About China's Coolest Cars
A super cool Volkswagen Citi Golf CLX, seen on a snowy winter’s day in 2009 in the faraway Tongzhou District in east Beijing, capital of China. The good Volkswagen stood parked on a corner near a public gym, complete with two table-tennis tables! That day, nobody was playing.
Continue reading “Volkswagen Citi Golf CLX Is White In China”
Here we have three (03) right-hand drive Nissan 180SX sporty cars, seen on the Golden Port race track in Beijing, capital of China, back in 2007. In China, folks drive on the right side of the road, so why did we we have these righties there?
Continue reading “RHD Nissan 180SX Drift Car Times Three And Some Other Nice Cars”
A very pretty Hyundai Sonata police car in Beijing, painted in blue-white with a large lights & siren unit on the roof. I saw it in 2005 near Tiananmen Square, parked in a narrow street.
The fourth-generation (EF) Hyundai Sonata was the first generation Sonata that was made in China, by the Beijing-Hyundai joint venture. Production started in 2002 and continued all the way, with various updates, until 2017!
The police car has the 2.5 liter V6 under the bonnet, which was good for 164 hp and 225 Nm. Gearbox was a 4-speed automatic. The China-made Sonata was also available with various other engines, including a 2.0 and a 3.0 V6.
A very beautiful Mercedes-Benz 300 SEL in China, seen at a small car restoration shop north of Northern Section of the Fifth Ring Road in Beijing. The great Mercedes was in very good shape and fully original.
Continue reading “A Silver W126 Mercedes-Benz 300 SEL In China”
An Isuzu television bus, seen under a flyover of the Third Ring Road in Beijing in 2005. It looked like it had been there for quite a while. The yellow 京A license plate is very old and ultra rare.
An absolutely perfect Mercedes-Benz 280 GE, seen in a repair shop on a car market in the south of the Chinese capital Beijing. The blue G was in mint-condition and totally original inside and out.
Continue reading “A Blue W460 Mercedes-Benz 280 GE In Beijing”
A Beijing BJ130 water tank truck, seen inside the Forbidden City in Beijing in 2004. The truck belonged to the Forbidden City’s own fire department and stood in a somewhat faraway area of the enormous palace complex.
The truck comes with yellow inner-headlights, tiny narrow wheels, mirrors on the front-front fenders, and superbly basic 5-yuan reflectors on each side of the grille.
The Beijing BJ130 was manufactured by Beijing No.2 Auto Works from the mid-1970’s until the late 1980’s. It was powered by the famous 4-cylinder North 492 gasoline engine that was used in many vehicles made in those days. The engine was mated to a four-speed manual.
Until 2010 or so you could still see these great trucks standing around in the older areas of Beijing but these days most are gone and forgotten. I don’t think our fire truck is in the Forbidden City anymore, but at least she will be remembered!
A very pretty 997 Porsche 911 Turbo S in China, seen late at night on a quiet road in the capital Beijing in 2013. The speedy Porsche was painted in a pearl-shade of white with a red-brown interior.
A Volkswagen Passat Lingyu on the 2010 China International Exhibition on Police Equipment (CIEPE), held in the beautiful Beijing Exhibition Center in northwest Beijing. Sadly, the show has since moved to the less pretty China National Convention Center.
The show was about all sorts of police equipment, ranging from guns to uniforms to surveillance cameras. Great fun. But even better were the police cars, displayed by car makers hoping for a deal with the cops. Some of these cars did eventually make it into real police cars, others didn’t. The Passat Lingyu, like the Passats before it, would have a long police career. Continue reading “Shopping For A Police Car In China”
Here we have a black Hyundai Sonata with black Shandong Province license plates, seen at a small car shop in the far east of Beijing.
The man on the left is the shop’s owner, the two younger gentlemen his employees. They were all from Shandong, shipping vehicles from there and selling them in the capital.
Continue reading “Beijing-Hyundai Sonata With Black Shandong License Plates”