Donfeng Fengshen / Aeolus: Brand-New but Destined for the Scrapyard?
During a bike ride to Westerplatte in Gdańsk, I noticed a large number of white cars—about 1,050–1,150 of them—parked on a plaza along the main road within the Port of Gdańsk. The storage yard itself was built in 2024. The cars had unusual logos and were completely unfamiliar to me—at least, I hadn’t seen any of them on Polish roads yet.
I couldn’t stop thinking about it. On my way back, I stopped to cross to the other side of the road and take a photo of one of them through the fence. Unfortunately, there was a fairly deep ditch between the fence and the road that I didn’t want to cross, so I took the photo through the mesh. Because of this, I couldn’t make out the model or the car’s name on the hood, where the distinctive chrome lettering was located. However, Google Lens helped me a bit—it turned out that these are cars from the Chinese company Dongfeng, model Aeolus.
I’m surprised that these cars were placed in the worst possible yard within the Port of Gdańsk. It’s located right next to yards where bulk materials—mainly coal—are stored. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, coal imports by sea have intensified, and the number of storage sites has increased. Everything around is black with coal dust, and all the cars in the lot are covered with a thick, black layer of it. I don’t even want to think about the impact of coal dust mixed with rainwater—after all, sulfur occurs naturally in coal, so when it rains, acid can form, which certainly won’t be good for the paint on these vehicles.
GPS: 54.39204275915411, 18.688453794002033