About the History of Cars in China
In today’s article I cover the second floor of the second hall (what I will call Part 2) at the Weifang Generations Classic Car Museum. This hall consists mostly of foreign cars, though one rather special and unique Chinese car does make an appearance!
Continue reading “Trip Report: Weifang Generations Classic Car Museum (Part 2)”
Car museums are opening up seemingly everyday in China, one of the ones I paid a visit to during my last few months in China was the Weifang Generations Classic Car Museum in Weifang, Shandong Province. This museum is one of two museums owned by Zhang Yonglong, the other one is located in Taishan, Shandong Province, a couple hours southwest of Weifang. I visited both and will cover the Taishan museum in later articles.
Continue reading “Trip Report: Weifang Generations Classic Car Museum (Part 1)”
Earlier this year I took a trip around China to visit friends and of course search for cars. I also visited several Car Museums and collections that I will cover over a series of articles. In today’s article I will cover a semi-private collection in Jinan, the capital of Shandong Province. I have also used the “gallery” feature available to us on this website for the first time so that the scrolling length of the article can be shorter whilst still containing all the photos of the individual cars. Be sure to scroll through the gallery for each car! Let me know what you think of this new feature and whether I should continue using it in future articles! I have covered the Chinese cars first and finished off with the foreign cars.
Continue reading “Trip report: Jinan Classic Car Collection”
Xingtai 114 Auto Works was founded in 1969 in a village to the southeast of Xingtai. Xingtai 114 was one of three main automakers in Xingtai that I have covered so far, the other two being Red Star and Changzheng. Xingtai 114’s product line consisted mainly of SUV’s, pickup trucks and buses, as well as some conversions based on products from other manufacturers such as ambulances. Perhaps most interesting of all were the unique Dacias they produced, unlike anything seen in Romania. More on those a bit later.
The story of the National Electric Vehicle Experimental & Demonstration Area (henceforth referred to as NEVEDA) begins in 1995 after the Ministry of Science and Technology made the development of electric vehicles a priority in the 9th Five-Year Plan. Continue reading “A brief history of the National Electric Vehicle Experimental & Demonstration Area”
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.”
In October 1994 a strange company showed its plans. It was the Beijing Golden-Thunder Classic Motors Co. Ltd. They were planning to produce an Austin-Healey 3000 replica, 100% of the production was meant for export to the USA. They didn’t apply for a license to sell the cars in China. A factory was planned in Liqiao, Shunyi, not far from Beijing. They opened a post box at the Jianguomen International Posts Office in Beijing.
One of the intriguing mysteries of China’s car history is the missing CA70.
In the mid-1950s First Auto Works (FAW) started truck production and the development of a complete automobile production program. The first products were the CA10 truck, a CA30 cross-country truck, a CA40 dumper truck, a CA50 truck tractor, a CA80 agricultural truck.
And a CA71 car. The CA71 car is the Dongfeng which is beautifully described by my colleague Tycho in a recent article. Soon followed by the bigger Hongqi CA72.
That gives a mystery, as which car was the CA70?
Car museums and veteran car exhibitions are getting more and more popular in China. These museums like to exhibit those cars which stood at the dawn of the Chinese automotive industry. And here they are confronted with a problem: due to intensive scrap regulations most of these cars have disappeared. China would not be China if there was a creative solution. The exhibitors simply make replicas of these cars. Now we meet two problems; one, the replicas are often crudely made, mostly due to ignorance; two, some museums don’t tell the visitor that he is looking at a replica. Here some examples.
Today in Chinese Car Brands That Time Forgot (CCBTTF™): Zhenjiang Automobile Works.
Zhenjiang Automobile Works (ZAW), based northwest of Nanjing in Zhenjiang city, potentially has a rather long history that dates back to as early as 1958 according to this Zhenjiang History website. However, we will have to fastforward to 1973 because we simply have no information on the company before this time.
Continue reading “Chinese Car Brands that Time Forgot – Zhenjiang Auto Works”