Meet another great Chinese car collector!

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Last month we introduced you to Chinese classic car collector Luo Wenyou - sympathetic story here - now, we proudly present you to another great Chinese collector: Mister Bai. Our China contributor got in touch with him: "During my participation in the 4C Rally in 2015 I met mr. Bai, a Chinese car collector, famous in China because he owns a number of rare Chinese cars.
Mr. Bai invited me for a visit to his hometown, to have a look at his collection. On a beautiful day I was driven in an old Mercedes S-Class by two Chinese friends to Linqing.
We started the visit in mr. Bai’s office, which was a real gold mine of Chinese automobilia. We spent hours reading old magazines and newspapers, looking at scale models, books, objects and more. I was happy to find some more information about the Mercedes truck production in pre-war China. 
After the office we visited the actual collection, divided over two big storage sheds. In shed number one mr. Bai stored his unique Haiyen SW710, a 300cc micro-car made from 1966, about 100 units were made to replace the pedicabs in Shanghai. Mr. Bai has probably the only example left: number 36 made in December 1966. The original rear engine was replaced by an electric one, but during restauration at its turn replaced by a Lifan engine. As Mr. Bai had stored the cars close to each other, making pictures or walking between the cars was nearly impossible.
A second wonderful car is the Dongfanghong BJ760. Two examples still exis; one in the collection of mr. Liu Wenyou (exhibited in the famous Luo Wenyou Classic Car Museum in Huairou, Beijing discussed here before), and mr. Bai has the other one. This car participated in the Beijing-Shanghai Rally of 2012. The Dongfanghong is strongly related to the Russian Wolga M21. Also the engine is a copy of the GAZ engine. Mr. Bai’s car was made in 1965 and numbered 63. As mr. Luo’s car was made in 1969 and numbered 32 (according the data plate) it is difficult to say if the official number of cars made is 238 is correct but fact is that these cars were made between 1960 and 1969.
Interesting car number three was the Tianjin TJ210E, a small jeep which was based on a predecessor of the famous Beijing BJ212. In 2013 it appeared also in the Beijing-Shanghai Classic Car Rally. Together with the two-door TJ201C, about 14.000 units were made. At least three TJ210 are known remaining, of which mr Luo owns the more seldom two-door version.
The second shed was as full as the first one. I estimate the total number of cars at about 100. In this shed most of the cars were wreckages. I asked mr. Bai what he is going to do with all these vehicles. He told me that he plans to restore the best cars of shed number one and to use the others as spare parts. And oh, I also saw, apart from of a lot of Hongqi and Shanghai sedans, two armoured ZIS 115s and a Hongqi convertible replica...

(Words and pictures Erik van Ingen Schenau)
        

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