A Venucia T70 compact crossover SUV, seen back in 2016 in China’s capital Beijing. The T70 looked brand new and was therefore in a great shape, fitted with a license plate with a double 8 on it. Eight is a lucky number in Chinese culture, mainly associated with prosperity.
The Venucia brand was born as a sub-brand under the Dongfeng-Nissan joint venture, building affordable cars on older Nissan platforms. In 2017, the brand became fully owned by Dongfeng, and they changed the brand completely, making it more hip with new design and newer technology. However, in 2021 Venucia was brought back under Dongfeng-Nissan once more. Moving brands around in this way is not uncommon in China.
The Venucia name was inspired by planet Venus. The brand’s logo was a cool mess of starts. Sadly, the logo was updated in 2017 with a less interesting design.
The Venucia T70 launched on the Chinese car market in early 2015. It received a facelift in 2018. The car that I met is an original pre-facelift example. In 2015, Venucia added the T70X to the lineup, a more upmarket cross-variant of the T70. The T70 is still in production, the T70X is not. But oddly, the current T70 looks more like the old T70X than the old T70.
An interesting design detail around the indicator light on the front fender.
The Venucia T70 was based on Renault-Nissan’s C-platform, which also underpinned various Renaults, Nissans, and Samsung cars. In 2016, the T70 was available with two engines: a 1.6 with 121 hp and 154 Nm and a 2.0 with 144 hp and 198 Nm.
The 1.6 was mated to a 5-speed manual and the 2.0 to a 6-speed manual or a CVT. Price started at a very affordable 89.800 yuan for the cheapest 1.6. The car we have here is a 2.0 with the CVT box, which had a base price of 109.800 yuan.
The interior was fine for the day, albeit a bit dark, with faux gray leather and lots of gray plastics. But it had nice infotainment system with a CD tray atop the screen.
Design was a mix of elements of an SUV and a station wagon, and the result was certaibly not bad, The roof rails make for some coolness and the rear light units are huge, which was trendy in 2016.
Character time: 东风日产, Dongfeng Richan, or Dongfeng Nissan.
启辰, Qichen, Venucia. The T70 was, and still is, a rather successful car so in China you’ll see many of those around, especially in the smaller cities where the brand is very strong.