In China, one of the oldest local auto companies, Tianjin FAW Xiali, which is part of the powerful FAW concern, has stopped working. The company's production facilities were transferred to China Railway Materials Co., which will transfer them to the production of components for trains.
Tianjin FAW Xiali was founded in 1965. The first model was the frame army SUV Tianjin TJ210 C with an engine copied from the Soviet GAZ-69. Since the 80s, the company began to produce cars. These were mainly licensed Toyota and Daihatsu models. This practice continued until the 2000s. So, Xiali 2000 (2000-2007) was a copy of Toyota Platz, and Xiali Vizi (2002-2012) was Toyota Vitz.
Later came cars developed in-house. Some of them were delivered to Russia, and under the parent brand FAW. FAW Vita hatchbacks and sedans, as well as FAW V2 and FAW V5 were in some demand, in some regions they can still be found in city traffic.
Here is another interesting point related to Russia: from 2007 to 2008, a 53-horsepower 1.0-liter 3-cylinder engine manufactured by Tianjin FAW Xiali was installed in a modernized version of the Oka, produced at the Serpukhov Automobile Plant.
The peak of production of Tianjin FAW Xiali came in 2011: then the company produced 253,000 cars. Nevertheless, since 2013, it has brought only losses to the FAW concern, their amount eventually reached 10 billion yuan (= 111 billion rubles). Tianjin FAW Xiali has been too slow to update its lineup.
Meanwhile, the FAW concern itself will continue to produce cars. In August, he introduced the FAW Bestune B70 liftback, and in December sales of the HongQi E-HS9 luxury crossover began in China.
Leading automaker closes in China
