The Chinese car industry in the 60′s

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In our previous article we focused on the 1950′s of Chinese automotive, whilst other countries were quickly building their own national cars such as the original Mini and original Beetle, the Chinese government was focused on getting its people mobile on two wheels and peddle power. The 50′s saw small scale production of vehicles for government users, but the 60′s saw a slight increase in the number of cars produced and also the introduction of the game changing BJ212 Jeep.

Shanghai SH760

In the 50′s the original SAIC Phoenix model was produced, but by the 60′s the Phoenix brand was killed off and became the Shanghai brand instead. The Shanghai SH760 was produced in February 1964 and had a production figure of 5000 units per year, engine power was a 2.2 six cylinder engine, more impressive was the production run – the SH760 was produced until November 1991 and only went out of production because VW introduced the Santana sedan into China, perhaps if VW never introduced the Santana then the SH760 would still be in production.

Jiefang CA140

Another truck, and an update of the Dongfeng CA10 from the 50′s. In 1964 FAW produced the CA140 concept car and was the first time that China had independently developed its own pick up truck that wasn’t based on Soviet tech.

Hong Qi 770

The Hong Qi 770 was special for several reasons, the biggest being its three rows of seats for bureau leaders and VIP’s. The 770 measured in at 5.6 meters long and had a monsterous 5.6L V8 engine under the hood and also a hydraulic automatic gearbox, the 770 was introduced in 1966 and was mostly used by the foreign office and central committee leaders.

Beijing BJ212

The Beijing BJ212 SUV was China’s first self developed SUV and became a great work horse within China and within China’s sphere of Communist influence. The BJ series of light jeeps is worthy of a post of its own, but we’re going to try and summarise this one in a single post. During the 50′s, China had no way to develop its own SUV’s and relied on American Willy’s Jeeps that were left overs from the Second World War and also Soviet offerings in the form of the Gaz69 which formed the basis for the BJ212.

During the 60′s, the relationship between the two Communist giants of China and the Soviet Union took a turn for the worse with small border wars and pointless skirmishes over river islands sparking out between the two nations. The Chinese government decided it was no longer proper to use the Gaz 69 jeeps and the World War Two Willy’s jeeps were rather tired by this point, the Chinese central committee declared that Beijing Auto should focus on building a light weight SUV to fill the army’s demand. By 1st January 1961 the Department of Defense okay’d Beijing Auto’s plans for the BJ210, by June 1961 the first prototype had been produced but due to the army not being entirely happy with what they were being offered, two rounds of big changes were instigated.

At the time, BAW were expanding all the time but demand for the BJ212 within China was insatiable, other factories around China were brought online, production of the BJ212 ran from the 70′s to the 90′s, the 212 later developed into the more modern 2020, which ultimately became the Gladiator which is still on sale today.

During the 60′s, the Hong Qi sedans were for central committee members, the Shanghai branded sedans were for county level cadres, but what would mid level leaders ride around in? At the time, plans were afoot for a mid level sedan but during to political issues at the time sedans were thought of as a leftist’s capitalists cars, also a major problem was that production of sedans was limited at the time, so the BJ212 became the perfect vehicle for the mid level leader, it became so good in fact that Chairman Mao used a cabriolet version to inspect the troops in August 1966.

On 30th January 1988, Beijing Auto had a party to celebrate the 500,000th BJ212 coming down the line.

The political turmoil of the 1960′s severely limited automotive development where automakers were afraid to launch new cars or over produce vehicles for fear of being criticized for being capitalist roadsters or other trivial issues that ended up becoming life and death situations at the hands of the Red Guard, who ultimately were in control of the country during the mid 60′s to the early 70′s when the Cultural Revolution was in full swing. Stay tuned for our third part on the 70′s, which should be online later this week.