A Dongfeng Fengshen H30 hatchback, seen in China’s capital Beijing in 2018. The H30 was painted in blue, a little dusty, but in a fine shape for its age. The multispoke alloy wheels were factory standard.
Fengshen is a brand under Dongfeng Motors. Their English name, which they didn’t really use when the H30 was sold, is Aeolus. The H30 hatchback is based on the platform of the Citroen ZX Fukang, which was produced in China at the Dongfeng-PSA joint venture.
There was a H30 hatchback like the one we got here, a H30 Cross with black plastic cladding, and a S30 sedan. Production started in 2009 and lasted until 2017, with a facelift in 2013. Our blue car is a pre-facelift example. The H30 and S30 were designed by the Italian studio Italdesign.
The interior wasn’t bad as all for the segment, with comfy fake-leather sears, a CD player, a small display for the heating, and a sporty 3-dial instrument binnacle. The super thick steering wheel cover is after-market.
A Britax child seat and a pack of water bottles on the floor.
The Fengshen H30 and S30 were powered by a PSA 1.6 liter gasoline engine. Output was 106 hp and 142 Nm. The motor was mated to a 4-speed automatic or a 5-speed manual. It liked to drink: fuel consumption for the automatic was a steep 8.1 liter/100 km, the manual did little better with 7.6.
Characters: 东风风神, Dongfeng Fengshen. The H30 was quite popular in its day, mainly because of its low price. The base manual model started at only 75.800 yuan, and the top spec automatic went for 99.800 yuan. That was a lot of car for the cash.
Perhaps Italdesign uses a lot of time to design the H for H30, leaving them less hours to work on the car itself.
Sadly, the build quality of these early H30 and S30 cars wasn’t very good, so nowadays there aren’t that many around anymore. May some survive!