View allAll Photos Tagged yulon
Place: Kaohsiung
The Datsun/Nissan Truck preceded the Kingstar/Navara pick-ups. The 620 and 720 trucks were produced in Taiwan for the local market by Yue Loong and called 雷鳥 (Léiniǎo), Chinese for thunderbird. This generation Thunderbird 755 (Datsun 720) succeeded the 753 (Datsun 620).
Place: Magong, Penghu
The Nissan Primera sedan was locally assembled by Yulon Nissan and had some styling cues of the Infiniti G20. The Primera hatchback however seems to be a UK import.
Place: Luzhou District, New Taipei
The Nissan Sunny B11 and B12 were both locally assembled by Yue Loong (Yulon), but the older rear-wheel drive B310 (YLN 302/303) survived its successors. This generation Sunny 321 was later rebranded as Sentra, possibly to distinguish it from the Sunny 303, which was still going strong but of course became dated.
Besides the sedan, the stationcar was also offered in Taiwan, known in Japan as Sunny California, in Europe as Sunny Florida and in North America as Sentra Wagon. In Taiwan it was initially known as Sunny 321 LB and later rebranded as Sentra ADW.
Place: Taichung
The Yue Loong Feeling was the first national Taiwanese car and produced by Yue Loong/Yulon Motor, the carmaker that already locally produced Nissan cars. The Feeling was based on the Nissan Stanza T11, but had a unique design. Quality was poor, as were sales.
It remained in production until 1992, when it was replaced by the Arex 601, a heavily reworked Feeling. In 1995 the Arex was discontinued as well, which meant the end of a local Taiwanese car brand until the launch of the Luxgen brand by the same Yulon Motor in 2009.
Yue Loong started exporting the Feeling to the Netherlands in 1992, but sales were poor due to the combination of an unknown brand and high prices (for the same money you could buy a Peugeot 405 or Opel Vectra to name a few). The styling was already dated by that time and the poor reviews surely didn't help either. Even heavy discounting didn't help, so after selling 130 cars Yue Loong stopped its Dutch operations.
Place: Wenshan District, Taipei
Cars and trucks from mainland China are hard to catch in the Republic of China (Taiwan), pretty interesting, isn't it? Most common are the Geely Panda and Geely Panda Cross, marketed by Yulon Motor as tone M'car and W'car respectively. These weren't particularly good value - for the same money you could buy a Hyundai i10, imported from India. The Emgrand EC7 and EC7-RV were badged M'way and Q'way, but these are really rare.
Last Sunday I finally managed to catch a Q'way. The M'way and Q'way were only sold for about year, when Yulon decided to shut down its tobe/Geely operations.
Place: Sanchong District, New Taipei
The China Motor Corporation (CMC) was established in 1969 by Yulon (Yue Loong) founder Yan Qingling. CMC started locally assembling Mitsubishi cars, but mostly vans.
One of the most interesting Mitsubishi's in Taiwan is the Towny. The Towny is based on the fifth generation Mitsubishi Minica (1984-1989) kei car and was launched in 1985 with a 783 cc engine and 4-speed manual transmission, unique for Taiwan but also offered in the Minicab. In 1987 the Towny received a new 796 cc engine and 5-speed transmission. In 1992 the Towny was discontinued. As of today it's probably the only small car that has ever been locally produced in Taiwan.
Place: Yuanlin
The Yue Loong Feeling 101/102 was succeeded in 1992 by a heavily refreshed version: the Arex 601. The brand name was changed due to the adoption of a new romanization system and now called Yulon (the Chinese name remained the same).
Yulon was on a tight budget when developing the Arex, so the bumpers, doors and lower part of the dashboard are identical to the Feeling. However, the front and rear panels were newly designed, including the pop-up headlamps. The carburated 1.6 and 1.8-litre engines were replaced by a 1.8 injection engine. The engine was unreliable due to cooling system problems and the quality in general was poor.
This particular example was of a friend of my friend. He replaced the engine by a 1.8 Twin Cam engine of a Silvia (S13 I believe), quite capable with about 175 hp.
Place: Pingtung, Taiwan
Some of the most fascinating cars are the Taiwan-only models like the Yue Loong Feeling, Yulon Arex, Daihatsu Skywing and Subaru Tutto. The last two cars are small liftbacks based on the Charade and Justy.
