These Are the Chinese Cars that You Would Buy

This is an easy question. I live in Beijing (but drive an American car), and see local made cars every day, and have seen the rapid development of style and features.

From just a few years ago when the cars were copies or slightly better than a Tata Nano (BYD F0 for example) to now where they are higher quality, uniquely styled (even though I don’t care for the styling) and much more efficient (by friend just bought a BYD Yuan Plus and they can’t stop raving about it), the local car manufactures have really started to up their game.

All of that being said, I am pretty old school at heart, and if I could only take one of the ridiculous amount of cars that China makes, it would be the Hong Qi L5. I very rarely see them on the streets but they appeal to my American aesthetic, of a big imposing car that can eat up the miles in comfort. Some tasteful mods make things even better.

Like this one I spotted at a car show a few years ago in Beijing.

If not this one then, the oldschool original one would be ok, however, I think that it would require a lot of maintenance as they were basically all hand build during the cultural revolution and the few I see are usually not running or need work.

Finally, I have a friend who’s husband worked for the US Embassy, while there were here he rebuilt a Beijing 4X4 (not Jeep, but we just call them Beijing Jeeps, not sure of the actual name now that I think about it…) and brought it back to the states with him.

You might be thinking to yourself, “Hey, didn’t the Hongqi already make the list? That dumb idiot just put the same car on here twice.” But while I may be a dumb idiot, I actually did not put the same car on here twice. The L5’s front end just looks like the CA770’s front end. Chinese automakers are allowed to have a thing for retro styling, too, you know.