Intriguing: where is Mao’s hearse?

One of the intriguing projects is the Hongqi CA770 hearse, made in 1977.

It was the late Hongqi designer Lv Yanbin who made these drawings of a hearse, based on the Hongqi CA770 Station Wagon.

Th story was that the car was designed in 1977 to remove Mao’s body from the Mao Mausoleum when the Soviet Union was going to attack Beijing. The car would have been stored underneath the Mausoleum, in a part of the so-called Beijing Underground City.

The design of the  hearse was very similar to that of the Hongqi CA770 Station Wagon.

As no pictures of the car are known, only Lv’s drawings, there was a doubt if the car was really existing.

But now we have confirmation from inside FAW:
at the Xiyuan Airport (this is a small military airport with one runway in the west side of Beijing, also named Beijing Xijiao Airport), there is the “Railway Training Base”. And there is the hearse stored, and not only the hearse but also three other special vehicles.
A team from FAW has seen these vehicles in 2008 and 2012.

And now about the other cars, stored there.
First: A genuine Hongqi CA770 ‘parade car’ convertible.

Second: a strange open CA72 to transport a  coffin.

Third a big truck, 8×8. The story is that this truck is used to bring Mao’s body to Shaoshan and take it back to Beijing, before exposing it in the Mausoleum. Probably the truck was a Huanghe JN252.

And at last again a drawing of the hearse: the rear side.

We hope that the day will come that we can look for ourselves, and show you the pictures. So far we only can show you this.