About the History of Cars in China
Today in Crazy Car Production Days of Guangdong (CCPDoG™): Guangdong Passenger Car Factory, a company based in the great city of Guangzhou in Guangdong Province.
Continue reading “Crazy Car Production Days of Guangdong: Guangdong Passenger Car Factory – Gaodeng”
This beautiful red sedan is First Auto Works Dongfeng CA71, officially known as ‘China’s first car’. It was born in 1958 on the special request of Mao Zedong, who demanded a Chinese state limousine. I met it at the Beijing Classic Car Museum to the far north of the capital.
Continue reading “The First Auto Works Dongfeng CA71 Was China’s First Car”
Today in Crazy Car Production Days of Guangdong (CCPDoG™): Guangtong Passenger Car, a company based in the great city of Zhuhai in Guangdong Province. They produced a series of small and medium sized buses under the Jinhui Auto brand name, using the designation GTZ.
In addition to that they also ‘made’ at least five cars under the infamous Guangdong scheme in the 1990’s. Read all the details about it here. Under this scheme Guangtong Passenger Car would be approached by a third-party company to ‘manufacture’ cars, using Guangtong Passenger Car’s car-making license.
Continue reading “Crazy Car Production Days of Guangdong: Guangtong Passenger Car – Jinhui Auto”
In the mid 200’s Fiat was in big trouble, so they went to China. Not to sell cars but to offload entire production lines to Chinese car makers.
In 2007 they sold the platform for the Alfa Romeo 166 to Guangzhou Auto, and then the Italians went to Zotye for a more complicated deal that included cars of Fiat, Fiat do Brasil, and Lancia.
Continue reading “China’s Zotye Auto Almost Made The Lancia Lybra And The Fiat Strada”
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™): Ling Kong, a brand under the People’s Liberation Army No. 5408 Factory. The company was based in the great city of Luoyang in Henan Province. In the late 1980’s and 1990’s they made a series of wagons, pickup trucks, and mini cars, using the designation KJ.
Welcome to a brand new series on ChinaCarHistory.com: Chinese Concept Cars (CCC). We start with the red hot Haima S1 coupe; it debuted on the April 2006 Beijing Auto Show, painted in fiery red and looking perfectly sporty.
Continue reading “Chinese Concept Cars: The 2006 Haima S1 Coupe”
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”
Today in Chinese Car Brands That Time Forgot (CCBTTF™): Hainan Automobile Works.
Hainan Automobile Works (henceforth referred to as HAW) was founded in 1989 as a result of cooperation between the Hainan government and already established Hainan Auto Stamping Factory (henceforth referred to as HASF). HASF had experience with producing automobile components but the new company (HAW) would need a full assembly line on which to produce vehicles. Help came from an unlikely source – former President of The Philippines Ferdinand Marcos. Marcos sold HASF a factory that was once operated by Ford between 1968 and 1984. It was in 1988, 4 years after Ford ceased manufacturing operations in The Philippines that Marcos sold HASF the factory, allowing them to obtain a production line for their own future vehicle manufacturing. In 1989, Hainan Auto Stamping Factory was renamed Hainan Automobile Works.
Continue reading “Chinese Car Brands That Time Forgot: Hainan Automobile Works and Hainan Mazda”
Today in Crazy Car Production Days of Guangdong (CCPDoG™): Guangdong Wanli Automobile, a company that was based in the great city of Zhanjiang in Guangdong Province.
Guangdong Wanli was heavily involved in the infamous Guangdong scheme in the 1990’s. Read all the details about it here. Wanli was a company similar to Sanxing, making all sorts of deals and running all sorts of operations.
Continue reading “Crazy Car Production Days of Guangdong: Guangdong Wanli”