I have always been, and I will always be, a big fan of the Changan-Suzuki Alto. It is one of the coolest cars ever made in China. In fact, when I arrived in China in 2003 I seriously considered buying one but it was just a tad too small for my needs.
The second generation Changan-Suzuki Alto was made by the Changan-Suzuki joint venture from 1988 until 2008. During this production run Changan sub-licensed the platform to many other Chinese automakers, and some make Alto variants even today!
I found nice selection of Alto’s at a Suzuki dealer in Beijing in 2010. All were still in active use and looking very good.
The white car on the first photos is the famous ‘Happy Prince‘, a sporty variant with a body kit and a fake hood scoop.
This light blue oldie is an ‘SC’, another sporty variant with cool decals on the sides, sporty wheels, and a roof rack.
All Changan-Suzuki Altoos were powered by an ultra strong 0.8 liter 3-cylinder petrol engine. Output depended on time van variant, ranging from 38 for the old base versions to a hefty 54 hp for the Happy Prince. Gearbox was always a four-speed (!) manual.
This white beauty is a ‘City Baby‘. It had the same body kit as the Happy Prince but it didn’t get the hood scoop. The ‘EPI’ sticker on the front fender, above the indicator, is cooler than cool. EPI stands for Electronic Petrol Injection.
The Alto was a simple and very cheap vehicle. Prices started around 40.000 yuan even in the late 1990’s. Maintenance was cheap too and almost every mechanic in almost every village could fix the engine. A real car for the people.
Until the early 2010’s the Alto was very common in Beijing, but after those days they slowly started to fade away from the streets. Today most are gone, and the last ones standing are being killed off by the new environmental regulations.
This red car stood a bit further away, seemingly abandoned and without license plates. It is a very early base version, which was simply called ‘Alto’, without any other names or numbers. This is the primeval Alto, a car as car as a car can be.
In the background: left: Changan-Suzuki SX4 sedan, right: Changan-Suzuki Alto 8th generation. The 3th until 7th generations were never manufactured in China. Changan moved straight from the second to the eight generation!
A little bit of love and this Alto would have been good for many more miles. Sadly, I don’t know what happened to this red beauty. I have been back at this dealer many times because my girlfriend owned a Swift, but from 2011 or so I never saw a sec-gen Alto anymore. It was a fine car. A really fine car.
I used to have a 2003 Changan alto, when i lived in Anhui. i bought it for 5000 yuan in 2015 from a lady who had bmws and benzos(she got it for 4500 and made money on me). she said she just kept it for fun. I drove it without drivers license , registered on her name. cops didn’t even dare to stop a laowai driving Alto. unfortunately, car was never serviced properly, and when i got and drove it like you are supposed to drive a car.. it began overheating…then the engine began dying … and no one in a huge city of hefei could help me to fix it. NO ONE. i drove it for around one year when i found some street racing guys who agreed to find a japanese suzuki turbo engine and help me instal it. it was supposed to be an easy swap… we ordered the engine and started working on the car, when i realized those guys were not good mechanics or were just trying to trick me. sadly – the car was done, only because i was trying to give it a second life and real japanese heart. very sad story, that made me hate chinese people for treating me this way, both the previous owner and those ****ing mechanics who were very “friendly”, invited me to dinners and gave big chinese mianzi to me.