Here we have a nice Yunbao YB6470, as seen on a car market in west Beijing. The big wagon was in great shape, the beige paint looked good and the chrome was nice and shiny.
The Yunbao YB6470 was manufactured by a company called Guangzhou Yunbao. This company was closely related to Yulon Motor, Taiwan’s biggest automaker. Yulon Motor assembled the Y30 Cedric wagon for the Taiwanese market, using Complete Knock Down (CKD) kits shipped in from Japan.
Some of these kits were now forwarded to China and turned into the Yunbao YB6470. Yunbao didn’t make any changes, apart from the badges. Even the windows were original Japanese! Production in China started in 1990 and ended in 1998.
Yulon Motor has been active in China for very long, with all sorts of schemes and dealings, some perfectly legal, some slightly less so. Yulon’s largest venture on the mainland was the Dongfeng-Yulong joint venture, which made Luxgen-branded cars for the Chinese market.
The Nissan name in the headlights.
The alloy wheels are not original but they look cool on the Yunbao. YB6470 was powered by the Nissan 6V87Q 2.9 liter V6, with an output of 146 hp. The engine was mated to a five-speed manual, sending horses to the rear wheels. Size: 4740/1696/1510, wheelbase was 2730.
The interior was in great shape and largely original, bar for the steering wheel. It has the original brown cloth seats, the original gear level knob, and the factory audio system with a cassette player.
Lots of space in the back, these old Japanese wagons were huge.
How many of these great cars were assembled in China is sadly unknown, but numbers were likely very low. There were no official dealers for Yunbao, so it was impossible to find the price.
Badges! This is 廣州雲豹 (Guǎngzhōu Yúnbào) in traditional Chinese characters (simplified: 广州云豹). Many Chinese car makers used traditional characters on their cars in the 1990s, which they believed looked more classy than the modern stuff.
The full designation was on the car too: YB6470.
And finally, in the middle below the keyhole a Yunbao badge.
The Beijing license plate is as old as the car, so it was originally registered in the capital. The YB6470 looked neat and in drivable condition, so I guess one of the shops was working on it. Let’s hope this interesting Chinese-Taiwanese-Japanese wagon stays on the road for a while.