Now Available In Glorious 1:32 Scale Diecast: Hongqi CA770TJ Limo With Lights and Music


In what kind of limo did Chou En-Lai and the Great Helmsman ride during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution? The “Red Flag” CA770, of course!

Thanks to the very generous judicial bribes of many 24 Hours of LeMons racers, I’ve got a diecast-car collection that ranges from a Simca Aronde hitchhiking diorama to a Leyland P76 to a Moskvich 408 rally car. And yet, something was missing.

My collection of weird diecast toy cars, which now threatens to overwhelm my office, lacked Chinese cars. Oh, sure, just about all of them were made in the Middle Kingdom, but that’s not the same as a vaguely accurate scale replica of a Red Flag.

Did I say Red Flag? I meant Red Flog, which is what’s molded into the underside of the “Hongqi Luxury LED SOUND METAL CAR.” That’s right, for a mere $25.98 you can have this fine piece of automotive history shipped right to your door from Hong Kong.
That’s a bit steep for an admittedly low-quality 1:32 diecast, but look what happens when you push down on the back wheels or open either door (after wedging four AG3 watch batteries into the alleged battery compartment with cardboard shims). I do hope the real CA770 doesn’t make that terrible Vegematic-full-of-lug-nuts noise when starting. That’s a GAZ-M21 Volga in the background, by the way.

How could I ever top this? A diecast Renault-IKA Torino!














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- Kat Laneaux Agree with Michael500, we wasted all that money just to bail out GM and they are developing these cars in China and other countries. What the heck. I understand the cheap labor but that is just another foothold the government has on their citizens and they already treat them like crap. That is pretty disgusting to go forward to put other peoples health and mental stability on a crazy crazed, control freak, leader, who is in bed with Russia. Thought about getting a buick but that just shot that one out of the park. All of this for the greed. They get what they lay in bed with. Disgusting.
- Michael500 Good thing Obama used $50 billion of taxpayer money to bail them out and give unions a big stake. GM is headed to BK again with their Hail Mary hope of EVs. Hopefully a Republican in office will let them go BK the next time, and it's coming. The US economy is not related/dependent on GM and their Chinese made Buicks.
- MaintenanceCosts "Rural areas hardly noticed COVID at all."I very much doubt that is true in places like the Navajo Nation or the Kenai Peninsula in Alaska, some of which lost 2% or more of their population to COVID.No city had a death rate in the same order of magnitude.Low-density living is a very modern invention. Before cars, people, even in agricultural areas, needed to live densely to survive.
- Wjtinfwb Always liked these MN12 cars and the subsequent Lincoln variant. But Ford, apparently strapped for resources or cash, introduced these half-baked. Very sophisticated chassis and styling, let down but antiquated old pushrod engines and cheap interiors. The 4.6L Modular V8 helped a bit, no faster than the 5.0 but extremely smooth and quiet. The interior came next, nicer wrap-around dash, airbags instead of the mouse belts and refined exterior styling. The Supercharged 3.8L V6 was potent, but kind of crude and had an appetite for head gaskets early on. Most were bolted to the AOD automatic, a sturdy but slow shifting gearbox made much better with electronic controls in the later days. Nice cars that in the right color, evoked the 6 series BMW, at least the Thunderbird did. Could have been great cars and maybe should have been a swoopy CLS style sedan. Pretty hard to find a decent one these days.
- Inside Looking Out You should care. With GM will die America. All signs are there. How about the Arsenal of Democracy? Toyota?
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Nice sound-chipped 4 chair affair of Kiss, Nixon, Mao & Chou meet. Push the button beneath, the voices come up random Chinese & English. Most Chinese don't remember the visit - it was censored. Trump for me - a diecast crumpled Brezhnev Shadow with drunken, startled figure.
I am rather confused as to why it makes a horrifying grinding sound when you open the driver side door. I'd probably be tempted to buy this if it weren't so janky looking.