About Us-Brand Story

Brand Development Process

Origination of the Automobile Dream

At the beginning of the founding of the People’s Republic of China

the car dream of Guangzhou people began to sprout. In 1954, Guangzhou Public Bus Repair Factory (predecessor of Guangzhou Bus Factory) built the first "South China Brand" iron-wood structured bus by hand without any equipment and started the rise of "Guangzhou Automobile" with the self-reliance and hard working entrepreneurial spirit of the Guangzhou people.

Since the birth of the first Hongwei-branded truck in Guangzhou in the 1960s to the trial production of Guangzhou-branded cars at a small automobile repair plant in Guangzhou in the early 1970s, the Guangzhou people were always pursuing the dream.

Foundation of Guangzhou Peugeot

The foundation of Guangzhou Peugeot in the mid 1980s made the formerly unreachable automobile dream of Guangzhou truly reachable, and it became one of the three large and three small automobile production bases of China. The Guangzhou Peugeot 505 series born soon after that quickly became a hotcake on the market, and the Guangzhou automobile industry entered a new golden age.

In the 1990s, Guangzhou Peugeot announced its delisting, and the Guangzhou automobile industry came to a decisive point of success or failure and advancing or regressing again, and looked for the way ahead.

Golden Age

In April 1996, Guangzhou Municipality made the decision to adjust the development strategy of the sedan project and replace the foreign partner, signaling a major turn in the development of the Guangzhou automobile industry. In the following year, Guangzhou Automobile Group Co., Ltd. that was founded, bringing Junda Automobile Group, Yangcheng Automobiles Co., Ltd., Guangzhou Bus Group, and Anxun Investment Co., Ltd. under its unified management, taking the responsibility of leading the Guangzhou automobile industry alone. Afterwards, GAC chose Honda as its new partner, and created a path to success featuring “low investment, fast output, rolling development and technology synchronization with the world”.

Foundation of GAC Honda

The foundation of GAC Honda opened up a new era for the Guangzhou automobile industry, and shocked the industry with many firsts—introducing the world’s latest models from the very beginning;

It pioneered the 4S (Sale, Spare Part, Service and Survey) sales mode in China;

The GAC Honda Zengcheng plant was the first automaker that realized zero emission in China, and established China’s first automobile R&D institution funded by a joint venture and operating as an independent legal entity.

It was in this period that the Chinese automobile industry entered a golden age of rapid development, and GAC was known for its speed in the industry by cooperating with Honda, Hino, Fiat, Chrysler, Mitsubishi, etc., and played an increasingly important role in the Chinese automobile industry.

Self-owned Brand—From Dream to Reality

GAC understands that an enterprise has to be independent to develop sustainably in the future. In other words, if the self-owned brand is successful or not determines how far and high GAC can go.

At the end of 2005, GAC held a strategic seminar to discuss major matters on independent R&D and the self-owned brand.

In 2006, GAC established the GAC R&D Center, which shoulder the heavy responsibilities of building an advanced passenger vehicle model platform and developing a competitive vehicle series under the self-owned brand.

In 2010, GAC’s first self-owned brand Trumpchi that carried the independence dream of the GAC people was born.

Since its birth, Trumpchi has been popular on the market, and ranking top among mainstream models in the industry for a wide range of models with technology and quality levels comparable with Chinese-foreign joint venture brands. GAC’s dream for a self-owned brand came true, and GAC began to aim at higher goals.

Evolution of Brand Logo

1997-2000
2000-2005
2005-2010
2010-2020
2020 - Present