China Announces The Bling Dynasty

Bertel Schmitt
by Bertel Schmitt

What car for the Chinese man who has everything? Easy answer: A golden car! Golden cars are all the rage in the Middle Kingdom, where ostentatiousness has entered the Rococo age: The man who lives in a mansion adorned with turrets, pillars and gold-plated putti of course needs to have the wheels that complement his eclectic tastes. The car industry is happy to oblige. Carnewschina has found this gaudy Siebener parked down by the street. Perfect in hot weather, saves a lot of energy over the usual black. You think that’s an isolated case?

Remember the gold-plated Infiniti G37 that was arrested in Nanjing for standing around without the proper tags and license? It ended up in a jewelery store in Nanjing. It also was featured prominently in state-owned Xinhua.

How about a bit more subdued? For slightly less conspicuous consumption, GM China has an all chrome Buick Excelle XT for you, shown at the Shanghai Auto Show.

This created a trend amongst the less fortunate, as this chrome-plated BMW X5M attests.

Bertel Schmitt
Bertel Schmitt

Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.

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  • 2ronnies1cup 2ronnies1cup on Aug 27, 2011

    Ah, China. The People's Supreme Socialist Secretariat has passed a diktat that from now on all fellow proliteriat comrades will be Capitalists. This ruling is final. There will be no exceptions. The Party has Spoken.

  • Autobraz Autobraz on Aug 27, 2011

    With gold prices the way they are, if I lived close to this BMW I would scratch my nails on it everyday and collect the shavings...

  • SCE to AUX We don't need no stinking badges.
  • SCE to AUX I've never been teased by a bumper like that one before.
  • 3SpeedAutomatic R&T could have killed the story before it was released.Now, by pulling it after the fact, they look like idiots!! What's new??
  • Master Baiter "That said, the Inflation Reduction Act apparently does run afoul of WTO rules..."Pfft. The Biden administration doesn't care about rules. The Supreme Court said they couldn't forgive student load debt; they did it anyway. Decorum and tradition says you don't prosecute former presidents; they are doing it anyway. They made the CDC suspend evictions though they had no constitutional authority to do so.
  • 1995 SC Good. To misquote Sheryl Crow "If it makes them unhappy, it can't be that bad"
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