The Dongfeng Citroen Elysee Was A Perfectly Basic Taxi For China

Dongfeng Citroen Elysee
Dongfeng Citroen Elysee

A very sweet Citroen Elysee taxi, seen in central Beijing a few years ago. Sadly, the Elysee taxi’s have nowadays largely disappeared from the roads of the capital.

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Nothing beats steel wheels! Too bad it is gone, it was a surprisingly spacious and comfortable car, I must have been a passenger for a trillion times.

In those days there were different taxi tariffs depending on the kind of car. Xiali taxi’s were the cheapest, the Elyse sat in the middle, and the Volkswagen Passat taxi’s on top.

The Elysee was a continuation of the Citroen ZX Fukang, which in turn was based on the First generation Citroen ZX. Production started in 1994 and along the long way the name changed into Elysee and later into c-Elysee. The ‘classic’ Chinese ZX continued until 2013 (2010 model), when it was finally replaced by the all-new Citroen C-Elysee.

The variant we have here was made from 2003 until 2007. It was available with a 73 hp 1.4 and a 105 hp 1.6, mated to a 4-speed automatic or a 5-speed manual. Our taxi is a 1.6 manual. Price in 2005 started at 73.800 yuan.

When 16v was still a thing!

There was a cool 1:18 on sale in period, in red over yellow. Sadly I didn’t but it at the time. Still looking for a good one!

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