Text: 22_53
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When it comes to Yatsuyo Golan, many Japanese car enthusiasts will certainly not be unfamiliar.
In 1996, the eighth generation of Mitsubishi Galan was officially born, and Mitsubishi positioned it as a "high-density sports car". In addition to the sporty exterior design, the biggest highlight of this new car is the introduction of the GDI direct injection technology engine for the first time, these flashes have created a lot of buzz for the eighth generation of Golan, and won the 1997 Japan Wind Car of the Year Award. In the eyes of many enthusiasts, this generation of Golan is the most classic generation, with its fierce appearance, Yatsuyo Golan also has the nickname of "shark head".
However, in the Taiwanese market, Yatsudai Gelan does not seem to have such good luck. As the saying goes, people can't look, and so is a car. This view is absolutely feasible when put into the case of Yatsushiro Golan.
(Note: "Golan" is the Chinese name of the mainland region, Galant does not have an official Chinese translation name in Taiwan, for the convenience of writing, the following are "Golan" substituted for "Galant")
As mentioned earlier, Zhonghua Automobile has achieved great success in the car market by producing the fifth and sixth generation Lancer Lingshuai, and quickly gained a foothold. After tasting the sweetness in the compact car field, Zhonghua is also trying to enter the larger mid-size car market. On the one hand, because its own Yulon's CEFIRO demeanor sells too well, at this time the attack can continue its heat; on the other hand, Zhonghua itself is also importing American norms Galant, but the sales are really very poor, compared to the opponent is really no competitiveness to speak of, Zhonghua very early wanted to let Golan achieve local production. Although the idea was good, but taking into account many factors, Golan's local production was not realized until 1998.
On May 23, 1998, the eighth generation of Galant produced by China was officially launched, with "extreme technology, absolute caravan" as the main appeal; Golan has two major models and four configuration levels to choose from. For Gelan, there are at least two major advantages in choosing to go public at this time. First of all, Zhonghua is equipped with a 2.0L V6 engine for the eight generations of Golan, which can continue the V6 heat brought by the demeanor of its own boss CEFIRO, borrowing the title to play; in addition, the shape of the eight generations of Golan in the family sequence can be called the most ferocious generation, especially the front shape, full of lethality, and other opponents at the same level are in the appearance of the advanced to make a fuss, Zhonghua unchanged will be the original shape of the Japanese rules introduced over, is bound to be able to be unique in a wave of advanced, attracting alternative customer groups.
The eight generations of Golan, which was listed earlier, are full of murderous spirits
Sure enough, Ge Lan's appearance of not anger and threat, the lethality is really strong enough, many enthusiastic young people saw the real car and immediately placed an order. Gelan has also become the most ferocious in the development of Taiwan's automobile market in the past 60 years, and the appearance of a local production car has added a lot to its sales.
However, the 2.0 V6 engine under the hood has nothing to do with such a fierce appearance. Cefiro attracted countless car owners to buy with the word V6, Golan tried to do the same, but with a model 6A12 2.0 V6 engine, this engine has been used in the previous generation of Golan, the maximum horsepower is only 133ps, in the same class of performance is only better than Toyota Corona Premio's 128ps, not to mention the former is also a four-cylinder engine. As a result, the GDI engine of the Japanese gauge was completely absent. This engine not only has a poor power performance, but also has little room for modification and upgrading, and the fuel consumption performance has also made many car owners bitter, and many people have directly replaced the MIVEC engine to get rid of the trouble. Perhaps because it is "not worthy of the name", this generation of Gelan also has the nickname of "egg" /"G egg" in Taiwan (Galant is pronounced similar to "egg" in Hokkien). But fortunately, Golan is equipped with the only 4-speed INVECS-II SPORTS MODE intelligent hand automatic transmission in the same class, which is an added posture in terms of power configuration.
Although it has such a weak chicken power, with this appearance, Golan is still welcomed by many people. Yatsuyo Golan is also the first car in the Taiwan market that can be sold to the sky by relying only on its design, and it is very popular, and it is unprecedented.
Since in the name of "extreme technology", the configuration of Yatsuyo Gelan of course also keeps up with the trend of the so-called "electronic float" at that time, with standard electric folding mirrors, four-door anti-clip electric windows, walnut wood grain trim panels, leather seats, 2-Din large panel audio, 12 disc CDs, LCD LCD screens that can display odometers, etc. The top EXi model is also equipped with TCL anti-slip control system, four airbags, image-type digital display thermostatic air conditioning, black/beige two-color interior and other luxury configurations, which are also quite sincere compared with competitors.
