FAW Tianjin

FAW Tianjin, founded in 1965, is an automobile manufacturer in China. Tianjin was the third automobile manufacturer in China, after SAIC and FAW and was considered one of the "three smalls", together with Guangzhou Honda and Beijing. Tianjin moved into third place in the Chinese market in 1997. By 2000 they were in second place, in spite of the low quality of their products. FAW Tianjin has since lost market share to several new Chinese automobile manufacturers.

There are two different entities under Tianjin Xiali: One is a fully subsidiary division of First Automobile Works known as Tianjin FAW Xiali Automobile Co. Ltd, while the other is a joint venture between Toyota and First Automobile Works in 2000 known as Tianjin FAW Toyota Motor Co Ltd.

History

Tianjin's first product, debuting in 1965, was a copy of the famous Beijing Jeep called the Tianjin TJ210. Between 1973 and 1979 the Toyota look-alike Tianjin TJ740 was also built, although only 63 were finished. In 1980, Tianjin's directors decided to look abroad for a joint venture to enable them to build modern small cars. In 1983, Daihatsu had been chosen as a partner, and in November 1984 the first vehicle rolled out from the works. At first, local parts content was a mere 8%, but this had jumped to 85% by the end of 1987. The first product was a locally built Daihatsu Hijet, followed by the Charade which began local assembly in 1986.