimes dull, and sometimes exciting. This is such an exciting moment! My Chinese car friend Robert from Poland, who I know for 20 years, has sent me yesterday some pages of a Chinese language magazine called Auto News, edition late 2000. The writer describes the mini-auto’s made by the Qinghua University in 1958-1961. I have written about these cars in China Car History in December 2018.
Changzheng Auto Works (Changzheng means Long March) was founded in 1958 and in its early years was producing cars and car parts. As was the case with Hongxing, Changzheng was initially called something entirely different and began operations first in Beijing, before moving to Xingtai in 1970. Changzheng was initially called Beijing Xindu Auto Works. A likely reason for this mass exodus of car makers from Beijing as the deterioration of Sino-Soviet relationships in the late 1960’s, Beijing was likely wary of a possible invasion by the USSR and so, using the lessons learnt from the earlier invasions by Japan, moved whole industries to secondary cities further inland as a way of securing manufacturing capacity.
Continue reading “The story of China National Heavy Truck Group (Sinotruk): Changzheng Auto”
Mazda may have popularized the rotary engine but the first truck to be equipped with a rotary engine came from China. In the 1960’s China went a bit Wankel crazy with then Vice Premier Li Xiannian proclaiming that China would develop its own rotary Engine and use it in cars and trucks. Obviously this plan never really came to fruition but there was at least one rather fascinating result – that is the TJ140 we discuss today.
The TJ140 was first produced in 1969 by the Tianjin Truck Repair Shop. The truck was never put into full scale production and was really a testbed for this new engine.
Continue reading “The Tianjin TJ140 was the worlds first rotary engine powered truck”
Today in Chinese Car Brands That Time Forgot (CCBTTF™): Fuzhou Automobile Works and Forta. Fuzhou Automobile Works (also known as FAW, unrelated to the First Auto Works) was formed out of the existing Fuzhou Car Repair Shop in 1956. In 1958 FAW started to produce copies of Dodge Trucks and Mazda three-wheeled vehicles. In the same year FAW produced just 8 trucks and 1 motorcycle (believed to be units not different model types, so 9 vehicles in total). FAW was also renamed as the State Owned Fuzhou Automotive Repair Shop.
Continue reading “Chinese Car Brands That Time Forgot: Fuzhou Automobile Works and Forta”