In 1999, Golan made a minor overhaul for the first time, advocating humanized technology with "HI-TOUCH" as the appeal. In terms of appearance, the old blackened headlights were mainly changed to more transparent diamond headlights, and the speed and light sensing headlights were listed as the standard configuration of the entire car system, the lower air intake was changed from the original diamond-shaped mesh to the horizontal strip type, and the wheel hub style was changed to a cake-like design similar to CEFIRO A32.5, in addition to which there was not much change.
The eight generations of Golan after the small reform are also "murderous"
Since the appeal is "deeply moved by science and technology", humanized configuration is indispensable. The minor redesign adds front and rear parking radar, high-contrast self-illuminating instruments, electric heated double curvature mirrors, antibacterial treatment of the whole vehicle as standard, and the top EXi adds a mobile communication sound system located under the central armrest, printed antenna, imitation suede non-slip seats, electric rear window sunshades, and an ice hot storage greenhouse (car refrigerator) located in the glove box. It is worth mentioning that the Xiaoice box of the EXi model is not cooled/heated by the air outlet of the air conditioner, but is separated from the air conditioner, and the cooling and heating are carried out separately, compared to the mobile hot and cold box built into the car, such a configuration was rare at that time.
After the minor modification of the rear, there is not much change
Although a lot of effort has been put into the comfort configuration, the Golan appearance after the minor changes is still very fierce, so the sales have not changed much, and the performance in the same class can only be regarded as mediocre. In order to stimulate sales growth, Zhonghua moved out of the old routine originally used in Ling Shuai - the launch of special cars. In April 2000, Golan's first special car JAZZ was officially launched, jazz based on Golan's originally more affordable SEi sub-low-end model, further upgraded the configuration, appealing to "wake up the soul of the super heavy bass dialogue". Since it is related to the "heavy bass", the audio is the focus of the special car upgrade, JAZZ is equipped with Panasonic's 2-Din large-panel sound unit, with digital equalizer, DSP ring field sound effect setting function; in addition to the SEi standard 6 speakers, JAZZ also added an 8-inch subwoofer to the rear window, which was the first configuration on the same class at that time.
In addition to the audio upgrade, JAZZ also uses a new suede + leather double seat and interior materials, the color matching has also changed from the original black to black + light blue double color, the original SEi equipped walnut wood trim to jazz also changed to a more youthful imitation titanium silver metal tone panel, very personalized.
Although the JAZZ special car has added so many value-added configurations, and the price is only slightly adjusted from 748,000 yuan (NT$, the same below) to 765,000 yuan, but Golan's special car does not have as many exclusive logos as Ling Shuai, which can only be reflected in the rear of the car, which is quite low-key. Of course, jazz cars have successfully created a wave of topics at the end of the product, which is undoubtedly successful.
The rear of the JAZZ car
As mentioned earlier, Ge Lan's sporty shape is unique in the same level of advanced design, very personal, but after experiencing a sharp increase in sales in the early stage, there was no obvious breakthrough in sales in the later period. After consideration, Zhonghua still chose to follow the trend of high-leveling, and concocted the eight generations of Golan as a comprehensive advanced packaging. Chrome straight waterfall mid-mesh, two-color body, crystal drill headlights/taillights, mirror polished wheels are placed on Golan, so that Yatsuyo Golan's original ferocious shape becomes strange and contrasts greatly with the original appearance.
After the major revision of the Eight Generations Of Blue, the appearance has become very strange
On September 2, 2000, the strange and overhaul of Yatsuyo Golan was officially listed, perhaps affected by luxury packaging, and had to "take Jok gang" in the publicity, and the advertising slogan was changed to "Yashi Chivalrous Style", which was much gentler compared with "Absolute Caravan". In addition to the great efforts in the exterior, the interior has also been greatly modified. The tone of the two-color interior has changed from black/meter to a softer and warmer gray/beige, the shape of the leather seats has also tended to be comfortable, the range of walnut wood grain panels has also been expanded, some areas have also added chrome decorations to embellish, and more sound insulation materials have been added to the interior of the door panels. In addition, the overhauled Golan's front seat window switch was moved from the door panel to the bottom of the gear handle, which was not as easy to use as before, and this design was undoubtedly a failure.
