Here we have a black Volkswagen Santana GLi sedan with black 京A license plates. I saw this great old Volkswagen in the Chinese capital Beijing in the summer of 2018. It was in good shape, clearly taken care of, with a clean body and the original 7-spoke alloy wheels. It is a time capsule, in a way.
The original Santana sedan was manufactured in China by the Shanghai-Volkswagen joint venture, which is today known as SAIC-Volkswagen. The Santana was based on the Volkswagen Passat B2. The sedan was produced from 1985 until 2007. The joint venture also produced the Santana Variant wagon, which was made from 1992 until 2013.
The Shanghai-Volkswagen Santana is a Chinese automotive icon. It was the first relatively modern affordable sedan that was available in China. Shanghai-Volkswagen sold millions of of them, to families, businesses, the government, and to taxi companies. The Santana was everywhere. It was easy to fix and cheap to run. Over the many years of production, it was updated only a few times, and not by much. Volkswagen did, however, launch many newer Santana versions, but those never gained the status of the original, which survived them all.
Everything was strong in the Santana. Hard plastics did the job! The dashboard came straight from the 1980s and was never updated. The steering wheel was changed a few times over the years. The owner of this particular car added fancy Winny the Pooh seat covers.
The Santana had an all-caps SANTANA badge on the dashboard in front of the passenger.
The seat covers had come off in the back, revealing a perfectly fine cloth bench. Almost as if it was never used. Museum-grade! The Santana is quite specious in the rear, hence its popularity with taxi drivers. I have been in thousands of Santana taxis in dozens of Chinese cities, and it always was a fine and comfortable ride.
The characters of the badge on the left say 上海, for Shanghai. Next to it is the Santana badge, again in all caps. Next to that is the GLi badge with a partially red i. The Santana GLi model was made from 1999 until 2003.
Power came from a 1.8-liter four-cylinder gasoline engine with an output of 94 hp (70 kW) and 145 Nm. The motor was mated to a five-speed manual gearbox sending all horses to the front wheels. The fuel consumption was 7.7 liters per 100 kilometers. Size: 4546/1710/1427, 2548. It was good value for money. In 2003, the GLi model cost only 79.800 yuan.
The famous black license plates were issued to foreign-owned companies from the 1980s to the mid-’00s. These companies could buy a car locally, or import one. There were no limits on the number of cars, price, or engine type. The numbering started at 京A·00001, and then up. So the lower the number the older the car. Any black plate beginning with 京A·0 or 京A·1 is considered ultra rare. I know, I had one too! This Santana has 京A·40934, so that’s not super early.
The original Volkswagen Santana is fast becoming rare in Beijing and in other large cities. But there outside, the Santana is still a regular sight, and many are still used as taxis, some with more than a million kilometers on the clock. So I guess the story of the good Santana, a car loved by so many, it still not over yet.