Author: Tycho de Feijter

The Volkswagen Group China And The 2008 Beijing Olympic Games

Volkswagen Group China was the official automotive partner of the Beijing Olympic Games. The theme of the cooperation was “Enjoy the Olympic Journey with Volkswagen”.

This partnership was mainly about providing vehicles to the Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee: 4.350 Volkswagens, 650 Skodas, and 1.000 Audi-brand cars. Volkswagen Group China reportedly paid US$150 million for the pleasure of providing the vehicles, outbidding Hyundai China.

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China’s Obsession With Long-wheelbase Cars and My Obsession With Chinese Long-wheelbase cars

Today, we take a deep dive into China’s obsession with long-wheelbase variants of existing cars. Get some beer and chips because this will be a long (L) story. To be clear, his story is about LWB versions of existing cars developed for the Chinese car market. It is impossible to include every L car, for example, Audi has made 3 generations of the A6 L. So I have tried to limit myself to the most important vehicles. It is not about other China-only cars that happen to have a long wheelbase too and happen to have an L in their name, like the Audi A7L or the Ford Edge L. Chinese manufacturers sometimes use L-naming for luxury variants of cars, without any changes to the wheelbase. These cars are excluded from this article as well.

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China Concept Cars: The 2007 Geely Meirenbao II

In the 2000s, Geely was concept car crazy. On most auto shows, the brand would launch up to ten (10) concept cars, packed into the booth, next to the production cars. One of the most interesting cars from Geely’s golden concept era was the Geely Meirenbao II (美人豹II), a concept for a successor of the Meirenbao sports car.

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Crazy Car Production Days of Guangdong: Beijing Zhonglian

Today in Crazy Car Production Days of Guangdong (CCPDoG™): Beijing Zhonglian. Earlier, we saw their normal cars.

CCCPDoG was a ‘creative’ scheme to get around China’s extremely high import tariffs for foreign-made cars in the late 1990s. Several companies would collaborate to ‘produce’ cars in China, piggybacking on an existing Chinese car maker with a valid car-making license.

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China Concept Cars: The Haima Fstar Me & Haima MPe Electric Minicars

Today in China Concept Cars (CCC): the Haima Me and MPe electric minicars. The Me debuted at the 2008 Beijing Auto Show and the MPe debuted one year later at the 2009 Shanghai Auto Show.

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China Concept Cars: The Story Of The Hongqi C601 Sedan

Today in China Concept Cars: the Hongqi C601 sedan. In the early 2000s, Hongqi was looking for a new mid-size luxury sedan. To get there, they developed four concept cars under the C601 code name. These were:

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Chinese Hummers Part 1: The Dongfeng Warrior & The Shenfei Falcon

Today we take a deep dive into the Chinese Hummer program. Like so many other countries, China got interested in an HMMWV-like vehicle after the first Gulf War. We take a look at four Chinese Hummer programs.  China being China, each of these programs has a base model + dozens and dozens of derivative military and civilian variants.

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China Concept Cars: The 2006 Fulwin 2 Coupe

Today in China Concept Cars (CCC): the Chery Fulwin II Coupe, a sporty two-door concept car that debuted at the 2006 Beijing Auto Show. It was an important car for Chery as it marked the debut of a new design language and the debut of the new Fulwin 2 series.

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