Slightly redesigned interior (large-screen machine is not original)
"Yashi Chivalrous" continues the previous configuration of front/rear parking radar, mobile communication audio and other scientific and technological configurations (the hot and cold storage incubator is not continued to carry), and for the first time equipped with Panasonic satellite navigation system and G-NET two-way escort pilot system, G-NET this system can provide real-time driving information, satellite navigation, SOS emergency rescue, anti-theft security and other intimate services, very practical. It is worth mentioning that according to the car friends revealed that the G-NET system is actually a system with its own Yulon action secretary PVA, but the name is different, PVA was upgraded to the TOBE system in 2002, and Zhonghua did not follow up. Perhaps this is because the system is only an option for the top model of the EXi, and the price is not cheap, and there are very few people who choose to install it.
The rear of the overhauled model has also changed, and it is worth mentioning that the taillights were designed by the Chinese themselves
Power is another key appeal of the major overhaul Oflan, the previous model equipped with the 6A12 engine is weak to make many car owners bitter, this time Zhonghua in the face of the redesign of the power has been upgraded. However, the way to upgrade is not to replace the new engine, but to upgrade the computer control system on the basis of the original 6A12, the horsepower is upgraded from 133ps to 142ps, and then with the hand-integrated gearbox that resets the gear ratio, trying to find a little momentum for this "egg".
In terms of the walking system, Zhonghua has made great improvements. In addition to the design of the upper wishbones, lower double linkage and triple link additional anti-roll bar (this section is excerpted from the test drive report of the magazine at the time), the shock absorber is also equipped with the EASS three-stage adjustable shock absorption system pioneered by the same class, providing H (hard), M (moderate), S (soft) three soft hardness for adjustment, in the hardest mode has the same period of excellent control of the Accord, and the softest adjustment has a comfort comparable to the demeanor A33. In terms of structure, the system adopts a stepper motor to drive the shaft to adjust the size of the oil pressure valve, so as to achieve the purpose of changing the damping coefficient, which is not easy to fail and leak oil, and has high reliability. However, this advanced configuration is only available on models priced at 848,000 yuan or more than the EXi sunroof version, which is exclusive to high-end vehicles.
This is the electronic shock adjustment mechanism: the stepper motor, located at the upper end of the shock absorber base
Although Zhonghua has made a lot of efforts in the power and walking mechanism, but the consumers in Taiwan pay more attention to the appearance than the engine, the fierce appearance that the eight generations of Gelan originally relied on to survive has been changed beyond recognition, strange and strange, many consumers have been dissuaded by this strange look of Gelan, coupled with the unfavorable news that the 2.0V6 engine equipped with the previous model has the characteristics of "oil-eating monsters" spread all the way through the Internet, and the sales of the eight generations of Golan have since undergone a huge turn, greatly frustrated, all the way down.
In the face of this unfavorable situation, Zhonghua still used the trick of launching a special car to cope with the decline. On June 9, 2001, the Golan JAZZ special car was able to re-emerge, this time jazz in addition to installing a new 2-Din dazzling digital audio and subwoofer that is more advanced than last year, the EXi model of the three-stage adjustable shock absorption system, light induction automatic headlights, anti-pinch electric sunroof as the standard, but also added the LMD penetrating steering auxiliary light installed on the rearview mirror, this configuration is the first high-level safety equipment at that time, in the turn signal at the same time on the rearview mirror light group also lit up, Helps alert the rear car and ensures steering safety. In terms of appearance, JAZZ also abandoned the two-color body design of the original model, and created a dynamic appearance with MONO TONE monochrome paint, and the original chrome exterior parts were also changed to the same color of the body, trying to add a youthful atmosphere.
JAZZ special car poster
After the launch of JAZZ, in September 2001, Zhonghua continued to launch a special car called ΣSigma, also for promotional purposes. Sigma is also modeled on the SEi model, the configuration is similar to jazz, the same with the rearview mirror steering assist light and other advanced configurations, but in the audio aspect did not work hard, the price is lower than jazz. However, the launch of Sigma is much more low-key than JAZZ, only advertising, no press releases and test reports, and the response is not as high as jazz.
Sigma Tess rear
In addition, this "no class" luxury Yatsudai Golan also had a batch of exports to the mainland market, the configuration of this batch of cars is all top EXi models, safety and comfort configurations are all in place, and also equipped with EASS adjustable shock absorption, while the optional G-NET escort pilot system is subject to regional restrictions and has not appeared. Today, this batch of "Yashi Chivalrous Style" still has some visibility in the mainland.
