Re: Baotou Bei Ben Heavy-Duty Truck
Baotou Bei Ben appears to be North-Benz by another name. The Mercedes cabs are the same and so is the logo.
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Baotou Bei Ben appears to be North-Benz by another name. The Mercedes cabs are the same and so is the logo.
The PLA is equipped with a small number of the North Benz 2629A heavy duty truck built by North-Benz heavy-Duty Truck Co. Ltd, a joint venture formed by Inner-Mongolia First Machinery Group Corporation (FIRMACO) of Baotou, Inner-Mongolia; China North Industries Corporation (NORINCO); and DailmerChrysler. The truck is based on the Mercedes-Benz NG-80 truck originally introduced in the mid-1980s. The truck mainly serves as heavy cargo and weapon equipment carriers in the PLA.
China signed the agreement with Daimler-Benz (now DailmerChrysler) to co-produce Mercedes-Benz heavy-duty trucks locally under license in September 1988. The deal aimed to fulfil the growing demands for high-performance heavy-duty trucks from both military and civil sectors in China then. FIRMACO, a NORINCO subordinate company, was chosen as the main Chinese contractor. The actual technology transfer however took place at rather slow pace. The truck assembly line was not finished until 1995, and the joint venture Baotou North-Benz Group Corporation was only formed in 1996 for the marketing of the Chinese-built North-Benz truck.
Although the truck manufacturing facility at North Benz has the capacity to build 6,000 trucks per annum, the annual production of North-Benz truck has been around 500~600 trucks over the past few years, mainly due to its expensive prices and incompetent marketing. Early production variants of the truck still relied on some German-made parts. Following the end of the co-production agreement with DailmerChrysler in 2003, North-Benz continued to build the truck with 100% Chinese-made parts.
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