Here we have a black Hyundai Sonata with black Shandong Province license plates, seen at a small car shop in the far east of Beijing.
The man on the left is the shop’s owner, the two younger gentlemen his employees. They were all from Shandong, shipping vehicles from there and selling them in the capital.
This fourth-generation (EF) Hyundai Sonata was the first generation Sonata that was made in China, by the Beijing-Hyundai joint venture. Production started in 2002 and continued all the way, with various updates, until 2017!
The interior was in reasonable shape with factory-standard fake wood. The seat covers and steering wheel cover are after-market accessories.
The Sonata was, and still is, a very popular sedan in China. Earlier on we met the top-end GLS V6 Gold model, but our today’s car is a more modest 2.0 petrol, mated to a 4-speed automatic. Output of the engine was 137 hp and 180 Nm. Top speed was 180 km/h and 0-100 took a relaxing 14.9 seconds, which was slow even then. Price started at 161.800 yuan.
The Beijing-Hyundai badge (北京现代).
The Shandong license plate is very interesting. Black license plates were issued to foreign-owned companies. The R means the vehicle was originally registered to a company based in the great city of Heze (荷泽), in Shandong. The 0 after the R indicates it was one of the very first black-plates issued in Heze, so it is truly a rarity, even more so in Beijing.
I found a few more cool cars at the shop. More on those in later posts!
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White-on-black plates? Is this color scheme still designated for vehicles that are registered to a foreign (i.e. non-Chinese citizen) owner?