China FAW’s seventieth-anniversary history describes an institution building people as well as production capacity. Workers built by day and studied at night; 518 trainees travelled to the Soviet Stalin Automobile Factory in nine groups. The trips connected a new Changchun plant to an established manufacturer, while the factory’s own work proceeded at home. The CA10’s story begins with organized learning and the workforce expected to run a complex production line, not with a single vehicle appearing fully formed.
From the journal
The Factory That Learned to Build the Jiefang Truck
The Jiefang CA10 emerged from overseas training, Soviet technical assistance and factory adjustment. A 1956 newspaper report follows ten trial trucks from the moving line to engineering inspection, while FAW’s technical history records the later drive to improve the model for Chinese use.
In the same city · Changchun ↗The factory grew a workforce while it grew its workshops
Technical assistance reached beyond the truck itself
A technical history compiled at FAW’s technical centre describes Soviet assistance across the factory project: product choice, process planning, plant design, production organization, equipment supply and installation, and help adjusting output. The reference truck was the Soviet 3MC-150, a four-ton model. The article says the supplied drawings closely followed that vehicle. In the same account, Soviet assistance did not include product development. FAW separated a design-and-trial unit in 1954; after the CA10 began production, that office took responsibility for planning its later improvements.
Before launch, the line had to be adjusted
A People’s Daily report of July 1956 looks back on a production-adjustment stage that began in August 1955, with Soviet specialists assisting. It counted adjustments to more than a thousand kinds of process equipment and tools, along with more than 1,800 kinds of self-made parts, most meeting the required standard. Before repeatable production, both machine settings and locally made parts had to be checked.
Ten trial trucks moved from the line to an adjustment room
The 14 July 1956 newspaper report describes a trial batch of ten Jiefang trucks assembled on 13 July. The newspaper calls them Jiefang trucks, not CA10s; FAW’s later technical history identifies the four-ton CA10 within the same production timeline. Workers fitted assemblies along the moving line; after water and oil were added, a driver took one truck into the adjustment room. Design and process engineers listened as the engine slowed, while two Soviet specialists checked the engine and components. The report says the vehicles still needed road trials and component tests before mass production.
After the first model, development continued in Changchun
The technical history traces the design office’s next task to production improvement: the CA10 had to be made more suitable for Chinese use while retaining the value of a reliable model. It records the start of a first variant design in October 1960, after several years of use and adjustment. This move from Soviet-supported factory preparation to Changchun-led product refinement kept the design office at work after the first truck entered production.