A Rolls-Royce Ghost, as seen late at night in Beijing in the winter of 2011. The good Roller is painted in metallic gray with a metal-gray hood, it stands on standard alloy wheels and it has a classy blue 京A license plate.
Blue 京A license plates are not the same as black 京A license plates. The blue ones were issued to the very first batches of privately registered cars in Beijing, as opposed to cars registered to companies or the government. Most blue 京A plates were issued in the early 1990s. When one of those cars was subsequently crushed or otherwise taken off the streets the plates became available again.
In the 2000s, blue 京A license plates became status symbols among the newly wealthy, as they believed the early plates equaled early money. What happened next was that these wealthy folks would buy genuine cars with a blue 京A license plate, ship them off to the crusher, and put the plates on a newer and more expensive car. This is how the 京A·33867 ended up on this Rolls-Royce. Earlier on we met a similar Rolls-Royce Phantom with 京A·65856 and a Phantom EWB with 京A·63907.
The Rolls-Royce Ghost is a luxury sedan with suicide doors. Production of the Ghost Series I started in 2009 and ended in 2014. The Ghost is largely based on the same platform as the F01 BMW 7-Series, but it is a much prettier and more expensive car.
The Ghost was an impressive and ultra-luxurious machine. Under the hood was a turbocharged 6.6 liter V12 engine with an output of 571 hp and 780 Nm, good for a 250 kilometers per hour top speed and a 0-100 time of only 4.9 seconds.
Sales of the Rolls-Royce Ghost in China started in 2010. The price in 2011, when I saw this car, started at 4.19 million RMB. The long-wheelbase EWB version was launched in 2012 for 5.11 million RMB. Lots of cash but probably worth it, especially with these fancy blue license plates.