Guangzhou wanted to build cars long before it had a factory. This is what happened next.
Guangzhou Automobile Group was incorporated in June 1997. The dream it was founded to finish is
older than that. It starts in a repair yard in 1954, with a bus built by hand, without equipment,
by people who had decided their city would make cars.
1954
The budding of the car dream
Guangzhou Public Bus Repair Factory, and the first “South China Brand” bus
At the beginning of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the dream of Guangzhou people for cars began to sprout.
In 1954, Guangzhou Bus Repair Factory, the predecessor of Guangzhou Coach Factory, built the first “South China Brand” iron-wood structure bus by hand without any equipment, and started the rise of “Guangzhou Automobile” with the entrepreneurial spirit of self-reliance and hard work of Guangzhou people.
From the launch of the first Hongwei brand truck in Guangzhou in the 1960s to the trial production of Guangzhou brand cars in the early 1970s, Guangzhou people have always been on the road of pursuing their dreams.
1985
The establishment of Guangzhou Peugeot
The Guangzhou Peugeot 505
In the mid-1980s, the establishment of Guangzhou Peugeot allowed Guangzhou to truly realize its previously unattainable automobile dream, and to become one of the “three big and three small” Chinese automobile companies. The Guangzhou Peugeot 505 series quickly became a hot commodity, and the city’s automobile industry ushered in a new glory.
Then, in the 1990s, Guangzhou Peugeot announced its delisting. The Guangzhou automobile industry arrived at a decisive point — success or failure, advance or retreat — and had to look for the way ahead.
1996
Golden age
The first Guangzhou Honda Accord
In April 1996, Guangzhou Municipality made the decision to adjust the development strategy of the sedan project and replace the foreign partner, signalling a major turn in the development of the Guangzhou automobile industry.
The following year, Guangzhou Automobile Group Co., Ltd. was founded, bringing Junda Automobile Group, Yangcheng Automobiles, Guangzhou Bus Group and Anxun Investment under unified management, and taking on the responsibility of leading the city’s automobile industry alone.
GAC then chose Honda as its new partner, and created a path to success built on low investment, fast output, rolling development, and technology synchronised with the world.
2010
A brand of its own, from dream to reality
GAC understood that a company has to be independent to develop sustainably. In other words, whether the self-owned brand succeeded would determine how far and how high GAC could go.
At the end of 2005, GAC held a strategic seminar on independent R&D and a brand of its own. In 2006 it established the GAC R&D Center, which shouldered the responsibility of building an advanced passenger vehicle platform and developing a competitive series of vehicles under that brand.
In 2010, GAC’s first self-owned brand was born, carrying the independence dream of the GAC people. It has ranked at the top among mainstream models ever since, across a wide range of vehicles whose technology and quality match the joint-venture brands. The dream had come true, and GAC began to aim higher.
The GAC R&D Center
Today
The dream arrives in Italy
Over the past 28 years GAC has produced more than 29.7 million vehicles. Two of them are now
built for European roads, and they are here.
