A beautiful drawing of the long wheelbase Beijing limousine.

Already nearly 1 1/2 year ago I wrote about a possible existence of long wheelbase version of the 1958 Beijing limousine.

I ended the story with: “What we need is a good and convincing picture of the 1*06228 in its long wheelbase version. Who is going to deliver that picture??

Close up of the Beijing long wheelbase limousine, painting Jörg-Peter Rabe.

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Crashed Export Dreams: The History of the Landwind X6 and X9

A yellow Landwind X9 in beautiful Liping, Guizhou Province

Landwind has always been a minor Chinese car brand, yet it is also a brand that quite some car enthusiasts will have heard of. Outside China, the Landwind X7, a copy of the Range Rover Evoque, received widespread media coverage across the world. However, one decade in advance an older SUV made headlines in Europe for being one of the first Chinese carmakers to enter the European market, and for a disastrous result in a slightly fishy crash test by European national consumer motoring associations. This article will cover the eventful history of the debut model by Landwind: the X9/X6-series.

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Chinese Car Brands That Time Forgot: The Brilliant Wedding Cars And Other Oddities Of Jinma Auto & Soar Auto

Soar Automobile

Today in Chinese Car Brands That Time Forgot (CCBTTF): Jinma Auto / Soar, famous for their gigantic Rolls-Royce ‘wedding cars’. But there was more, much more!

Jinma (金马) means Golden Horse. The brand was owned by a company called Qingdao Shengma Classic Car Co., Ltd. (青岛圣马老爷车有限公司). The designation was QJM. In 2001, the company changed its name to Qingdao Suo’er Automobile Co., Ltd. (青岛索尔汽车有限公司). This was abbreviated to  Soar Automobile (索尔汽车), and that is the name they are best known for. That same year, the Jinma brand name was replaced with the Soar name.

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The Complete Story of the Austin Maestro in China (part 2: Yema)

According the official website of Yema , www.yemaauto.cn, Yema was founded in 1988. That is not correct.

Yema ‘suv”, photos Jos van der Wiel, Leshan (Sichuan) 1982.

Chengdu Light Auto Refit Works made Yema suv’s already in the early 1980s. In 1988 this factory merged with three other factories to start the Chengdu Light Vehicle General Works. Tycho has written about this and more. Continue reading “The Complete Story of the Austin Maestro in China (part 2: Yema)”

Chinese Car Brands That Time Forgot: Haisheng Auto

Haisheng Auto

Today in Chinese Car Brands That Time Forgot (CCBTTF): Hainan Haisheng Auto, a brand based in the great city of Haikou in sunny Hainan province. They used the English brand name Hiseng, without the ‘H’. From the late 1990’s to the mid 2000’s they made a series of pickup trucks, legally-licensed Mitsubishi Pajero’s, semi-legal Suzuki Vitara’s, and much more.

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