About China's Coolest Cars
And that day in 2010 I went to a new-energy show in Beijing. Local hero Beijing Auto Industry Corporation (BAIC) had a big booth on the show with all sorts of Beijing-branded concept cars including two EVs.
BAIC was on a roll those days. They had just purchased the rights to the Saab 9-5 and Saab 9-3 from General Motors, including the 2.0 and 2.3 turbo engines. The Beijing C71 was a concept car based on the Saab 9-5. It got a modernized new front, a new rear, new badges, and new wheels.
A silver Kia Pride sedan with some slight damage on the door, seen on the parking lot of the Poly Theatre in central Beijing in 2011. The Kia Pride was made in China by the Dongfeng-Yueda-Kia joint venture. Continue reading “Dongfeng Yueda Kia Pride Sedan In China”
A very cool FAW Jiefang army tanker truck, seen on a highway to the north of Beijing in 2011, carrying a load of fuel. The characters on the side say: fire and smoke forbidden. In case there would be a fire anyway, the truck is equipped with a tiny red fire extinguisher.
Interestingly, part of the exhaust pipe sits under the front bumper, likely to keep heat away from the cargo. The right mirror is truly gigantic so the driver can keep a good eye on the tanker area. Army tucks like this are a common sight on China’s endless highways, always neatly washed and painted in a dark shade of army green.
First Auto Works (FAW) is one of the oldest and largest car making conglomerates of China. Jiefang, or Liberation, is a brand making a wide range of trucks and vans. They made their first truck, the Jiefang CA10, way back in 1956.
A mildly modified Brilliance Coupe, seen in a village up in the mountains to the north of Beijing. The car stood parked in front of a restaurant. It was made pretty with an extra body kit, a red grille, orange window frames, two fat exhaust pipes, and a set of racy alloys.
More beer! A Beijing-branded tricycle carrying empty bottles of Yanjing beer, standing in front of a neighborhood beer distribution point. The blue crates behind the trike are filled with new bottles of delicious Yanjing beer. The green crates are for Tsingtao beer but they too are filled with Yanjing bottles.
I saw this tricycle in the hutongs of central Beijing when Yanjing beer bottles still contained 0.645 liter of easy drinkable beer with an alcohol percentage of 3.6%. In my good old days I drunk a truck of the stuff each week. Sadly, most Chinese beer makers have since changed their bottle size to the internationally more acceptable 0.5 liter.
Back then many people in China still preferred to drink their beer at room-temperature instead of cooled. So at distribution points beer was mostly kept uncooled and out in the open. Cheers!
A very different Volkswagen New Beetle. It is wrapped in a classy orange-yellow-brown leopard wrap. The wrap extends all over the car, including mirrors, bumpers, and the door handles. Continue reading “Volkswagen New Beetle Is A Leopard In China”
Here we have a cool Toyota Prius police car, seen in Beijing in 2011 with nice white 京·A1777 police license plates. The second generation Toyota Prius was quite popular as a police car in China, especially in the north.
A dark blue Volvo 960 sedan, seen in the Sanlitun embassy district in Beijing in 2011. License plate is an early one too, 陕A·00547 from Shaanxi Province. Judging by the the number, this was one of the very first privately-owned cars in that province. Continue reading “An Early Volvo 960 In Dark Blue In Beijing”
Going back to Tiananmen Square in 2011 I met these interesting camera vans. They look kind of funny but they actually are fully mobile police camera vehicles, able to control and inspect large areas of town. Continue reading “Hongma Camera Vans In Beijing”
A fantastic Maybach 57, seen in Beijing in 2011 on a side road of the Fourth Ring Road. The long-wheelbase Maybach 62 limousine is not uncommon in China but the shorter 57 is quite rare. Whenever I see a Maybach from those days I am always surprised by how huge they actually are. Even the 57 is 5.7 meters long, 1.98meters wide and 1.5 meters tall.
The car that I met was painted in black over dark gray. At first I thought the sporty alloys where after-market but they were actually standard in China on the 2009 and 2010 model years. Power came from the mighty 6.0 twin-turbo motor, good for 640 hp and 1000 Nm. Price in 2009 started at 5.38 million yuan. The Maybach 62 started at more than double that; 12.98 million in the same year. That made the 57 look like a great deal!
In anyway, the Maybach name is still very popular. China is the largest market worldwide for the new common Benz-based Maybach line.