A Senova X35 crossover, seen in Beijing in 2018. The X35 was in good shape and seemed well-maintained. It was painted white with a red interior. The black diplomatic license plates show that this car belongs to the Hungarian embassy.
Senova was a brand under BAIC. It was originally established for the Saab assets that BAIC had bought from General Motors in 2009. BAIC got the rights to the Saab 9-5 and Saab 9-3, which they turned into the Senova D320 (later renamed to D70) and the Senova D60.
Later on, BAIC moved all sorts of other vehicles from their other brands under the Senova brand, so they had an interesting lineup of big sedans, SUVs, and city cars. The Chinese name of Senova was Shenbao (绅宝). The Senova brand never really took off and it was discontinued in 2020, and replaced by a new Beijing brand.
The Senova X35 had a funky interior with large round air vents shaped like the Senova logo. The trim was a mix of orange and black, with a bit of gray on the center stack. It had a small infotainment screen on dast top.
The first generation Senova X35 was launched in 2016. It was made for only 3 years. The second generation arrived in 2019, called Senova X35 Zhida. In 2020, it was subsequently renamed Beijing X3. It is still in production today.
The X35 was aimed at young car buyers and had a relatively hip design. It was boxy with black bumpers and black cladding around the wheel arches and on the lower doors. Power came from a 1.5 liter naturally aspirated petrol engine, good for 116 hp and 148 Nm. The gearbox was a 5-speed manual or a 4-speed automatic. The X35 was a front-wheel drive car. The price in 2018 for the automatic model started at 78.800 RMB, which was a decent deal for the car you got.
绅宝X35, with a partially red X.
In the Chinese capital Beijing, the current diplomatic license plates end with the character 使 (shi), in white. 使 is short for 大使馆, dashiguan, which means embassy. Earlier on, the character 使 was at the start of the plate, and in red. Each embassy has its own 3-digit number. In this case, the number is 150, which stands for Hungary.
The next 3 digits are the car number. The ambassador’s official car is always 001 but there are no specific rules for the other numbers, and plates may be carried over from car to car. Our X35 has car number 088, which means that the license plate, when it was issued, was for the 88th car operated by the Hungarian embassy. I assume they liked their X35. It was a nice little crossover with decent power and a reasonable price.