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Chinese Three Wheelers One of the things that struck me as REALLY cool
when we got to travel around China, was the variety of vehicles that I'd
never seen before. Sure there are lots of Volkswagens. And here in Shanghai
there are a good number of Buick's and GM products, and a lot of busses
and trucks, and dinky motorcycles
but (especially as you get
Pictured at the left here is the proud owner, and a small taxi or courier car from a small city in JiangSu province. This little car is a bit unusual, as it's not based on a motorcycle or a tractor, but is a rear wheel drive, fully enclosed vehicle that happens to have just one wheel up front. I don't know if it counts as "rack and pinion" steering if there's only one wheel, but it has a pinion.
This is a Chang
Jiang 750 motorcycle made for the Chinese military, but is now privately
owned. This bike, and it's variants, are
The more modern bike below is tagged "Feng Tong" and serves as a police bike on the island of Putoushan.
A lot of small transportation and service needs are cheaply met by rear wheel drive motorcycle based three wheelers. These are mostly the familiar 150cc motorcycles outfitted with a two-wheel rear axle, and some kind of frame or enclosure.
This yellow beauty is a taxi in Chingqing,
which is a high altitude northwestern city, so it gets cold. I doubt if
it has heat, but I'm sure that the hard shell makes for a much more comfortable
ride than the more open configurations below. Both vehicles below were photographed (at night) in Dali. Dali is in a southern region, and is pretty temperate even in January when we were there. I'm not sure of the gearing, but the area there is quite hilly, and these bikes have very small engines. In any case you see lots of transporters like these all over China Another common variant of the three wheel motorcycle is the "handicapped" vehicle shown below. You see old people, and folks without full use of their legs riding around on these glorified mopeds. Shown below are a motorcycle styled version on the left, and an older example with a more mo-ped feeling. The most modern version has a "Scooter" front end, with a nice cut out providing for easy mounting without the need of lifting a leg over the gas tank. The stylin' front end also means that grandfather can feel cool chillin' at the exercise park or running down to the majhong hall. Are they all red? That's a good question. I'm pretty sure
that I've seen yellow and black ones too, but I'm not sure they're placarded
as "handicapped".
Sometimes you still see the father of these machines around.
I saw this gentleman in the marketplace near Fuzi Miao (Confucious Temple)
in southern Nanjing. You can't see it in this picture, but the bike is
driven by a hand crank (behind the basket). The lever he's holding is
the brake, and turning is accomplished via the high-mounted steering wheel.
While we're looking at work vehicles, let's see some tractors
and trucks. The majority of the tractors we saw in the countryside
were like this example to the left. A two seat cab with a bed on the back
supported by two un-driven wheels, My son Asa is here standing in front of the most rudimentary example of this type of tractor I've yet come across. It's a garbage hauler in the town of YangShuo. This medium duty truck is about the heaviest three wheel vehicle I've seen. It's rear wheel drive, and has double wheels under the bed, so I don't doubt that it could haul a ton - slowly and without braking on any sharp downhill curves. It was photographen in the northwestern mountain city of ShiYan, and there's a bit of snow on the fender.
This much lighter little pick-up trike serves in the countryside not far from our school in Shanghai. I was amused by the scooter front end, and the kitchen chair driver's seat. As always, if you have any comments or corrections, please feel free to drop me a line at the email address below. © Copyright 2003 Vincent Budnick
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