Collecting classic cars in China

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We’ve all heard the stories of Chinese millionaires gobbling up all the sweets at European and American auctions, and storing these crown jewels away in their far-Asian vaults without anyone to see them anymore, ruining the market for us, who created this motoring heritage in the first place. But what’s true about this? We have never seen any evidence of this. However, for the first time we stumbled upon a lovely little movie about a Chinese classic car collector on the world wide web. And it’s a gem. We meet Luo Wenyou, a Chinese classic car pioneer, who runs his private motor museum in Beijing. Surprisingly perhaps, you won’t find any overpriced Ferraris and other over-publicized auction-records here. This is a moderate museum, carefully build up by the man who dreamt it up. And of the 200 cars on display, 70 are Chinese-built, with Mao Zedong’s 1958 Honqi as its epicenter. 

Mister Wenyou said: “I have never thought of making money from my collection. It is my hobby and that is why I decided to open the museum and display the cars. Collecting classic cars is a new fashion. Some rich people do it out of interest and some do it as an investment. From the investment perspective, I don’t think it is the best investment, because in China classic cars are not allowed to go on the road. It will take a long time for them to revalue.”
Wise man.

(Words Jeroen Booij, picture courtesy James Wasserman)

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