In mid September 2017 I found a very strange car collection, standing on the roof of a building in an old area in northeast Beijing. The building and cars were sadly in a bad shape.
First up: a black Citroen CX. The CX is very rare in China, but this example appeared to be noting more than an empty shell.
Next to it stood a gray Daimler Sovereign (Series 3 Jaguar XJ). This car seemed to be in better shape. The body looked clean enough, but the open boot was worrying.
Next to the Jag’ stood an old model Mercedes-Benz G-Class, painted in mustard yellow. Likely a mid 1990’s model.
The worst looking car was this white Toyota Land Cruiser, really just the body with nothing in or on.
But the catch of the Rooftop Collection was this red Alfa Romeo 155, a car so rare in China that is makes the Citroen CX look common. It appeared to be in reasonable shape, although the open bonnet was not a good sign.
The wall was about two meters high and I didn’t see any stairs or ramp around. Still, I wanted to find out more:
My phone’s map showed the cars neatly lined up. See the white roof of the Land Cruiser in the middle of the photo. But again, there didn’t seem to be any way to actually get to these cars. I decided to check out the buildings just to the south of the rooftop.
The whole area was scheduled for demolition so most of the buildings and houses were already abandoned and emptied. There were a few man working in this building, moving around stuff and such. I asked them about the cars and they pointed to another structure just to the north.
And there I found the actual building where the cars were on. The cars are standing behind the wall on the top of the building. But there were no stairs, and there was no ramp.
I met another man and he told me the cars belonged to the owner of a company that used to be based there. He confirmed there were no stairs of any kind, and told me the vehicles had been put up there with a crane.
I didn’t have a crane or long ladder in my pocket so I decided to move on. But I was afraid the upcoming demolition would demolish the cars, so I decided to keep an eye on them. One week later I passed by again:
Gone they were! Except…
… for the Land Cruiser. I drove around in the area for an hour trying to find the other cars, but I failed. There was absolutely nobody around anymore to ask, the area was deserted. Another week later I decided to check again, just to find that the while building had been demolished.
This kind of destruction is common in China. Entire neighborhoods and areas can disappear overnight. The local municipality is planning to build a business district here.
A few buildings had survived the initial onslaught, but they are all down now.
On the other side of the road; the modern city on the move, with a destroyed area in front of it. This particular area was once home to a crappy car market, with mostly crappy truck repair shops. It was also the place where I found a Volkswagen Beetle RSi in 2016.
And guess what popped up a few days later on the WeChat of the man who owned that Beetle..? The rooftop collection. Same owner!
Photos via Ali Khahili, who in 2016 tried to buy the Beetle, and who had kept in touch with the owner. See Beetle story. Ali asked him over WeChat where the cars were, and if he wanted to sell. But the owner did not respond.
The Alfa’s roof is totally crushed. The G-Class on the right.
The Daimler still looked best of ‘m all, but appeared to be missing some parts and trim, including the mirrors.
The cars were parked in front of some repair shop, but I didn’t know it, and after a while I assumed the cars had been stored somewhere out of sight.
Too bad about that Daimler… Or was it?!
A few months ago these images appeared on the owner’s WeChat, showing the Daimler in great shape, restored to perfection. It received a new paint job but seems otherwise remarkably original. Even the original wheels were cleaned up, and it has the right mirrors.
The interior looked great as well, look at that old wood! Very good to see they fixed this one up, so it can road the streets of the capital again, after that sad intermezzo on the roof.
A brilliant piece of restoration work. Let’s hope the Alfa is next.
Cool story, very interesting look inside Chinese automobile world.