Here we have a pretty Beijing-Jeep Grand Cherokee, seen in Beijing in the hot summer of 2018. The good Grand Cherokee was in a fine shape for its years and painted in wine red. This was a factory color but a very rare one, the vast majority of the China-made Grand Cherokees were painted black.
The Beijing-Jeep Grand Cherokee (WJ) was made by the Beijing-Jeep joint venture from 2005 until 2008. This joint venture also made the Jeep Cherokee XJ. The Chinese Jeep Grand Cherokee was available with two engines: the 4.0 liter six inline and the 4.7 liter V8.
Our red car has the ‘C8V93Q’ V8 under the bonnet. Output was rated at 197 hp and 311 Nm. The motor was mated to a 4-speed automatic gearbox sending horses to all wheels. Top speed was 180 km/h and 0-100 was gone in 11.3 seconds. Price in 2005 started at 358.000 yuan.
Like elsewhere in the world, ‘Overland’ was a top-end trim level. It came standard with leather seats, wood trim, an audio system with a cassette player and a CD player, and a white background on the dials in the instrument panel.
In the middle the gear lever and the lever for the 4×4 system, with settings for low- and high gearing. The interior is a bit messy but in a fine general shape. The owner added a bamboo backrest and a tissue box on dash-top.
The original factory production stickers with the bar code, the BJC logo, and the full Chinese name of the joint venture. BJC stands for Beijing Jeep Corporation, the full English name of the JV. It is very rare to find these stickers intact in such an old car.
The interior was either black or gray. Never seen one in beige or any other light color. The Grand Cherokee was one of the very few luxury SUVs made in China in period. It was a popular car that was relatively cheap to run and easy to maintain. The 6-cylinder model was way more common, mainly due to the high fuel consumption of the V8.
Until 2010 or so, the Grand Cherokee was still a common sight on the roads of Beijing. Sadly, ever stricter emission regulations have largely banned these great Chinese-American cars from the roads of the capital. Many have been scrapped and other have been sold to smaller cities where the rules are not as strict.
The original alloy wheel looked very good.
The Grand Cherokee with three Mobike shared bikes. I rode hundreds of miles a month on these things, great tools for car spotting!
The full designation of this particular model. Back then, these government-mandated designation were obligatory on every vehicle. Nowadays they are not obligatory anymore on passenger cars, but they still are on commercial vehicles.
The BJC badge.
The V8 badge.
The top trim level cars had a rear windshield wiper as standard. The base models did not. This was the same for the Cherokee XJ. My own XJ also didn’t have a wiper at the rear either, but I never thought I’d needed one.
A truly great example of a great car, in a great color. Hopefully this pretty Beijing-Jeep Grand Cherokee is still around somewhere in China.