By ZHOU Shuqi

After eight years on a very bumpy road, automaker Beijing Borgward ended its journey in China on Tuesday. According to an order by Beijing No.1 Intermediate People's Court, Beijing Borgward’s remaining assets fell far short of its debt, and the company showed no sign of reconstruction, thus it was declared bankrupt.

Originally a German operation, Borgward went bankrupt in the 1960s and lay dormant until China’s Foton Motor brought it back to life in 2014, by injecting the inert company with 5 million euros (37 million yuan, US$5.2 million).

Foton Motors made trucks, buses, and SUVs. The acquisition of Borgward was an attempt to tap into the passenger vehicle market. 

The new Borgward released its first model in 2016 and did very well. The marketing strategy was simple - Borgward spared no effort to emphasize its German bloodline. 

Blood, of course, is everything. A paper trail is something else. Borgward owned no key technology whatsoever, and often appear on the front page for quality issues.

From 2016 to 2018, Borgward lost 4 billion yuan, dragging its parent company down. Foton’s 1.1 billion yuan profit in 2017 turned into a 3.6 billion yuan loss the next year.

In 2019, Foton sold 67 percent of Borgward to UCAR for 4 billion yuan. UCAR was a project of LU Zhengyao, who founded coffee chain Luckin. Luckin was busy dealing with its own financial scandal a year later.

Borgward never released another new model. 

With Luckin occupying his attention, Lu had neither time nor money to keep Borgward rolling and operations ceased in January this year.