Appeared in the mainland of the big revamp Yashiro Golan (image source: Idle Fish)
However, the sales change before and after the big redesign of Gelan is really too big, and the backlog of inventory cars is also increasing, which can't help but make Zhonghua Automobile face huge pressure, and the launch of special cars is useless, and Zhonghua also has to use the last killer - bidding for official cars. This is quite rare in the history of Zhonghua Automobile, in order to digest the inventory, Zhonghua won the bid for large official car procurement in Taipei County and other large and medium-sized cities, and this strange Golan finally began to run all over the streets. However, this move did not reverse the decline in sales of Golan, and sales were still unsatisfactory.
In 2002, Zhonghua Automobile once again remodeled Yatsushiro Golan as New Galant. After the failure of luxury, the focus of this redesign was put back on sports, the front face was modified based on the American model of the same period, the ugly "pig nose" was removed, replaced by the original small diagonal straight waterfall net, the bumper also returned to normal design, and the two-color body and excess chrome decoration were all canceled. At the same time, Zhonghua also adjusted the SEi model, trying to build the SEi model into a personalized sports model similar to the Virage iO (that is, the Lancer that emphasizes sports), the large spoiler tail wing was listed as standard, and the interior was also mixed with black + imitation metal titanium silver panels, emphasizing personalization and youth. At this point, Zhonghua finally made a big fuss about the ferocious appearance of the Eight Generations Golan, and the murderous spirit of the original model returned.
The final redesign of Yatsuyo Golan (pictured is the SEi version)
In terms of interior, New Galant still has two styles for consumers to choose from, a beige interior that emphasizes a sense of luxury (equipped with EXi models) and a black imitation titanium interior (SEi equipped) that emphasizes sports personality. In addition to the new 2-DIN high-quality CD sound, the steering wheel is equipped with multi-function communication and audio switching keys, eight-way electric adjustment of piping leather seats (EXi exclusive) and other comfort features, and in addition to the original ABS, TCL, 4 airbags, speed and light sensing automatic headlights, the LMD penetrating steering auxiliary lights of the previous JAZZ models have also been popularized. At least in terms of packaging, New Galant is relatively successful.
Luxurious beige interior of the EXi model
Personalized black interior of SEi models
On November 23, New Galant officially met with the public. In terms of publicity, Zhonghua invited the star Jin Chengwu to be the spokesperson of New Galant, filmed a series of advertising films, and attended the listing event on the 23rd.
Jin Chengwu took a group photo with Su Qingyang, then general manager of Zhonghua Automobile
Jin Chengwu attended the listing conference
Takeshi Kinseong and NEW GALANT
However, whether it is emphasizing the sporty appearance or finding big stars to help, the actual effect is not very good. In this period of medium-sized car owners on the battlefield, the newly remodeled demeanor A33 and METROSTAR (Mondeo) are inseparable, and there is also a CAMRY XV30 in the middle, where do you have time to see Golan? Seeing that the inventory is about to pile up again, the Chinese see once again asked for the killer of the special car - the JAZZ special car to make a comeback. On June 7, 2003, Ge Lan's JAZZ car returned to the jianghu, this time JAZZ with orange and black as the main visual attraction points, the appearance of the shape is mainly black, including the wheel color are changed to light silver gray design, the interior is orange and black two-color design, to show unique vitality; the audio aspect is the use of clarion production of shuttle control audio, with a high power output of 200W. In addition, jazz cars are also equipped with blackened headlights, gold calipers, exclusive mats, Bluetooth system and other details, trying to establish a unique style in a luxurious 2.0-class mid-size sedan.
JAZZ's orange/black duplex interior design
Interestingly, JAZZ runs through all the small makeovers of the Taiwanese market's Yatsudai Gelan, and the last two comebacks are forced to "save the field" due to poor sales. However, by the beginning of the 21st century, consumers were tired of the appearance of Golan, no matter what kind of version was launched, it would not help, and the fate of the eight generations of Golan was a foregone conclusion.
In 2004, Yashiro Golan, which had undergone three facelifts, quietly stopped production, and Zhonghua Automobile's battle in the mid-size car market also came to an end. The number of up to three revamps in the life cycle of Yatsudai Gelan is also rare in the Taiwan market. Ge Lan's failure made Zhonghua thoroughly understand that it is not enough to sell cars on the face, and mavericks in the luxury market will eventually be eliminated. Therefore, in the development of the next generation of model Galant GRUNDER, Zhonghua returned to the trend, all the way to the high level, the appearance of the interior are in accordance with the Chinese aesthetic, designed by the Chinese. However, the fate of the successor models is not good.
But that's another story...
Yashiro Golan's successor, Grunder, I think you will not be unfamiliar
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