Here we have two girls looking for their horses at the Beijing Auto Show, but all they found was a boring Baojun 630. Baojun means ‘treasure horse’ and that is the connection. Girls have the right caps, the right trousers and the right boots, but I miss those fine leather whips.

The China-made Chevrolet Sail and the Wuling Hongguang will be listed on the Indian car market this year. The Wuling will be rebadged as ‘Chevrolet’ but its name is not sure yet, for now it is simply called the ‘Chevrolet MPV’.

The Sail will be listed in June and will come as both a hatchback and as sedan, it will replace the Aveo in India. The MPV will be listed in Q4 and is a completely new car for the Indian market. The Chevrolet Sail is made in China by the Shanghai (SAIC)-GM joint venture, the Wuling Hongguang is made by the SAIC-GM-Wuling joint venture. SAIC also has a 50% share in GM India.

Via: IndianAutosBlog.com.

Back to 1987! Liuzhou Wuling Automobile was doing fine making minivans and the company wanted to go into passenger cars as well. Problem was, they didn’t have the resources to develop one of their own. Instead, in 1987 they imported a Citroen Visa MK2 and introduced that very same vehicle in China as the ‘Liuzhou Wuling LZW 7100 minicar’. Assembly of the LZW 7100 started in 1991 and continued until 1994.

The Citroen Visa MK2.

The Visa came packed in crates from Europe and was assembled in China. Citroen however had absolutely nothing to do with the whole venture. Where the crates came from is still not sure today. It could have been France or Spain, the Visa was made in both countries. Production of the Visa in Europe ended in 1988. It seems likely that one of the factories had a lot of parts left and that someone decided to earn some money from the Chinese.

The crates contained all parts to make the car except the engine. Wuling therefore used a tiny 1.0 liter 3-cylinder Diahatsu engine. This engine came almost certainly from Tianjin-Xiali Automobile which produced the Daihatsu Charade under license from Daihatsu for the Chinese market, branded as ‘Xiali’. The engines were made by Tianjin-Xiali as well and it now seems highly probable that Wuling simply bought ‘m from there. The engine was rated at 35.3kw, good for a 130km/h top speed.

Production numbers were very small, 50 in 1991, 510 in 1992, 95 in 1993 and another 246 in 1994. Grand total: 901. The LZW 7100 so, sadly never became a great success. Whether Wuling made any money is not sure but it seems unlikely. But some factory managers in Europe and in Tianjin did earn a little bit on this strange and interesting project.

Characters on the back: 柳州五菱, Liuzhou Wuling.

A very rare factory pic. LZW 7100 微型轿车. LZW stands for LiuZhou Wuling. 微型轿车, weixing jiaoche, meaning ‘Minicar’.

Another factory pic, great photoshop for the time, LZW 7100 in front of a French (?) castle.

A Wuling LZW 7100 taxi. All the live pictures in this article where taken by the Great Automobile Explorer Erik Van Ingen Schenau from ChineseCars.net who traveled to Liuzhou in the 1990′s to see the LZW 7100 with his own eyes after hearing rumors about its existence. Thanks to his adventures we can make sure the LZW 7100 won’t be forgotten.

Back in time again!, to 1982. Here we have a very nice picture of a very pretty old minivan. This is the very first Wuling-branded minivan, its full name was Liuzhou-Wuling LZ110. The small pick-up version on pic has the original Wuling-logo up front, much more a ‘W’ than the current over-styled logo.

Now some sadness. A first-series LZ110 being taken away, likely to a junkyard. Note ‘LZ110′ on plate, this must have been some very old demonstration model. Hopefully I am wrong, maybe it went to a museum, but I fear I am not… In the background all sorts of newer Wuling minivans, pic taken around the factory.

The second series arrived in 1985, LZ110VH. New front with the new logo that is still in use today. This pic indeed, is taken in a museum.

Wuling was born as the ‘First Harvest-37 tractor factory’ in 1962, in 1966 the name changed to ‘Liuzhou Power Machinery Factory – tractor factory’ which became Wuling in 1982. In a later story more about the old Wuling tractors.

Via: joy1234, gxnews, chetx.

This old beauty is the Wuling LZW6370 minivan, made from 1998 until 2003 by Liuzhou Wuling, a car-maker from the great city of Liuzhou in Guangzi Province. The LZW6370 was born way before the founding in 2002 of the SAIC-GM-Wuling joint venture which is now the biggest minivan maker in China.

Power came from a ’476Q’ 1.3 liter 4-cylinder engine with 54kw and 101nm mated to a five-speed manual. Top speed was a claimed 125km/h. Size: 3880/1560/1860, wheelbase was 2080mm. Not an extremely small car and an even better deal when you looked at the price, in 2000 the basic LZW6370A cost only 60.000 yuan. Price could go up to 70.000 when you got hot on the option list which included a radio-cassette player, alloy wheels, central locking and fog lights.