Place: Wenshan District, Taipei
Cars and trucks from mainland China are hard to catch in the Republic of China (Taiwan), pretty interesting, isn't it? Most common are the Geely Panda and Geely Panda Cross, marketed by Yulon Motor as tone M'car and W'car respectively. These weren't particularly good value - for the same money you could buy a Hyundai i10, imported from India. The Emgrand EC7 and EC7-RV were badged M'way and Q'way, but these are really rare.
Chery tried with the Fresh (A1), Apola (A3) and some Karry commercial vans. Chinese truck, bus and commercial van/pick-up company Foton sold some trucks, but it seems all these brands from mainland China have abandoned the Taiwanese market.
The Chery A3 was the first indigenous Chinese car to receive a five star rating in the C-NCAP crashtests. The car was styled by Pininfarina.
Place: Yuanlin
My friend brought me to this Yue Loong Feeling and thankfully the owner allowed me to take some photos. The Yue Loong Feeling (裕隆飛羚) was launched in 1986 and displayed at the Tokyo Motor Show in 1987. Both 1.6 and 1.8-litre carburated engines were offered. Due to much publicized quality issues it didn't fare well on the local market. Two body styles were offered: the fastback with a design closer resembling the Nissan Stanza and the regular liftback, like this one. In 1988 the facelifted Feeling 102 was launched, which doesn't have the interesting honeycomb-style tail lamps.
Place: Puli
The Nissan X-Trail was locally-assembled by Yulon Nissan and had a front end similar to the JDM X-Trail. The second generation was never launched in Taiwan, instead the first generation continued to be sold and the Rogue, imported from North America, was added to the range. Currently the third generation X-Trail is produced by Yulon.
Place: Taichung
2,5 weeks ago I spent my weekend in Taichung, my favourite city for car spotting in Taiwan. This time I covered most of the southern suburbs including Dali. The weather was great, a nice alternation for the miserable rainy days in Taipei, and returned home with 167 car spots, so that was pretty effective.
Place: Sanchong District, New Taipei
The most common cars from mainland China in Taiwan are the Geely Panda and Geely Panda Cross, marketed by Yulon Motor as tobe M'car and W'car respectively. These weren't particularly good value - for the same money you could buy a Hyundai i10, imported from India. The Emgrand EC7 and EC7-RV were badged M'way and Q'way, but these are really rare.
Place: Xinzhuang District, New Taipei
The Nissan X-Trail was locally-assembled by Yulon Nissan and had a front end similar to the JDM X-Trail. The second generation was never launched in Taiwan, instead the first generation continued to be sold and the Rogue, imported from North America, was added to the range. Currently the third generation X-Trail is produced by Yulon. On the left the original X-Trail, on the right the facelifted version.
Place: Taichung
The Datsun Cedric 330-series was locally-produced by Yue Loong (Yulon) as the Cedric 803 and 805 (裕隆勝利 803/805). It came with 2.0-litre and 2.4-litre six cylinder petrol engines.
Place: Zhongshan District, Taipei
The Nissan Bluebird (G11), in some markets called Bluebird Sylphy or Sylphy, had its world debut at the Tokyo Motor Show 2005 and was launched in Taiwan in 2006, where it replaced the higher-end versions of the Sentra (G10/N16), while the Tiida replaced the lower-end versions. Sadly for Yulon Nissan the Tiida and especially Bluebird had disappointing sales. It was succeeded by the Sentra (B17) in 2012, which had its Taiwanese debut in the year after.
Place: Sanchong District, New Taipei
In 1992 Yulon Nissan launched the new locally-assembled Vanette (福滿多) on the Taiwanese market. The Vanette C22 was sold from 1985 to 1994 in international markets, meaning it was already old when it debuted on the Taiwanese market, where it largely succeeded the older Vanette C120, which was sold as Yue Loong Nissan Bobby (寶馬) in Taiwan. Three engines were available in Taiwan: a 1.5-litre and 2.0-litre petrol as well as a 2.0-litre diesel engine. It couldn't compete with the more successful and larger Mitsubishi Delica and Ford Econovan/Mazda E2200, so it was already discontinued in 1996. It probably didn't help Yulon Nissan didn't offer a chassis cab version, a very popular variant on predecessor Bobby.