The Ministry of Industry and Trade announced the revival of the legendary domestic car brand Volga last year, and even then it became clear that the path would be the same as that of Moskvich.. But the Chinese partner was not known: given the status of the Volga, it was logical to think about luxury Hongqi cars. But cars of this brand are already produced in Belarus and will probably soon begin production at the former Toyota plant in St. Petersburg. So… Changan may well turn into a new Volga!
Last week, a journalist from the Drom.ru portal visited the GAZ plant in Nizhny Novgorod to find out how things were going at the former plant that assembled Volkswagen AG cars. Production is at a standstill, but a certain white sedan without nameplates was caught in the lens. «Chinese Cars» conducted their investigation and found out that this sedan turned out to be the Changan Raeton Plus.
This is a fairly recent model — it entered the market in 2022. And besides, it is quite large, as the Volga should be: dimensions are 4800 x 1825 x 1465 mm, wheelbase — 2770 mm. That is, the Changan Raeton Plus is slightly smaller than the Toyota Camry, but larger than the Moskvich 6.. In terms of technology, Raeton Plus is a typical “Chinese”: it has a 1.5-liter turbo engine with 188 hp, combined with a 7-speed “robot”.
According to Drom.ru, at the moment there are three cars being assembled “in varying degrees of disassembly”, and in total a dozen and a half people are working on the project of the revived Volga. The reason for the sluggish activity is the fear of Chinese companies to fall under secondary sanctions. “ According to rumors, if the launch of the Volga takes place, it will not be earlier than the end of 2024, and so far only SKD (large-scale assembly) assembly is planned ,” writes Chinese Cars.