Cars are one of my passions and when I heard that there was a Beijing motorshow I knew I couldn't miss it. It wasn't just any ordinary motorshow like Autoafrica, instead it promised to be even better than the Frankfurt IAA which I was lucky enough to attend last year. The Beijing motorshow promised to have many world first debuts as well as many rare supercars including the most powerful Ferrari roadcar ever the 599GTO. There were others such as the Bugatti Veyron Grandsport, Lamborghini LP670-4 Super Veloce China Edition (a special chinese limited edition, only 10), Bentley Continental Supersports. Despite all there would also be many new innovations and displays of technology especially in terms of saving the planet.
I arrived in Beijing on 30 April, the train arrived a little late and because it was a friday and a labour weekend holiday the entire station and surrounding area were filled with utter chaos. The first thing I did was buy a ticket back to Siping and I was lucky as I managed to get the exact ticket I wanted, the D27 express train back to Siping. Then I had to wait in line for over 30 minutes to buy a subway ticket, once I had that I made my way to the 9 Dragons hostel which I stayed at last time. When I arrived at the hostel I had to do some negotiating but I managed to get a room for 50RMB which included a shower but it was a dorm room for 5 people, I didn't mind, to my luck it was empty. I dropped my things in the room, took a quick shower, I then went downstairs and had some breakfast. I then had to ask for directions to get to the motorshow, luckily they were quite straightforward.
I got to the end of line 3 which was Tiantongyuan North station it was already 11:30am at this time. Next I had to take a Rapid Bus link (3RMB) to the exhibition center, this took about 50 minutes. After paying the 50 RMB entrance fee I got an outlining of all the different halls. Because of the time of day it was very crowded so I opted to see the less attractive cars and come back early the following day to get a better glance at the main attractions, this paid off well. One of the first things that I noticed was the fact that unlike any other motorshow I had been to there were more girls than cars.
Mercedes Benz unveiled its E-Class L (extended/long wheelbase) version which is specifically tailored for the Chinese market, quite strange that almost all german executive saloons sold here are sold in their L derivates. There was also the amazing new SLS AMG which I saw last year In Frankfurt and I must say it still looks just as amazing. Other attractions were the Mercedes Benz shooting break concept and the F800 which is packed with innovative technologies.
I was quite disappointed by the BMW display, there was the beautiful looking new 5 series in its L derivative and a matte black M3 fitted with some special carbon fiber bits. Other than that there were just two save the planet concepts.
Citroen had its new DS3 hatchback which promises to be a really amazing car, it looks really impressive.
Nissan had two GTR R35 displays, one skeleton model and one complete car. Every time I see this car I feel like a little boy, I know its "only" a Nissan but facts are facts and this is a monster, which is why the Japanese refer to it as the Godzilla.
Renault had its 2009 F1 car on display as well as its two latest super hatchbacks the Clio RS 200 and the Megane RS 250.
Honda had a huge display of cars and most of them were treehuggers, they even had the Honda insight on display which is a Hydrogen powered car. This car is already sold and driven in California, the only place on earth with an abundence of hydrogen filling stations.
I then went to have a look at Ferrari, Jaguar, Porsche, Bentley, Aston Martin, Lamborghini, Bugatti and Audi but it was just too crowded so I left it and decided to comeback the following day. I used up some more time glancing at some of the Chinese manufacturers and wherever I looked there were so many exact or almost exact copies of european cars. Aston Martin, Porsche Cayenne, Mercedes M-Class and Hummers had all been copied in one way or another, some were extremely convincing.
Later that evening I got back to the hostel and found out that my room had suddenly been occupied by 3 blonde Danish girls, every guys dream. Unfortunatly "for them" I was hungry and tired so I had a Pizza downstairs which was really good, afterwards I just went to bed and passed out immeadiatley.
The following morning I got up at 7, had some breakfast and made the same journey to the exhibition centre, I got there 30 minutes before opening time and despite this the security let me in anyway.
I went straight to all the main attractions, first Lamborghini the Murcielago LP670-4SV was breathtaking, so was the new Superleggera which had many new carbon bits making it look even more amazing.
The Bentley selection was also quite impressive especially the Continental Supersports which can run on Bio Ethanol and save the planet with its 600 horsepower W12, not really, but its great marketing and allows buyers to feel like they are contributing to a greener future.
Porsche, my favourites had all their latest facelifts and models on display, including the new 911 Turbo S PDK and New Cayenne Turbo which actually looks pretty good now. They also had a race car on display the GT3 R hybrid with the decals "Porsche Intelligent Performance" stuck on the side. I feel that technologies used on this car will be seen on normal road cars in the near future. Basically the car has a normal flat six 480 horsepower engine but also an electric motor which can give an extra 120 horsepower boost instantaneously, its basically like NOS which you see in the Fast and the Furious movies. However unlike gas this power is recharged every time the cars brakes are applied. This is just another one of those cellphone or computer instances where people (failure to envisage) say "never" and then 5 or 10 years down the line everyone has one.
The Bugatti was amazing because I knew what I was looking at but to the average person I don't think they would know they are looking at a 400km/h convertible rocketship with a 1.3 million euro pricetag.
Audi had the R8 Spyder which is beautiful but other than that there weren't any RS models on display, I was expecteing the TTRS but there wasn't even a TTS.
The main attraction of course was the Ferrari 599GTO which was as beautiful has I had imagined. Only 599 examples were available and they had all been sold as soon as the car was announced. The car is packed with F1 techonology and with 700 horsepower it is also the most powerful road going Ferrari ever made. There was also the 458 Italia, 612 Scalietti and California on display.
There was also selection of other Supercars such as Maserati, Aston Martin and Spyker but no new models.
I got back to the hostel in the evening and went to the pearl market to have a look at something but didn't actually buy anything despite being harrased. After dinner I went back to the hostel. The 3 Danish blondes were having drinks and snacks, they offered me a drink and asked me what I was doing that afternoon, I told them I had to go to bed because I had a 7 am train. I didn't want to go out and then try get up early for the train and possible miss it.
I left the hostel at 6am and got some food on the way, there were some delays in the subway and I knew that I was seriously late for the train. By the time I got on the last subway I had 10 minutes to spare and the subway had to make another 2 stops, I had almost accepted that I had missed the train. When I got to the Beijing main station stop I had 3 minutes to spare but I had to run to the station, get past security and find the correct platform. I ran as fast as I could and managed to get through security and skipping the x-rays and metal detectors. I could now see the train and still had a bit to run, by the time I got to the final staircase down to the train I could feel like lactic acid build up and my heartrate was peaking, I got on the train and basically collapsed, the train left about 30 seconds later. This delay however had an advantage because the express train was actually two trains and I had gotten on the second section and there was no way to get to my seat so the conductor let me sit in first class which was pretty good.
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