China's first carmaker was built with Soviet help in Changchun
China's car industry began with a truck. In 1953, as Beijing launched its opening five-year economic plan, First Automotive Works broke ground in Changchun, a city reportedly picked by Soviet advisers. Three years later came its first product, and in 1958 the Hongqi, the first passenger car made in China.
The Soviet Union supplied technical support, tooling and machinery, and 39 Chinese employees went to the Stalin Truck Factory to learn the trade before the plant opened. Production ran under Soviet direction. The first vehicle, the Jiefang CA-10 truck of 1956, was based on the Soviet ZIS-150. The company's badge, introduced in 1964, turns the Chinese character for one into a hawk spreading its wings.
Passenger cars followed in 1958. The Hongqi, whose name means red flag, was a luxury sedan made mainly for the Communist Party elite, and its design barely changed across a thirty-year production run. Later, the Audis built by FAW's joint venture became the car of choice for senior officials. During the Third Front campaign, which moved strategic industry inland in case of invasion by the United States or the Soviet Union, FAW sent a third of its workers to set up the Second Automotive Works.
Renamed FAW Group Corporation in 1992, the company had already started its Volkswagen partnership in 1990, becoming the second Chinese automaker after SAIC to forge a close tie with a foreign firm. Buying half of Tianjin Automotive Xiali in 2002 brought Toyota in as a partner, and a venture with General Motors followed in 2009. Output passed 1.5 million vehicles in 2008 and reached 2.6 million in 2011.
Today the state-owned group is headquartered in Changchun and overseen by the national assets commission, SASAC. It ranks second among China's Big Four state carmakers, alongside SAIC, Dongfeng and Changan. It builds cars, buses, trucks and parts, sells joint-venture Volkswagen, Audi, Jetta and Toyota models, and by 2024 had trimmed its own passenger brands to just Hongqi and Bestune, with British designer Giles Taylor heading design for Hongqi since 2018.
Source: FAW Group
