Yesterday I left home for Tokyo which involved a flight to LA, then the redeye to Beijing and now I sit here awaiting my connection to Tokyo. Beijing Airport is absolutely massive, very modern, and like most airports, it seems like they are constantly renovating. At least the lounge my dear wife hooked me up with has private shower facilities (OMG is that nice during a layover!) and enough free food and drink to gorge an elephant, so I’m hardly suffering. Since I’m here for much of the day I decided to venture downstairs for a bit and peer out the walls of glass to see what was going on outside.
As you can see, Beijing still has a pollution problem, it is simply not possible to see beyond the edge of the airport due to the haze, it’s like L.A. in the ’80’s although it’s better than the last time I was here, that was more like L.A. in the ’70’s… Thankfully the inside is sealed off. After walking all around this particular terminal, here are the cars and trucks I was able to see, most of which are either unfamiliar or familiar but at the same time very different. Not having a VPN means Google is not available so I can’t research what some of these are, your guesses will be as good as mine.
Our first contender is the fire chief in his Mitsubishi Montero, or I suppose it’s a Pajero over here. This looks like the mid-2000’s version that we got but it could well be newer over here. I’ll apologize here and now for the fact that everything was shot through glass at various angles, as such the reflections can’t be completely avoided much of the time.
Here’s the first one that has me stumped. Yeah, that didn’t take long. It’s some kind of Chinese brand, the logo sort of looks like the Acura logo but upside down. It’s about the size of a Honda Fit, maybe a little longer. This one’s an Air China vehicle, and there were several running around.
This one’s easy, an older Ford Transit. There were a lot of these around, and I’m assuming they are built over here as well. This one is older than the current Transit that we (finally) get in the States and we probably should have started getting it around the time this one came out.
No, not a ground vehicle besides being on the ground currently, I’m pretty sure this is an Airbus 330 and could be the plane I’ll be on later. Being the international terminal there are planes from all over here, but obviously a LOT of Air China, China’s main national carrier.
Aha! An Isuzu. Or not. This is a JMC. Which is what GMC would be called if I owned it. Lots of these about with several generations represented and as likely as not to be filled with four burly baggage handlers. No F150 Crewcabs here at all. The JMC can do the job.
See? Here’s another one, just slightly newer with a front end refresh. He’s the last of the three dudes that got out of it.
Another Airbus, I think a 330 as well but it might not be, Finnair this time, looking quite lonely. As I turn around in my seat and can see it’s still there so probably not leaving until this evening.
A Nissan owned by Japan Airlines, but not one that I recognize off the bat. The badge seems to start with an H. Not a bad-looking little wagon, a decent alternative to a little CUV except nobody would buy them in the U.S.
Finally a familiar face, a Mercedes, an older design although this one looks pretty new and is possibly still built locally for this kind of duty.
Everybody knows this one, although it’s getting to be a rarer sight in the U.S. since none of the domestics fly it anymore.
Ja, that’s the Queen of the Skies, the 747, this time in Lufthansa livery, probably chockfull of German engineers looking to build another factory over here.
Another Ford Transit, a newer one this time in SWB but high roof.
I’m pretty sure this is a Wuling, owned by GM. A little minivan that is about the size of one of ours but narrower by something like 20% which makes it a little odd-looking. The company logo from a distance looks sort of like the Corvette logo which I found humerous.
I have no idea who’s logo is on this, but it has the full Texas Edition chrome package on it. It could be Chuck Norris’ if he moved here. It even has a roll bar to mount a bunch of KC Hi-Lites on it but too bad the strobe bar would get in the way of those. This was the only black vehicle I saw on the airport grounds besides a Mercedes E-Class.
Hey, look, it’s an EV, a Nissan at that. Looks like a Sentra but it isn’t, we’ll see another later on. EVs (while making sense for lots of people in lots of places) would really seem to make sense at an airport as they can just be hooked up to charge when not being used and there isn’t any reason to have any range anxiety whatsoever.
By the way, check out this 3-way intersection, it’s odd (to Western eyes) as there is zero signage. There are two lanes going each way, and nobody has a stop or yield sign. Everybody just kind of eyeballed it and the first one to the intersection kept going, the others slowed and then sped up again. It worked sort of like a roundabout but one where everybody was on the same page and instinctively knew when to go, or slow, or make it work, such as what you find in England.
The two places where one could turn left sort of have stop-boxes painted on the ground but you’ll note that if they were used, they’d block the oncoming lane. It worked out though and everyone just kind of looked around and drove around each other and every once in a while a random pedestrian (I’m assuming an authorized worker but…) just walked right through the middle. It’d never work in the U.S.
This Nissan truck was moving while towing this thing on the ground, at first glance it reminded me exactly of what they use to sweep/smooth the dirt on a baseball field. But that wasn’t the case here. He made a left at the intersection and drove off, towing his contraption along the road.
Another Chuck Norris truck in everyone’s favorite non-color the world over it seems. Not being able to use Google sucks. I tried Baidu but can’t read the characters so that was zero help too. Not being able to use Google is like losing one of your senses, how did ANYthing get done before then?
This one’s kind of cool, it’s like a Nissan Frontier with a Nissan Xterra (or X-Trail) back end. But different. Is there a third row back there?
