A beautiful Jinbei Haise I minivan, seen in Beijing in 2017. The van appeared to be in fine condition for its age. The blue paint didn’t seem original but looked very nice on the vehicle, especially in combination with the darkened windows.
The Jinbei Haise I was a minivan manufactured by the Shenyang Jinbei Passenger Car Manufacturing Corporation, based in the great city of Shenyang in Liaoning Province. Jinbei (金杯) means ‘Gold Cup’. The cup looks gray on the logo here, but when new it is really colored in gold.
Shenyang Jinbei has a long and troubled history. They once were part of FAW, Brilliance, and went to many restructurings and changes of ownership. The company also had a joint venture with General Motors for a short while, which was a permanently in trouble too. The Jinbei brand is currently owned by the Renault-Briliance-Jinbei joint venture.
The Jinbei Haise I was based on the fourth generation Toyota HiAce (H100). Toyota had licensed the rights to production in China to Shenyang Jinbei. Haise (海狮) means ‘Sea Lion’. The first generation Haise was manufactured from 1991 until 2001. The license term then ended, but that didn’t stop Jinbei to bring another five generations Haise to the market, all still based on the H100 HiAce. The current Haise VI debuted in 2008 and production continues until today.
The Haise I came in many different forms: passenger car with 6 to 15 seats, many cargo variants, police variants, too many to count. I have been a passenger in the Haise many a times. They were loud, shaky, but went through everything, usually carrying much more stuff and folks than it was made for.
The full designation of this particular Jinbei Haise I is SY648A2-E. The first part of the designation often refers to the city where a car maker is based. In this case SY for Shenyang. Power came from a 2.2 liter 491Q four-cylinder gasoline engine produced by Shenyang-Jinbei.
Output was 92 hp and 175 Nm. The motor was mated to a 5-speed manual, sending horses to the rear wheels. Top speed was 130 km/h and fuel consumption a strong 10 liters per 100 kilometers. Thanks to one of my old catalogues for these specs! Jinbei also offered other engines in the Haise I, including a 2.0 liter four and a 2.4 liter four.
The Haise I in my catalogue (from 1994).
These older Haise vans are very rare nowadays, especially in the big cities. Their engines are too stinky for the emission regulations, so many are simply scrapped or sold to other provinces where the rules are not so strict yet. This blue car was really a looker, hopefully it still rides the road somewhere in China.