Tycho's Illustrated History Of Chinese Cars: Hongqi CA773 Parade Car

Tycho de Feyter
by Tycho de Feyter


Let people go to Chengdu to satisfy prurient desires. I went to Chengdu to visit the Sanhe Classic Car Museum. I found a car that was really for the chosen few, a fantastic Hongqi CA773 Parade Car. The parade car was based on the CA773 sedan which was made from 1969 until 1976. This particular parade car was made in 1974.

Dash first because it is almost perfect. Giant steering wheel. Shiny but not too-shiny wood. Instrument cluster in top condition. Bench in cream colored leather looks very sleek. This CA773 was restored by Sanhe and as usual they made it better than new.

A badge of Tiananmen gate under the speedo, which tops at 200km/h. Real world top speed of this heavy parade cars was 120 at most. The odometer stands at 3,228 kilometers. A Hongqi (Red Flag) can easily do half a million.

Golden sunflower in the center of the steering wheel. Around the golden sunflower three flags, meaning: ‘Socialist Construction’, ‘Great Leap Forward’ and ‘People’s Commune’, which were the most important pillars under Mao’s destructive policies… The flags are painted gold in this CA773, while originally they where socialist-red, one example of the over restoration of this car.

This is how it should be:

Picture taken in a Hongqi CA770, see this post.

Period radio embedded in wood, controls for ventilation low in dash. The CA773 was basically a short wheelbase version of the Hongqi CA770. Wheelbase shrunk 40 centimeter to 3420. Not that short indeed, length is 5,500 centimeters (CA770: 5,590) and weight is 2,360 kilo. This CA773 Parade Car is one of the shortest China produced.

The CA770 in turn was based on the 1950′s Chrysler CA 70 for which First Auto Works (FAW) obtained the rights in the early 1960′s, FAW is the owner of the Hongqi brand. The engine for the CA770 and CA773 came from Chrysler as well, a mighty 5.6 liter V8 with 215hp.

Period clock. Parade cars were used for parading the highest Chinese leaders during celebrations and for riding visiting foreign dignitaries around. How many of these CA773 Parade Cars were made is sadly unknown, but definitely no more than a handful.

Note handle bar above the front bench. Officials could hold the bar with one hand and wave with the other to the adoring masses. There is enough room in the back for two. If the leaders were tired of waving, they could sit down on the sofa-like bench. There was no roof, when it rained, underlings climbed on the back with umbrellas to keep their dear leaders dry.

What a beauty she is, no matter the slightly overdone restoration. Chrome was this shiny back in the 1970s, and yellow fog lights are correct.

Dutchman Tycho de Feyter runs Carnewschina.com, a blog about cars in China, from Beijing, China. He also collects die-cast models of Chinese cars.

Tycho de Feyter
Tycho de Feyter

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  • -Nate -Nate on Sep 12, 2012

    SWEET ! . Who knew The Chinese had such good taste . -Nate

  • Boxelder Boxelder on Sep 12, 2012

    I absolutely LOVE this type of review. More please! Anything from the old Soviet era especially. Was this particular car an indigenous design or was it based on a previous design by a Western manufacturer? My fascination perhaps comes from the regret I feel for not buying a Trabbi when I did my foreign exchange in Germany 1990... they were practically giving them away back then.

  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
  • Oberkanone Where is the value here? Magna is assembling the vehicles. The IP is not novel. Just buy the IP at bankruptcy stage for next to nothing.
  • Jalop1991 what, no Turbo trim?
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