A classy Yema F99, seen in Beijing back in 2016. The Yema was in a fine shape, painted in black with the factory wheel covers. License plates are from Hebei Province. The Yema F99 was a wagon-like crossover manufactured from 2009 until 2012.
The Yema F99 was based on the platform of the Austin Montego/Maestro. MG-Rover sold the platform to Chinese company Etsong in 1998. Etsong produced the Montego until 2000 and then sold the platform to First Auto Works (FAW), which in turn sold it to Yema a few years later.
Yema used to platform to base several cars on, including the F99, the F16, the F12, and the F10. On names: Yema is the brand name, Yema Auto the short name of the company, and Sichuan Yema Automobile is the company’s full name.
The interior was quite nice with some faux wood on dash and doors and a bust center stack with a radio-cassette player. But you can see the old age of the underlying car by looking at the old-school gear lever and the gigantic steering wheel.
The Yema F99 looked pretty nice, with mud flaps behind the wheels, standard roof rails, a roof spoiler, and sporty wide wheel arches.
The F99 was powered by a 1.5 liter four-cylinder petrol engine with an output of 98 hp and 132 Nm. The engine was mated to a 5-speed manual, sending horses to the real wheels.
Top speed was 150 kilometers per hour and fuel consumption was a steep 7.8 liters per 100 km. Size: 4510/1720/1610, with a 2515 wheelbase and a 1130 kilo curb weight.
Characters: 四川野马, Sichuan Yema. The word ‘Yema’ means Mustang in Chinese. Somewhat confusingly, this is also the Chinese name of the Ford Mustang (福特野马, Fute Yema).
The F99 was equipped with ABS and EBD. That was still special at the time, hence the lettering. Even so, it was really cheap. Base price of the Yema F99 in 2009 was just 58.800 yuan, which was less than a Changan-Suzuki Swift.
The Yema brand was mainly sold in second and third tier cities in China, so they are very rare in the mega cities like Beijing and Shanghai.