Rigs of Rods Community

Was one of most popular car in China back in the 80s-90s and early 2000s (They made other variants too but this looks cool)

I've noticed that Chinese version was less luxurious (notice the lack of fog lighs & less chrome decoration).
Regardless, due to the fact that in China you can't register over 15 years old vehicle, they are endangered species.

Good thing it wasn't a luxurious thing, people at the time really desperately needed a vehicle (If you wanted luxury, good luck importing a Toyota Crown or a Cadillac). And yea, any vehicle here that are from the 2000s or 90s are endangered, kinda sad.

And the electrification that the government is pushing is killing them even more faster.

In United Kingdom it's also the case. I looked at howmanyleft.co.uk and found that only 6 (SIX!!!) Santanas are still in the working order here, with a further 21 currently "SORN Not Due" - the photo i posted was shot in 2004, and that number was not much higher even back then.

In comparison, 4,171 Santanas were registered in 1994. The reason why dozens of only few-year old cars, with less than 120,000 miles on the clock (around 200,000 km) are scrapped every single month is because Britain is obviously an island, cars are RHD (limiting exports), nobody wants used cars for good money and scrap value is higher that actual resale value in most cases.

Man, that's sad. In China, the last original Santanas rolled of the assembly line in 2013 and majority of them are scrapped (No one wants stupid old car from the 90s) And also China doesn't like putting them in museums (Just like the buses)

And in Shanghai, the last Santana taxis were retired in 2018 in favour for the new VW Touran and fake Rovers (Roewe Ei5) Rebranded as MG5 SW EV in the UK

Thankfully, a 2012 Volkswagen Santana was recently added to Forza Horizon 5 (via paid DLC however).

Along with the others Chinese cars for the Lunar New Year update I think.

Yes.

Aside from 1.6 and 1.8 engines used in Chinese Santana, the European version was also available with 1.3 petrol, 1.9 petrol (later upgraded to 2.0 in 1984) and two 1.6 diesels (one naturally aspirated and another one turbocharged).

Diesel? lesss go

Yes, they were becoming common in the 1980s, in some countries tax rates favoured diesels.

Man, Diesels were never popular in China (apart from buses and lorries)

I know (obviously).

Volkswagen did build five two-door, pre-series Santanas in 1981, but they never reached production.