Today a car with a very long name: Dongfeng-Nissan Fengshen EQ7200-II Bluebird 2.0i SLA Grandeur. I saw this pristine white example in the Wangjing Subdistrict in northeast Beijing. The old sedan was in a great shape and fitted with the original wheels and all the original badges.
The Dongfeng-Nissan Fengshen EQ7200-II Bluebird 2.0i SLA Grandeur was based on the 1991-1997 Nissan Bluebird U13, but with a heavily revised front and rear. It was manufactured by a joint venture between Taiwan’s Yulon Motor and China’s Dongfeng Motor. Yulon had the rights to build the Bluebird for the Taiwanese market, and they stretched that out to Mainland China, with approval by Nissan. The brand name in China was Fengshen, meaning “god of wind”. In 2003 the new Dongfeng-Nissan joint venture took over production of the U13-based models. Earlier on we met a very early Fengshen Bluebird EQ7200SS.
This new joint venture heralded the end of the Yulon-Dongfeng joint venture. But nothing is gone forever in China. In 2010 Yulon and Dongfeng started a new joint venture making Luxgen branded cars for the Chinese market. This joint venture didn’t fare very well either, it was disbanded in 2020 after disappointing sales. The Fengshen name did much better. It is now a brand under Dongfeng Motor, making cars based on a mix of Nissan and PSA platforms.
Badges! Left: 风神Motor, Fengshen Motor. Middle: Dongfeng logo. Below: BLUEBIRD. Right top: 2.0i SLA. Right bottom the official factory designation: EQ 7200-II.
The EQ 7200-II was made from 2004 until 2007, with a small facelift in late 2005. The car on the photos is a pre-facelift example.
Power came from a China-made variant of the Nissan SR20DE engine, designated EQ486. The 2.0 fuel-injected 16-valve petrol engine had an output of 145hp and 178nm and was mated to a 5-speed manual or a 4-speed automatic. Top speed was rated at 185 kilometer per hour. Size: 4703/1695/1408, and wheelbase is 2620.
I have always liked the EQ 7200-III. It arrived just one year after I arrived in China and it was good looking, luxurious, and somewhat exotic. This extends to the interior, seen here in a very good shape with leather seats, dark wood paneling, and a fancy radio-CD player. When new in 2004 the Bluebird EQ 7200-III went for a steep 199.800 yuan, making it one of the most expensive sedans on the market at the time. But I guess it was worth it the money.
The Grandeur was the top-spec car, it came with these pretty badges on the front fender.
Double exhaust pipe was factory standard.
In period the Bluebird was quite a popular car and until 2010 or so there were still a lot of them on the road. But white ones are ultra rare, I only seen one in 16 years; this one. Sadly, nowadays, new regulations for emissions have sent many of these great Japanese-Chinese sedans to the scrapyard, so in the big cities they are largely gone from the streets. But in smaller cities you may occasionally see one around.
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EQ7200-II 2001 to 2002end
EQ7200-III 2002 mid to 2003end
EQ7200-D 2004 to 2006 fin