About China's Coolest Cars
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”
A very pretty Mercedes-Benz 300 SEL, seen near the Agricultural Exhibition Center in Beijing, capital of China. The great Mercedes was in super shape and painted in white, a rather rare color for the S-Class in China.
Pink cars always look good. Proof: Check this pink Hyundai Coupe. Without pink, nobody would see it. Now we do. It is a wrap and the original color was white; note the areas around the door handle and mirror stalk.
The second generation Hyundai Coupe was made from 2002 until 2008, with facelifts in 2005 and 2007. Our pinkie is a pre-facelift example. The Coupe was sold in China from 2004 until 2007. It was available with a 140 hp 2.0 and with a 170 hp 2.7 V6.
They were quite popular and quite a few are still around today, most of them modified in one way or the other.
This is the Infiniti Q50 S, a sporty variant of the Q50 sedan for the Chinese market. It comes with a racy body kit, giant 19-inch wheels, darkened windows, darkened head light visors, and winglets in the bumper.
Continue reading “The Infiniti Q50 S Is A Speedy Sedan In China”
A Volkswagen Santana 2000 in heavy rain in Beijing. Note the cool Xiali sedan in the background on the right.
This vehicle belongs to fire prevention and control (消防) department of the police, so it is a bit of both a police car and a fire brigade car. The white license plate are used by the police, People’s Armed Police (PAP), and by the armed forces.
I took this photo in 2010, when the old white license plates were still in use. WJ stands for wujing (武警), a collective abbreviation police and armed forces. 31 stands for Beijing.
The Santana 2000 was one of many Santana variants manufactured by the SAIC-Volkswagen joint venture in Shanghai. It was rather rare to see Shanghai-made cars in public service in Beijing, as the local government mostly bought locally-made cars, like Hyundai’s and Beijing’s and such.
In any way, with so much rain the fire fighters probably had an easy night!
Here we have a dark red Dodge Caliber, seen on the streets of east Beijing. The Caliber was dusty but otherwise in a very good shape.
Continue reading “Dodge Caliber 2.0 SXT Is Dark Red In China”