This Is The Cheapest Pickup Truck In China

This little beauty is the cheapest pickup truck in China. It is called the Dongfeng Xiaokang K01. It costs 25,900 yuan or $3,929. For that money you get a very basic vehicle that can carry two passengers plus a 750 kilo load. Mini pickup trucks like the K01 are widely used for a wide variety of work. They are bought by transport companies, construction companies, and often double as a mobile market stall.

In the countryside they can be seen ferrying cattle and even humans. Their relatively simple construction means that they are cheap to run and cheap to repair, even in the most faraway villages.

The market for mini pickup trucks is huge, almost 450,000 units were sold in 2015, and firmly in Chinese hands. About 10 different brands compete head to head and mostly on price, with many more competitors on the way.

Dongfeng Xiaokang is a subsidiary of the state-owned Dongfeng Motors conglomerate, making various mini minivans, mini MPVs, mini pickup trucks, a compact MPV, and a compact SUV.

Dongfeng Motors was founded in 1969 as Second Auto Works. It was the second automobile manufacturer established in China after First Auto Works, the owner of the famous Hongqi brand that builds the most expensive Chinese car.

The company changed its name to Dongfeng in 1992. Dongfeng means "east wind" and refers to the Chinese version of communism, spreading from the east. In China the Dongfeng name is used in a wide variety of products, including locomotives, booze, and missiles.

Over the years Dongfeng Motors experienced a wild and unplanned growth, snapping up smaller companies, building its own brands and adding sino-foreign joint ventures. Even today the company is largely unstructured with various passenger-car subsidiaries competing with each other on the market.

They have the Fengshen brand that makes sedans and SUVs, they have the Fengxing brand which does pretty much the same thing, and they have Xiaokang that recently launched the Fengguang brand for a series of compact SUVs and MPVs that compete with the offerings of Fengshen and Fengxin. Each brand has its own marketing, distribution channels and dealers.

But at least the Xiaokang mini vehicles are unchallenged within the Dongfeng empire. Back now to the K01:

It is powered by a 0.9 liter four-cylinder petrol engine with 45 horsepower and 67 Newton meter, mated to a five-speed manual transmission sending horses to the rear wheels. Top speed is 100 kilometers per hour and fuel consumption is 7 liters per 100 kilometers. Suspension: McPherson independent up front, and leaf springs at the rear. It is very small: 3970/1560/1825, and wheelbase is 2515.

The only number that really matters for pickup truck buyers is the size of the bed: 2300/1440/340. If that is too small Xiaokang also sells the K01L, a variant with a slightly longer bed:

Bed length is up to 2700 and it can carry a 880 kilo load. The engines are more powerful: a 1.1 liter four with 64hp or an 1.2 liter four with 88hp. All this more costs more money: the L starts at 28,900 yuan or $4385.

The interior is very simple with black plastics and fabric seats. It has a radio but that is about it when it comes to luxuries. It doesn't even have proper air conditioning, just a fan and a heater. Windows go up and down manually and the doors open one by one as there is no central locking. Safety systems are non existent; no airbags, no stability control, not even ABS.

But who needs all that fancy, buyers of the K01 want a reliable vehicle that brings them and their stuff from A to B every day, come rain or come shine, and that is what the K01 does. And the golden rule for workhorses like this is: the more you add the more that can break.

The usefulness of the K01 is somewhat limited in Beijing. The capital has a rule that says trucks cannot enter the Fifth Ring Road, basically the city proper, at day time. The rule is devised to prevent the chronic traffic jams from getting worse; big trucks = big jams. And because the K01 has a bed it is automatically classified as a truck so the rule applies to it, no matter that it is actually very small.

Even more absurd: this the Xiaokang K05, the minivan version of the K01/K01L. Same platform, same engines, same size. But the rule does not apply to it because it is classified as a van and not as a truck. No bed! The K05 by the way is not the cheapest Chinese minivan.

Simplicity rules: exhaust pipe and leaf spring. The local blacksmith can fix that with his hammer.

The Dongfeng Xiaokang K01 is a true Chinese workhorse, useful for almost everything and beautiful in its basic simplicity. And very cheap...