A very early Landwind X9 SUV, seen in the great city of Zhuhai in China’s Guangdong Province. The good Landwind was in a fine shape, painted in dark red and fitted with lots of factory and non-factory extra’s.
The Landwind X9 was made from 2002 until 2009, with several facelifts and updates. Our car appears to be a post-2004 update example, with a slightly more rounded grille and simple square headlights. The fog lights and the bull bar were factory options.
Landwind is a brand under Jiangling Holdings, owned, among others, by Jiangling Motors Corporation and Changan Automobile. Over the years the naming and ownership structure has changes many a times. See this article by my friend Rutger van der Maar for more on Landwind’s history.
The Landwind X9 was a 3-door SUV based on the 3-door version of first generation Isuzu MU. Later on, Landwind added the 5-door X6, based on the 5-door Isuzu MU.
Landwind and Isuzu had a license agreement for the production. The Japanese brand was very active in China in those days and licensed the MU to a whole lot of Chinese car makers. Landwind is the best known among them, mainly due to their failed exports to Europe in the mid 2000’s.
The owner added 3M warning tape and strange mud flaps. The side bars were factory standard, and so where the sporty 5-spoke wheels with BF Goodrich off-road tires.
Most of the early Landwind X9 cars were powered by a 2.2 liter four-cylinder 2.2 liter Mitsubishi petrol engine, made in China by the Shenyang-Mitsubishi engine-making joint venture. Output is 92 hp and 200 Nm. The motor was mated to a five-speed manual sending horses to all four wheels. Price varied over the years but lay around 120.000 yuan, which was a pretty good deal for a cool 4×4 with a removable hardtop rear section (roof off).
The more stickers the more speed, or so we know. The car has a black Guangdong Province license plate, but with a B instead of the more common A. I am not very familiar with license plate regulations in Guangdong. I will try to find out more.
The Landwind brand became notorious when they copied the Land Rover Evoque in 2015. After some initial success sales went down quickly and the brand is in deep trouble today, selling only one car; the Landwind Rongyao. But it seems the end is near, the company’s website is down and there hasn’t been any news for months. A sad end, a bad end.
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