History Repeating

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Erik sent us an email yesterday that just said “L’histoire se repète!!!” and with a URL attached. Obviously China Car Times doesnt speak Euro French, but we got Mandarin nailed down pretty well, so we just had a look at the link he sent to us. It turns out that China has been turning out cloned cars for a bit more than five years, its being doing it for closer to 70, and their connection to the Longbridge car factory (the one that turned out MG’s for years before coming under Nanjing MG control) is also just as long.

In 1929, a delegation from the city of Mukden (old name for Shenyang city) in the Manchuria region of China (now split into three different provinces) visited the Birmingham based Longbridge factory to view the Austin Seven, a car which they planned to take back to China and name the ‘Chinese Dragon‘ The visit was covered by a Time magazine reporter which described the visiting delegation as wearing ‘frocks’ and being ‘slant eyed‘ The Chinese had grand plans for the Chinese Dragon, they planned to sell it domestically and then to spread across the world, selling to the Euro and US markets….

Does this story sound familiar at all? You can read the original Time magazine article from Monday April 15th 1929 by clicking continue reading:

On tour through English factory towns is an august, frock-coated, slant-eyed Trade Delegation from the rich Chinese province of Manchuria. Last week while visiting the extensive Longbridge Works at Birmingham, where Sir Herbert Austin turns out his trig, seven h. p. “Baby Austins” in thousands, Chairman T. Y. Wang of the Delegation said:

“Our great arsenal in Mukden is going to be transformed into an automobile factory, by far the largest in the East. We shall make ‘Chinese Dragon’ cars and also ‘Baby Dragons.’ I see no reason why one day China may not export these cars to Europe and America.”

All very well are such confident, prophetic words, but at present the Mukden Arsenal is working overtime to produce enough artillery, rifles and ammunition for the latest Chinese civil war. So perfect and efficient are copies of the famed French “75″ field gun now made in Mukden, that if ever the arsenal is set to copying motor cars it may prove difficult to tell a “Baby Dragon” from an “Austin Seven.” Similarly, tractors are made in Soviet Russia so exactly like those produced by Henry Ford— even to the name plate — that simple peasants to whom they are sold never know the difference.