Li Shufu, mr. Geely, and the first car he made; a Mercedes Benz!

Li Shufu's first auto was not a Daihatsu Charade duplicate but rather a Mercedes-Benz!

Read here how mr. Li began with taking photographs of voyagers with a Seagull camera to wind up as the proprietor of five auto makers. 

The vast majority trust that mr. Li Shufu began to make his fortune by assembling iceboxes yet truly when he graduated in 1982 Li purchased a 'Seagull' camera, which was at one time an all around regarded mark in China. Li's objective was just to take photographs of sightseers at grand spots. With his first benefits he opened his own particular camera store which gave him solid benefits, following a couple of years he had made his initial million renminbi or Bai Wan as it's known in China.

In 1984 Li concocted making fridge parts. Having an ice chest was a noteworthy purpose of individual riches around then. Li figured out how to take his business from nothing to having an aggregate estimation of 400-500 million renminbi. In 1987 Li went into making his own particular iceboxes under the 'Arctic'brand. By 1989 the Central Government began giving out creation licenses for fridges, Arctic was not one of the fortunate organizations. In 1991 Li Shufu and his sibling Li Xubing had a production line to deliver aluminum magnesium enhancement sheets. This industrial facility still existed under the Geely Group.

In 1993 making autos came up. Introductory interviews with government agencies left Li without simple access to car generation, because of constraints put on the business. Li floated his concentration to bikes.

At the point when the motorbike business was blasting he chose to take a gander at the vehicle business indeed. Li Shufu's sibling collapse and they chose to contribute a most extreme of 100 million renminbi. With Geely as a privately owned business it was almost incomprehensible for them to get government bolster particularly as the focal government was controlling the business to an amazingly high degree and straightforwardly denied exclusive organizations.

Li Shufu cherished Mercedes and needed to make his own "Chinese Mercedes", he purchased and dismantled a Mercedes and went to FAW to purchase a Hongqi stage, motor and gearbox. As the Benz E-class and Hongqi's estimating were about the same as far as stage and body measure Li made his first Geely vehicle, named the Geely Yi Hao or Geely Number One. The body was made of fiberglass fortified plastic. He took his new auto downtown Taizhou, got noisy adulation in the boulevards and took a progression of adverts in the Taizhou Daily News. Individuals called at information and costs. Be that as it may, quality turned into a noteworthy issue. 

Li got a processing plant in Taizhou yet he did not have a permit to create cars.

He heard that the Deyang Prison Vehicle Factory in Sichuan region was bankrupt yet despite everything it held its permit.

The truck production line of the Deyang Prison was authoritatively named Deyang No.95 Factory. They delivered trucks since the 1970s. A 5-ton truck depended on the Dongfeng EQ140 named Dujiang DJ140. Here a notice of that time. Barnham (yes, our companion Oliver, see the Wuqi story) made a photo of this truck in Sichuan in 1980. (Note the Shanghai SH760A raise, left on the photo.)

In 1985 the processing plant publicized with a standard EQ140 named Shufeng DY140. The plant was around then named Deyang Auto Works. Yearly creation in 1985 was 353 trucks.

Li hit an arrangement with this jail processing plant they would contribute 24 million renminbi , take 70% of the offers and make the Sichuan Geely Boyin Automotive Company. After the elderly jail chief passed away Li purchased the staying 30% and moved the plant hardware to Linhai in March 1997.

Li extremely needed to make an extravagance auto however rapidly found that innovation prerequisites were past his constrained limit. So he chose to make little shabby autos that ordinary men could bear. The Daihatsu Charade, in the Chinese type of the Tianjin Xiali, was basically ideal for what was required for the main mass market Geely vehicle.

So what occurred with the Mercedes? The auto was left in one of the Taizhou processing plant corridors. In 2009 it appeared in a CCTV narrative about Li Shufu. Lamentably the auto was at that point rotting, particularly the fiberglass didn't avoid the years. We demonstrate to you a picture from the narrative. From that point forward, nothing was caught wind of the auto, till we got the message this year from somebody close to Li who disclosed to us that the auto was crushed when the manufacturing plant was destroyed.

For what reason not safeguarded this first endeavor from a man who is currently extremely rich person, proprietor of Geely, Volvo, Lynk&Co, London Taxi, Lotus Cars and 49,9% of Proton.

The reason is Li himself: Yes, it is the beginning of his car vocation, yet he discovers it an exceptionally absurd exertion. It is a sensitive subject for him. So no motivation to protect the auto…