These day there aren’t many LZW6370A’s around anymore, but sometimes they suddenly pop up on second-hand markets in the countryside. They have been long banned in the big cities because their engines were far too dirty, in the countryside nobody cares about anything dirty…

Dash almost futuristic in design, typical ’90′s style.

There was also a pickup called LZW6370Ei.

Via: China2Car,  OnlineUsedCar, HX2car.

New spy shots from the China-developed Chevrolet Sail testing in India. General Motors and its Chinese partner SAIC (Shanghai Auto) are working together in GM-India that will bring several Chinese cars to the Indian auto market, all to be badged as Chevrolets.

One car is the Chevrolet Sail sedan, probably the hatchback as well, and the other one is the Wuling Hong Guang. Wuling is a three-way Chinese joint venture between GM, SAIC and Wuling Auto. The Hong Guang will be sold under the Chevrolet brand as well.

When the new China-made Chevy’s will hit the Indian market is yet unsure, but GM has earlier indicated it would be within this year.

Via: IndianAutosBlog.com.

US-based auto giant General Motors Corp and its China joint ventures sold a total of 220,412 cars in October, representing a year-on-year growth of 10.4 percent, the highest monthly level ever recorded.

Shanghai General Motors Co Ltd, the joint venture between GM and Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp, sold 103,309 cars in October, up 4.3 percent year-on-year, said GM in a statement. Sales of Buick vehicles rose 3.1 percent year-on-year to a record high of 56,200 units.

GM’s three-way mini-van joint venture SAIC-GM-Wuling Automobile Co Ltd saw its vehicle sales hit record 111,95 units last month, up 19.2 percent year-on-year.

However, sales of FAW-GM Duty Commercial Vehicle Co, the company’s commercial vehicle JV with FAW Group, plunged 32.2 percent year-on-year to 4,408 units.

In the first ten months of this year, sales by GM and its joint ventures amounted to 2.11 million units, up 6.6 percent from 1.98 million units in the same period of 2010.

China Passenger Car Association said that China’s passenger car sales fell 4.2 percent year-on-year in October.

Via: ChinaDaily.

General Motors Co (GM) is sacrificing profit margins to maintain market share in China, cutting prices of low-cost minivans by as much as 15 percent to offset slowing sales in the world’s largest vehicle market.

Propping up minivan sales through sticker-price reductions is crucial for helping Detroit-based GM remain the top overseas automaker in China, ahead of Volkswagen AG, after the government ended stimulus programs and local authorities restricted purchases to curb road congestion.

“GM does not rely on the minibus for profit,” said Jenny Gu, a Shanghai-based analyst with industry researcher JD Power & Associates. “They only contribute volume.”

Industry sales of the vehicles fell more than 10 percent in the first seven months of this year, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers. Sales at GM’s minivan venture SAIC-GM-Wuling Automobile Co declined 3 percent in the same period, according to the company.

The venture dropped the price of its Wuling Sunshine minivan, China’s most-popular vehicle last year, to 28,000 yuan ($4,384) from 33,000 yuan earlier this year, according to GM.

“We made some short-term focused promotions to help the overall market situation,” Matthew Tsien, the vice-president at SAIC-GM-Wuling, said in an interview. “We don’t expect it to be a long-term issue. China is looking at very robust growth in the auto industry.”

SAIC-GM-Wuling makes about 2,000 yuan in profit on average for every minivan, according to JD Power. Based on GM’s 44 percent stake in the venture, its share would be $138.

“The margin is quite low,” Gu said. “It’s not like the middle segment or luxury cars, where margins are very high.”

Vehicle sales in China may rise about 5 percent this year, the manufacturers association said on July 8, slashing its previous estimate of 10 percent to 15 percent growth. Last year, sales gained 32 percent as the government offered sales-tax breaks and rebates for buyers in rural areas.

China is GM’s largest market, and SAIC-GM-Wuling accounted for about half of the 2.35 million vehicles the automaker sold there last year.

“The next 12 months look tough,” Ashvin Chotai, London- based managing director for Intelligence Automotive Asia, said of minivan sales.

“Incentives brought forward buying in a very dramatic fashion in 2009, 2010, and now we are seeing a lack of pent-up demand.”

The drop in minivan sales may help Volkswagen narrow its gap behind GM, Gu said. GM sold 1.27 million vehicles in the country in the first six months, compared with Wolfsburg, Germany-based Volkswagen’s 1.1 million, according to figures from the companies.

About one in eight vehicles sold last year in China were minivans. They are popular with small-business owners, especially in rural areas, because of their versatility in transporting goods and people.

GM has a 49 percent share of the minivan market, according to JD Power. Changan Automobile Group Co’s Chana Minibus is No 2 in sales with about half the total of Wuling Sunshine in the first seven months. Volkswagen does not sell a minivan in China.

GM’s New York-listed shares have plunged 38 percent this year. Partner SAIC Motor Corp, China’s biggest domestic automaker, has risen 8.8 percent in Shanghai.

