What is the Yellow River? The older generation will say JN150, and the younger generation will say X7, both of which are standard answers. In the former view, "Yellow River" is a beautiful memory of youth; In the latter's view, "Yellow River" is a dream model; From the perspective of the industry, "Yellow River" is the pioneer of heavy trucks in China and the benchmark of heavy trucks in the new era.
1958-1984: multiple firsts multiple firsts
Back in 1958, Jinan Auto Repair Parts Factory proposed that auto parts factories in New China should not only repair cars from other countries, but also produce their own cars. In the following 17 days, the whole factory staff beat and polished day and night, and took the Soviet GAZ 69 jeep as a sample, trial produced the Yellow River brand JN220 jeep, which was the first time that the "Yellow River" brand appeared.
○ Picture 1 Yellow River JN220
In the same year, the factory was renamed as Jinan Automobile Manufacturing Factory, and the following year, it took over the task of trial production of 8-ton trucks assigned by the National Automobile Administration.
This time, it took four and a half months from R&D to trial production based on the prototype of the Czech Skoda 706RT. Finally, on April 15, 1960, China's first heavy truck, the Yellow River JN150, was born.
○ Picture 1 Yellow River JN150
In 1963, the Yellow River JN150 began mass production. At the same time, as the first flathead diesel truck in New China, it had the advantage of heavy load and made great contributions to China's economic construction at that time.
In December 1966, the first generation of medium range strategic missile, Dongfeng-3, developed by China itself, was launched for the first time, but there was no vehicle capable of towing missiles. Jinan Automobile Manufacturing Factory (renamed in 1966) once again bravely shouldered the heavy task, and in April 1968, developed the first generation of large tonnage military off-road truck in China - Yellow River JN252.
○ Picture 1 Yellow River JN252
In the 1970s, Jinan Automobile Manufacturing Factory also trial produced JN160 and JN161 models, and on this basis, combined with Romanian Roman automobile technology, launched the second generation Yellow River civilian vehicle, Yellow River JN162, in 1984.
○ Picture 1 Yellow River JN162
This is also the first 10 ton truck in China, and more than 30 models have been developed.
1985-1999: Steyr was born into crisis
At that time, Jinan Automobile Manufacturing Factory had developed into a China Heavy Duty Truck Industry Association, and introduced the Austrian Steyr 91 series model technology to carry out domestic production. In 1985, the first Steyr car was rolled off the production line.
The load level of Steyr series models was even higher, reaching more than 15 tons. At that time, half of the Yellow River models were outdated and half of the models lost their load advantage. In addition, the market competition was cruel. Gradually, China National Heavy Duty Truck also despised the development of the Yellow River brand cars and focused on the introduced Steyr.
Steyr replaced domestic heavy truck products overnight and became synonymous with Chinese heavy truck for a long time afterwards. During this period, Sinotruk also combined the Yellow River and Steyr technology, and launched the Yellow River S series with Steyr mask and the Yellow River logo.
In 1990, the affiliated company was officially renamed as China Heavy Duty Truck Group Corporation. However, due to the uneven economic development and changing demand in the 1990s, heavy duty truck enterprises began to decline. Sinotruk was also on the verge of bankruptcy in 1999, reorganized the following year, divided into three parts, and returned in 2001 as "China Heavy Duty Truck Group Co., Ltd." until now.
2003-2010: The sub brand was forced to withdraw if it was too weak
In fact, the restructured heavy truck has not completely abandoned the Yellow River brand. Since 2003, it has jointly launched three sub brands of the Yellow River, namely, "Yellow River Prince" (medium and large tonnage), "Yellow River Marshal" (medium tonnage), and "Yellow River General" (small tonnage).
Unfortunately, the HOWO series was in full swing at that time, and there was no significant improvement after it was put into the market. And "Yellow River" was forced to withdraw from the stage of history with the production suspension of its last model, Yellow River Golden Prince, in 2010.
Strictly speaking, the era of "the Yellow River" ended at the beginning of Steyr.
2020: New comeback to continue the legend
At 18:08 on September 16, 2020, when the brand "Yellow River" reappeared, the launch ceremony of the brand and new products of Sinotruk Yellow River with the theme of "driving the Yellow River into the future" was held in the Jinan Olympic Sports Center. The brand new independent "Yellow River" brand was officially released, and the new generation of Yellow River X7 tractor set sail.
Although the official did not say clearly why the "Yellow River" brand should be restarted, we were not surprised by this decision.
As the first brand and eldest son of Sinotruk, the restart of the Yellow River is to seek roots and encourage the people of Sinotruk not to forget the spirit of self-reliance and hard struggle; As the first heavy truck brand in China, the restart of Yellow River is a continuation of the national high-end heavy truck legend. It is worth keeping.
Yellow River X7 Intelligent High end Heavy Truck New Benchmark
Then look at the brand new Yellow River X7, which is a product specially customized for the trunk logistics transportation market.
The foil silver with a sense of science and technology is used in the color matching. The cab body originates from MAN technology. The front face is designed based on the image of "tiger". The shape of "bullet" has a wind resistance coefficient (Cd) of only 0.37, which is 30% lower than the mainstream products in the global industry. The fuel consumption can be reduced by 10% year-on-year, and the annual average cost can be saved by 50000 to 60000 yuan.
In terms of power, it supports the dual brand power drive of Mantec MC/MT series engine and Weichai WP series engine. B10 has a service life of 1.8 million kilometers and an oil change cycle of 100000 kilometers; The transmission is equipped with the 2.0 version of the independent AMT of the heavy truck, and the rear axle uses the Mantech MCY series drive axle, which provides a strong and reliable power for the vehicle.
As a new era heavy truck, Huanghe X7 has L2 level intelligent driving level, equipped with 360 ° look around, traffic sign recognition, data recording system, intelligent maintenance reminder, high-speed open window reminder, oil tank anti-theft reminder, bearing abnormality reminder and other intelligent settings; At the same time, L3 unmanned driving system interface is reserved to meet the needs of future function expansion.
In addition, at the recently held "Evaluation Meeting of High horsepower High end Products of Weichai Power T Series for All Series of Heavy Duty Truck", China Heavy Duty Truck announced that its high-end heavy truck products, including Yellow River X7, will support the use of Weichai T series high horsepower engines, with the maximum power of 680 horsepower.
Some insiders said that in the future, China National Heavy Duty Truck will form a new pattern of "Yellow River goes to the high-end and Shandeka goes to the middle and high-end", and the Yellow River brand, together with the Shandeka brand, will become the heavy truck product of China National Heavy Duty Truck's benchmarking imported models.
afterword
Compared with the early China National Heavy Duty Truck, the current China National Heavy Duty Truck has made a qualitative leap, and has the domestic leading commercial vehicle manufacturing technology and process. It is believed that this time, Sinotruk will firmly hold the "Yellow River" brand, and become bigger and stronger.
We cannot witness the glory and achievements of the Yellow River in the past; Fortunately, we can participate in the future stories together. (By Zhang Manqi)