My second favorite part of the China 60th Anniversary National Holiday Celebrations is seeing President Hu riding around in his deluxe new automobile.

Traditionally, the President will drive around in a Hongqi brand car on the National Holiday, standing through the sunroof with microphones built into the car for speaking to the audience.

It’s a tradition that goes all the way back to Mao and the early years of the country, and the car has become an iconic part of Chinese history. And there are a few for sale (without the sunroof/microphones) on Taobao.

That’s pretty much all you need to know, I guess.  Plan on spending an extra 5,000rmb on proper window tinting, and another 2,000rmb on that awesome VIP duck-quack horn. Guaranteed to turn more heads than a factory-owner’s Ferrari.

Now we are cooking. This 700,000rmb Red Flag car from 1969 is stated to have once belonged to former Vice Premier He Long.  (But if you read He Long’s wikipedia page, that timeline doesn’t really make sense.) Nice looking ride though!

If you can’t afford hundreds of thousands of rmb to buy a Red Flag, then you can still own a small piece of that noble essence with one of these 1:32 models. It is 35rmb.

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