China Announces The Bling Dynasty
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 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.
More by Bertel Schmitt
Comments
Join the conversation
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.
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...