Spottings from China and Taiwan

[garethj]

It’s time to bring you more adventures from the mystical east, brought to you by my employers who think nothing of sending me 6000 miles across the world to sample ludicrous standards of driving.

 

A while ago I was in India, thread here, but it’s much more common for me to visit Taiwan where we get some manufacturing done as well as toolmaking for plastic injection moulded parts.  This trip I had to visit China too, my first time in the industrial capital of the world.

 

As ever, it’s a busy time and not much sightseeing or chod-seeing gets done.  After a flight from Heathrow to Hong Kong and then a ferry to mainland China this is the taxi rank outside the ferry terminal.

Dan Hirst would have chugged one off as soon as the first Toyota arrived but more common were VW Santanas, some with cages around the driver which I always think is classy.

 

There were a few electric taxis too but we didn’t get one, it was a ropey Santana waiting when we got to the front of the queue.  It seemed to be mid 1980s era, the interior was a lot like the 1987 Passat I had ages ago but taxis are the same the world over so we had an airbag light on and engine management light too.

 

Electric taxis are this racey blue and white.

 

The Santana was in pretty strong condition though, plenty of acceleration available which meant the driver could zip past slower traffic sounding the horn, then brake test them.  On the way to the hotel we had about 5 near misses, including the pedestrian he almost ran over in the hotel driveway.  It was a very exciting ride.

 

We had a car taking us to the factory on Monday and like the English cricket team, we need to blame the weather.  A typhoon was just leaving China and the rain was quite serious, just to help* they tend to put their hazard lights on when driving in the rain in case you hadn’t noticed the water being sprayed up  by the trucks’ wheels.  Of course hazard lights means you can’t tell if someone’s indicating but they only tend to do that while cutting you up anyway.  The driver seemed alright in his Chinese people carrier but we did see 5 crashes on the way back to the hotel, one involved 4 cars.

 

This bloke has got more to worry about than getting wet

 

These vans were everywhere, if you can hear somone blowing their hooter, it's from a van like this

 

Today is Tuesday and I’m typing this in another Chinese people carrier but this one had seen some action.  At some point the driveline had been repaired and I think the back axle was replaced with one from another vehicle, possibly a truck, the overall gearing was ludicrously high with 3^rd gear almost enough for highway driving.  What a pity that first gear wasn’t available at all, the driver has stalled it at least a dozen times and I was a little concerned as we pulled out across 3 lanes of traffic reeeally s-l-ow-l-y.

 

This trip saw some gems of road construction too, most roads here are very rough with potholes you could lose a wheel in but this morning the road was so bumpy we couldn’t do more than 2mph.  There was a shuffling pensioner on the pavement and he was honestly going faster than we were, all the time this MPV knocking its bearings out at 300rpm in second gear.

 

LIVE UPDATE: The MPV just broke down.  On an intersection that makes Piccadilly Circus look like rural Norfolk.  Seems like it’s run out of petrol, or at least none is getting to the engine but you don’t have a career in chod like me without knowing how to get a stranded vehicle out of danger.  Through our host who did the translating, the driver stuck it in 1^st gear (it went in but he was nervous) and held the ignition key on and we bumped our way out of the 6 lanes of crossing traffic.  We were then able to push it off the road and after a journey like this I’m not going to tip the driver.

 

Road junction is just visible in the background.  Vehicle might be a Chinese made Hyundai?

 

Back at the hotel now, let's see what else was on the road.

 

China_Tom is in good company, there were billions of these crew cabs around

 

No idea what this was, but I was impressed with the VIP badges.  A Chinese equivalent of the Hyundai XG30 perhaps?

 

Plenty of posh cars out there, Bentleys, Range Rovers, Mercs and Beemers.  I think this is one of those X5 clones

 

I'm no good at new cars, but isn't this a Vauxhall Vectra?  Badged as a Buick.

 

Your chances of outrunning the rozzers are quite high if this is what they're equipped with

 

This is only a guess, but they don't have very tough SVA regualtions here

 

And this was like a tractor crossed with a lawnmower.  The engine sits on the front wheel and there's a big tiller to steer so the whole lot pivots.  Bonkers.

 

And if the cargo was too big for a scooter, there were trikes like this

 

But they're not all created equal, some have a chassis that looks like a beefed-up Land Rover while others seem to be made from Dexion shelving

 

I'm in Taiwan today, I'll try and dig out the old photobucket pictures I took from last time.

[hairnet]

insignia sold elsewhere as buick regal

 

mad

[AnthonyG]

Buick is a prestigious brand in China, one of the main reasons it dodged the bullet when GM killed off Pontiac and Saturn a couple of years ago.

[KruJoe]

Superb stuff!

Much of your scenes look familiar to me, having spent so long in Thailand, however the China-designed* stuff is completely alien. Keep it coming!

[ChinaTom]

I can tell from the car reg numbers that you are in or near Shenzhen (the Pick-up has come in from Huizhou). I was only a few miles away from there last week, but after a week of Shanghai, Beijing, Yichang and Guangzhou, I don't think I saw a single Series II Great Wall like mine. I think they're all dead.

 

I'm in Manila now, and other than a few barried Lancers and the infamous Tamaraws (second generation Toyota Kijang), it's all Hyundais and Versos.

 

300 rpm in every gear, crawling in intersection traffic queues in 4th? Sounds like my father-in-law is driving you around!

[ChinaTom]

Buick is a prestigious brand in China, one of the main reasons it dodged the bullet when GM killed off Pontiac and Saturn a couple of years ago.

Not any more. It is entry level to middle class now. The cars have dated badly. It took Toyota's Crown about 20 years to date to the point of ridicule - the Buicks have managed the same decline in 5 years. The Ford Mondeo and Renault Megane saloon have a more prestigious image than a Buick.

 

Up to about 2008, most people aspired to drive around in cars like middle and senior civil servants / politicians were ferried around in. That has become a very tarnished image indeed and now everyone is happy to spend £45k on a Mini Cooper. That's what they cost out here. All the Regals and Sails have been part exchanged for Fords and Minis and are now biffing about in the countryside.

[ProgRocker]

 

Electric taxis are this racey blue and white.

 

 

Saw one of these in Barcelona a fortnight ago parked outside one of the train stations. I guessed it was Chinese and just made out the BYD grille badge. My mate with a less shite mobile phone than mine googled it, confriming it to be an electric only car.

[makum101]

 

 

I'm no good at new cars, but isn't this a Vauxhall Vectra?  Badged as a Buick.

 

 

 

 

You mean the Vauxhall Insignia - the replacement for the Vectra - called the Buick Regal in the USA (and China apparently)

[garethj]

My mate with a less shite mobile phone than mine googled it, confriming it to be an electric only car.

 

That's interesting, I thought it was a hybrid when I travelled in one on Tuesday evening.  I could feel a kind of pulsing vibration through the car when it was stationary, but perhaps that was just the aircon pump?  It said the range was 300km which I thought was a lot for pure electric, the range was dropping off pretty quickly but the driver was on a bit of a mission, we saw 95km/h on the speedo going through town.