The SouEast Freeca was manufactured in China by the SouEast-Mitsubishi joint venture from 1997 until 2008. It was based on the Mitsubishi Freeca, a compact MPV for the Asian market. A good friend of mine had a Freeca, he took me and my kids around many a time. It was a great experience, a very spacious car, super comfortable, with big windows. It wasn’t very fast, but the Freeca was a family car, so that was totally fine.
The super cool Freeca stickers are slightly damaged. Also, note the SouEast and SG China window stamps.
Interior
The interior was a little dirty, and dusty. The owner fitted cheap seat covers to protect the original cloth seats. The CD-radio unit is not original either, but it ain’t much older than the car.
Check the brilliant-shaped mirror above the rear window, allowing the driver to see what was happening directly behind the vehicle.
Character time! SouEast used the traditional Chinese characters. The text is: 東南汽車 (东南汽车), Dōngnán Qìchē, SouEast Auto. The Mul-T-Lock badge refers to an originally Israeli lock-making business. This company was quite a popular partner at the time when Chinese car makers were yet unable to produce proper locking systems. That has totally changed now, so seeing a badge like this brings back memories of the early old days of Chinese car making.
Engine
The engine of the SouEast Freeca was a 2.0 liter Mitsubishi 4G63-S4M four-cylinder petrol unit. The output was 120 hp and 166 Nm. The gearbox was a five-speed manual or a four-speed automatic. The car reached a top speed of 130 kilometers per hour and accelerated from 0 to 100 in a speedy nine seconds. The price in 2003 started at 88.800 yuan.
Check out the super cool EURO II sticker! In the late 1990s, China hadn’t established its standards yet, so it adopted the European EURO standards. Whenever a car maker produced a car that met this standard, they showcased the achievement with stickers and badges. The SouEast Freeca, a great Chinese-Japanese MPV, is a family car with a brilliant simplicity that should be an example for many overpowered and over-tech’ed electric MVPs of today.