GM started producing minivans in China in 2003 with Shanghai-based SAIC Motor and the government of Liuzhou city in the southern Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region. Overseas carmakers can operate plants in the country only through ventures with local companies.

Chinese minivans are typically smaller and cheaper than those in the US, where they are used predominantly as passenger vehicles.

Deliveries of the Sunshine dropped 17 percent to 415,046 in the first seven months after rising 9 percent last year and more than 60 percent in 2009. GM has been the largest overseas automaker in China since 2006.

GM said it first offered rebates on minivans at the end of May and introduced further price cuts in July. Buyers get discounts of up to 5,000 yuan on all Wuling minivans on top of dealership promotions such as free auto insurance and fuel.

Minivan sales at Zhu Yi’s GM dealerships in southwestern China increased 50 percent after the July price cuts, he said. Many of his customers run small businesses or work in construction.

“The promotions GM put in place really helped us out,” Zhu, 34, said. “It helped to improve the price competitiveness of our product, and our competition has no answer to this.”

Via: ChinaDaily.

General Motors Co (GM) will sell Chinese-designed minivans under its Chevrolet brand in India starting next year as the automaker expands in Asia’s second-fastest growing major economy.

GM, the world’s largest automaker, will adapt two small commercial vehicle models currently being sold in China for the Indian market and sell them through Chevrolet dealerships, said Matthew Tsien, executive vice-president at GM’s China unit, in an interview on Wednesday in Chengdu in southwestern China’s Sichuan province.

The Detroit-based automaker is expanding into India’s commercial vehicle market as industry sales grew 27 percent in the year ended March.

GM, which entered the Indian market in 1994, will challenge Tata Motors Ltd, maker of the world’s cheapest car, and Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd, which together account for 90 percent of light goods-carrying vehicle sales.

“The mini commercial vehicle market is quite large but GM does not participate today because there are no products,” said Tsien, who is also vice-president at SAIC-GM-Wuling Automotive Co (SGMW), GM’s minivan venture with SAIC Motor Corp. “Having the SGMW products under the Chevrolet brand will give GM India a tremendous opportunity to serve that very significant segment.”

GM will start by introducing in India small multipurpose vehicles similar to the Wuling Hong Guang, a seven-seat van that comes in 1.2- and 1.4-liter variants, and the eight-seat Wuling Hongtu models sold in China and price them “competitively”, Tsien said, declining to elaborate.

GM plans to target customers running small businesses and those in smaller cities and rural areas, he said. The company added diesel variants to the existing gasoline models and is converting the vehicles to right-hand drive to suit local needs, he said.

GM will begin by assembling the vehicles in India using kits made with Chinese and Indian parts and increase the use of local components over time, Tsien said.

“It’s not going to be easy for GM to compete in the mini truck segment” in India, said Ammar Master, an analyst at automobile research company JD Power & Associates. “Much will depend on price positioning and the operating costs of its vehicles, as these are the main purchase considerations in this space. We believe Tata Motors will continue to dominate the segment.”

India’s automakers sold 2.52 million passenger vehicles and 676,408 commercial vehicles in the domestic market in the year ended March, against 1.95 million passenger and 532,721 commercial vehicles a year earlier, according to data from the Society of India Automobile Manufacturers.

Tata Motors and Mahindra are the country’s two biggest makers of light commercial cargo vehicles. Tata sold 182,895 units in the fiscal year ended March, while Mahindra sold 103,661. Third-ranked Piaggio Vehicles Pvt Ltd delivered 9,124.

GM, the largest overseas automaker in China, and SAIC said in December 2009 that they would spend $650 million forming a new venture to build and sell passenger cars and small trucks in India. The partnership had the best-selling vehicle in China last year, the Wuling Sunshine minivan, which starts at 29,900 yuan ($4,649) on the mainland.

GM’s India unit aims to almost triple annual sales to 300,000 vehicles by 2013 by introducing as many as six models, including two commercial vehicles, in the next two years, said Karl Slym, the head of its local unit, in January.

Via: ChinaDaily.

Wuling has officially listed the Baojun 630 sedan on the Chinese market. Price starts at 62.800 yuan and ends at 73.800 yuan. That is on the high side, price was expected to start around 50.000 yuan. The 530 is still cheap, but not very cheap.

Baojun is a entry-level sub brand of minicar maker Wuling. Wuling is a joint venture between General Motors, SAIC (aka Shanghai Auto)  and Wuling Automotive. The 630 is based on the Shanghai-GM Buick Excelle.

Power comes from a GM four-cylinder with 81kw and 146nm. Top speed is 175 km/h. Size: 4597/1736/1462, wheelbase is 2640.Transmission is a 5-speed manual. A 1.8 might follow later, likely with an automatic.

Main competition comes from cars such as the Geely Emgrand EV7 and the Hyundai Elantra. Wuling ains at first-car buyers but so do many other Chinese automakers. Local-local brands like Geely, Chery and BYD are still cheaper than the Baojun.

Via: Autohome.