The ever persevering cars of Ban Tiao, at your service!
半条
Ban Tiao Trivia!
Ban Tiao was founded in 1952 by the Nanning City Government
The Ban Tiao Zhen! Or 镇. During the period directly after the founding of the People’s Republic of China, there was much to do. Especially in the fields of rural development. This is what the Nanning City Council thought. Not only would a car company provide lots of jobs, the cars they create will aid in poverty alleviation. This is why their first car, the Zhen, was made. The first car rolled off the production line on March 1st, 1955. It was very cheap and made with extremely low quality parts, and all cars had to be hand made. This resulted in very few cars being made. In total, 918 cars were made in 1956, and production slowly ramped up to when in 1965, the factory made 1,555 cars that year.
The car was a wagon with lots of space for cargo. Among its luxury were rear foldable seats.
In terms of how well it did, the Zhen performed the task very well. It was made with off roading in mind. The cars were sold to very low level party officials. However, the comfort was very bad and the cadres who drove in it complained about chronic back pain. It was a price the cadres were willing to bear and many a Guangxi resident bear happy memories of seeing the Zhen deliver crucial medical supplies and food crates.
The Zhen was also featured in several propaganda posters and murals, hailing it is a hero among cars for its role in poverty alleviation.
However the car was notoriously unreliable, encountering frequent breakdowns. For this reason, party cadres always carried a toolbox. This however led to the party cadres of Guangxi picking up a reputation as good mechanics, and in addition to their already long list of jobs to do, mechanical repair was added.
The engine made 96 horsepower. The suspension was leaf sprung front and rear. Due to the heavy payloads it needs to carry, the brakes would frequently encounter tons of brake fade in testing, so a lot of air was rerouted to the front brakes.
Ban_Tiao_55_-_Zhen.car (32.5 KB)
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Wow, interesting bit of history! Reminds me of the old lada’s my uncle used to talk about. These old workhorses might not have been comfortable but they got the job done I guess.
In fact, the Chinese people at that time could only afford bicycles, and private cars were basically government vehicles.
One thing to remind you is that blue license plates were only available after 1992. In 1955, the license plate should look like this
I’m assuming this was a commercial vehicle, not a private one.