A Changhe-Suzuki Changlingwang minivan, seen in Tai’an in Shandong Province in the summer of 2018. Sadly, the good Changlingwang was in a somewhat sad shape. It was used as storage space instead for driving, and it had all sorts of stuff lying around, including some large pieces of stone.
The Suzuki Changliwang was a minivan manufactured by the Changhe-Suzuki joint venture. This JV existed from 1995 until 2018, albeit with with many ups and downs (not to be confused with Changan-Suzuki). Initially, the joint venture mainly produced all sorts of minivans based on the seventh generation Suzuki Carry, and the Changlingwang was one of those.
The joint venture made an endless number of variants, as any Chinese car maker is wont to do, most of which were never produced, or even imagines, back home in Japan. There were vans, panel vans, ambulances, taxi’s, police cars, people carriers, and combinations of all kinds.
The Chānglíng Wáng (昌铃王) was a people carrier variant produced from 2002 until 2007. It used the classic Carry platform and body, with a modernized design for the front and rear. The bull bar on this car was a factory option, but the odd bulbous bumper itself was standard.
All Changhe-made minivans has a raised roof, which made for a lot of extra space inside. The stripes on the sides were standard too. The Changlingwang was available with two tiny four-cylinder gasoline engines: a 0.8 (yes, it had four cylinders) with 39 hp and a 1.0 with 48 hp. Both were mated to a five-speed manual gearbox, sending horses to the front wheels.
Size: 3230/1395/1952, with a 1840 wheelbase. The most amazing spec of these minivans was their weight, which usually was less than a 1000 kg. The Changlingwang had a curb weight of only 870 kilo. That made these cars incredible effective in the endless Chinese interior, where they could handle almost any kind of road and load thrown at them. I have been in many of these vans in smaller cities and villagers, and I was always surprised how fast they could go up hills and go through the mud.
The joint venture: S for Suzuki and 昌河 (Chānghé) for Change. This co-branding was a bit confusing. Later on, the joint venture started selling minivans under both the Suzuki and the Changhe brands. The former were slightly more upmarket and expensive, the latter more basic and cheaper.
The 昌铃王 badge needs a good cleanup. The sticker is interesting. It says: 泰安五岳, Tài’ān Wǔyuè. Tai’for the city of course. Wuyue literally means five mountains. However, the name as a whole refers to a local subsidiary of the China National Heavy Duty Truck Group (CNHTC), aka Sinotruk Group. The full name of the subsidiary is 中国重汽集团泰安五岳公司, a specialty-vehicle maker (web). This business had no affiliation with Changhe, so I suspect this particular Changlingwang was once owned by Tài’ān Wǔyuè to carry personnel around.
A period factory photo of the Changhe-Suzuki Changlingwang, showing the car on a road in front of a mountain lake. It has a different bull bar and super cool steel wheels.