CarBrandLogos archive · SAIC Motor · 1964
China's official car for a quarter of a century, hand-built and based on a Mercedes.
Discover the storyPhoto: Morio · CC BY-SA 4.0
The story
Explore the ideas, engineering and context that shaped the SAIC Motor Shanghai SH760, then continue into its specifications and place in the marque's lineage.
01
Before the joint ventures of the 1980s, China built almost no passenger cars. The Shanghai SH760, launched in 1964, was one of the few, developed by what was then a municipal machinery company in Shanghai after studying a Mercedes-Benz 220S. The engine was a six-cylinder derived from Mercedes-Benz practice, driving the rear wheels through a four-speed manual gearbox.
1986 Shanghai SH760 · Herranderssvensson · CC BY-SA 3.0
02
It was assembled largely by hand, at rates that would have counted as a rounding error in Europe, and its role was political rather than commercial: it carried mid-ranking officials and functionaries, while the far grander Hongqi served the leadership. Later it appeared as a Shanghai taxi and in coupe utility form.
1964 Shanghai SH760 -- Shanghai Automobile Museum · Navigator84 · CC BY-SA 4.0
03
Production lasted until 1991, when the plant was needed for the Santana that the Shanghai-Volkswagen joint venture was building, and China's domestic car industry began in earnest. For twenty-seven years, though, this was more or less what a Chinese-built car was, and the company that made it grew into SAIC Motor, now among the largest vehicle manufacturers in the world.
Shanghai SH760A front-right 2016 Shanghai Auto Museum · Morio · CC BY-SA 4.0
At a glance
Produced
1964–1991Engine
2.2 L Mercedes-Benz M180 engineBody
4-door sedanTechnical specification
Contemporaries from the 1960s
Spotted something wrong on this page? Send us the correction — with a source, and we will fix it. How this site is written.
