Shanghai has constantly chased modernity. In Old Shanghai, modern inventions such as tramways, and electricity were introduced in their early days. This was also the case for automobiles. By the 1920s, Shanghai already had many cars and traffic was often blocked by traffic jams. Along with cars came tires, as shown by the model of a car used for advertising Michelin tires in Shanghai.
The above car is part of a series of Michelin advertising cars models, distributed in France a few years ago. This model was used in Shanghai, in the late 1920.
Michelin brand in Chinese in the 1920s was 咪吃兰胎 , which is different from the modern 米其林. The brand in Chinese is displayed at the front and the back on the roof. MICHELIN is displayed on both sides of the car.
The address for the advertising for Michelin tire demonstration is, “Rue Bourgeat”, “Corner of French Club”. This is located at the corner of Changle Lu / Rue Bourgeat and Maoming lu / Route Cardinal Mercier. It is opposite the Cercle sportif Français, with Cathay mansions on the other side of the street. The fourth corner is occupied by Lyceum Theater. This was the center of the French concession at the time.
The back of the model car with the ad in Chinese characters is well reproduced. The meaning is the same as the English text including location near the French Club. The car had 2 license plates, one for the French Concession (that was also valid for the International Settlement) and one for the Chinese territory.
This car is a Morris Cowley Flatnose, produced between 1926 and 1931 at the Cowley plant of Morris Motors Limited near Oxford. The ad support was probably added in Shanghai and removable.
Morris Motors cars were imported by Auto Palace Company Ltd. (利威汽车行, Liwei Automobile Co.) Auto Palace company was also the importer of Michelin tyres, as show on above 1920 ad from (Thanks to chinacarhistory.com). It makes sense that Auto Palace company used it’s own products for promotion.
The level of details on this model is amazing. Some pictures must have been kept in the Michelin archives and used by the publisher for the model series. No pictures of this vehicle are publicly available. In any case, this a really interesting piece of Old Shanghai and a great addition to my collection.
Below is a video IA created from a picture of the model picture, showing the car driving in old Shanghai.
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