The Hongqi CA72 was developed by First Automotive Works (FAW) based in Changchun, which was founded in 1953 with technical and financial support from the Soviet Union.

FAW originally primarily produced commercial vehicles, in particular heavy trucks based on Soviet models under the Jiefang brand.

[1] From 1958, several Chinese plants began constructing passenger cars for civilian use: however, because China did not have a homegrown auto industry, most of the new automotive development was based on Western models, imported in small numbers: while outright copying was prohibited, most of the vehicles in this period differed far more from Western vehicles in looks than technology, where foreign platforms were often taken and completely duplicated.

One of the first cars was the FAW-developed middle-class sedan Dongfeng CA71, which was basically a replica of the French Simca Vedette with a Mercedes-Benz 6 cylinder engine.

The hand fan-shaped grille was very narrow at the bottom and opened far up, which had cultural significance in China from the Chinese character for "fan" (扇).

Despite its Mopar roots, its styling was based on the Soviet GAZ-21 Volga although Hongqi scaled up its proportions, making it reminiscent to the ZIL-111 limousine.