This little wine red beauty is a Volkswagen Citi Golf. The great VW was in good shape. Sure is was dusty, but was is not in the capital? The Volkswagen badge up front was made of metal and thus a bit rusty.
And once again we have Chinese license plate royalty! Blue 京A plates are rare and blue 京A·0 plates are ultra rare. The plates means that this Volkswagen was one of the earliest privately-registered cars in Beijing. Just one article earlier we met a Daewoo Racer STi with 京A·0 plates.
The Volkswagen Citi Golf was a China-only creation. It was based on the first generation Seat Cordoba (1993-2002). It was made in China from 1995 until 2001 by FAW-Volkswagen. The base model was powered by a 1.4 with 59 hp and 107 Nm, good for a claimed top speed of 130 km/h. Price started around 240.000 yuan in 1995.
There was also a more upmarket GLX model with a 1.6 under the bonnet. More on that one in a later post.
The car we have here is an early example, recognizable by said plates, the trim, and the style of the badges:
Silver over black plastic. This is the FAW-Volkswagen badge. 一汽 (Yiqi) is short for ‘First Auto’, in turn short for First Auto Works (FAW). 大众 (Dazhong) is the Chinese name of Volkswagen.
This is the Citi Golf badge, and the Chinese name is unusually long. Here we go: 都市 高尔夫. The first part 都市(Dushi) means city. The English name was spelled as ‘Citi’ instead of ‘City’, a marketing thingy, but the name was rarely used. The second part 高尔夫(Gao’erfu) is the Chinese name for (Volkswagen) Golf. This name, a phonetic translation, is used on the China-made Golf until today.
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Once again fantastic information !!
your info have more wrong, help checking to u
1. City Golf is only 1.6L powered in China marketing, EA111 SOHC 55kw 125Nm.
2. 1993 testing assemble in GuangDong ShunDe(广东省顺德市), It is FAW cooperative affiliates. The first batch was assembled with 3,000 vehicles by SKD. Space in the Shunde factory is limited, FAW-Volkswagen opened a second assembly line at its Changchun plant in 1995, city golf SKD ended in mid-1997, The total production volume exceeded 100,000 units.
3. About sell price, The factory wholesale price is 165,000 yuan(It was actually calculated at $20,000), The profit per vehicle is 20,000 yuan. Before the end of 1995, the retail price of the dealer was 199,000 yuan. The automotive market weakened in 1996, the retail price of dealers fell to 170,000 yuan. The clearance price of the last batch of white models was reduced to 150,000 yuan in 1997 September.
4. Dark green, bright green, burgundy, dark blue and white.
5. All city golf have been unable to drive in Beijing since 2015 because they do not meet environmental standards.
Thanks so much for the info! You seem to know a lot about these older cars. Are you based in China? Greetings! Tycho
in BeiJing