I love these Toyota buses, they are all over Asia it seems. I don’t know why they never tried to crack the North American market with this stuff. It just seems like such a better idea than a sawed off Ford E-350 with a rattly fiberglass contraption glued to the back of it.
Hey, a Jetta, China’s favorite joint venture since the ’80’s.
This seems to be the catering company that supplies the place, they all seem to wear the chef’s hats. Nice touch.
The “Follow Me” car on the right’s a Hyundai Tucson but the one on the left I don’t recognize. That is, I thought at first when I saw it from the side that it was an Audi Q5 due to the way the body character line has that wave in it, but it’s obviously not one.
I love how every other country seems to do airport buses for transferring people from terminal to tarmac, with these ultra-lowriding and extra wide buses like this Cobus 3000. It just kind of glides along without having to worry about dips, speed bumps or potholes out in the real world. I didn’t use one this time (yet) but when you do they end up being remarkably efficient and can pack huge numbers of people in each one, making the transfer process quick and easy.
Speaking of JV Jettas, here is one of the MKII’s from well after it was no longer available in the West. With different front and rear ends it was still quite popular for a long time. This one even has a little faux-Continental hump action going on there from an unfortunate fender bender.
Here’s a slightly better Tatra87 style shot of the rear (as good as I could get given the angle), much more modern than the Jetta back in the day. And that’s a Wuling to the right of it, see what I mean about the logo sort of looking like a Corvette’s?
A Suzuki Alto in Air China livery. This is kind of like if United Airlines had a fleet of Chevy Sonics or Ford Fiestas. And why not?
Nissan makes more than just cars they have some trouble selling in the U.S. They even make baggage cart haulers! I wonder if there is a racing series for these? After all, they do it for riding lawnmowers.
Another Euro-Van but with a different badge. This is a VW Crafter, right? Or is it Transit based? This is driving me nuts…
Here’s another of those Nissan Frontier/X-Terra things but an EV this time. There were a lot of these about. I know about the Leaf of course and that there were a couple of other Nissan EVs but did not know that there was a truck//SUV EV. Interesting.
A Honda Fit (which are built here), and another Wuling van like the one we saw early one. It might be the same one, actually.
This is kind of how I imagine XR7Matt feels when he sees a little CUV merging in front of him, they all look sort of the same and it’s hard to figure out which one it is…But I really can’t as the badge is unfamiliar. There’s a little bit of a lot of other CUVs in that design though.
The Jetta again, parked this time. It looks shorter than ours but perhaps not.
And here’s that Nissan sedan EV again. The body looks like a Sentra or maybe that’s a Versa sedan, they look similar to me.
Here this is called a Sylphy, which sounds like some kind of self-generated venereal disease. In any case, not something you want to bring home to mama! Still, lots of Nissan EVs, maybe they should bring over the sedan or make an X-terra EV for us.
I happened to catch this BYD, which most likely is an EV as well. BYD is the company owned by Warren Buffett (well, Berkshire Hathaway), and has been dabbling in EVs for what seems like forever including a lot of buses that they’ve been selling in North America amongst other places. The last time I was in China we rode around in a lot of BYD taxis that were based on second generation Hyundai Elantras and they seemed as well built as the Hyundais so…this isn’t a bad-looking vehicle, and Berkshire certainly has the pockets to make BYD a bigger player in the West if they wanted to.
Here’s that mystery “Follow Me” car again, speeding away to pull in front of a plane no doubt.
And as I need to go and figure out what gate I need to line up at, I’ll leave you with the last picture that should be instantly recognizable to anyone in North America (and nowhere else), a big Ford F-series, maybe a 650? Anyway, thanks for letting me put my spare time to (not sure if “good” is the word) use here!
That was fun, thanks for posting. It reminds me that I am woefully unable to identify airplanes other than the 747-400. I need to practice more.
I’m also woefully unable to identify automobiles in China but I care less about that!
The Lufthansa looks like a 747-8….an even rarer sight….
They fly into LAX daily, one of the few passenger versions of the type.
Non-cargo 747-400s are getting rarer.
Air China also flies 747-8s as passenger carriers, so you’ll see quite a bit at them in the airport.
I take it you flew in/out of Beijing Capital Airport? The city just opened up its 2nd international airport called Daxing, which is to the south of the city.
One of my regrets is that I’ll never get to fly on a 747. I’m old enough to remember them being The Plane to fly on in the 70s and I’ve seen a few at airports, they just seem to hang in the air getting bigger and bigger until they land. One of these days I’ll get to fly in a 777 or 787, I’ll just need to avoid the 737Max
Have a nice trip Jim, I recall massive amounts of smog when I was there around 2004, our driver would say “It’s foggy today” and we’d say “That’s not fog, that’s smoke”.
I think the drivers of those two “Follow Me” cars are going to have a argument over who is following who when they leave.
I just checked, Finnair does a nonstop Helsinki to Beijing. Only 7 hours too, I lose my mind on flights longer than 12 hours. 🙁
Oh, come now, jump on the twice-weekly Vancouver-Melbourne flight. Just 16.5 hours…
Qantas is currently test-flying non-stop New York to Sydney and Sydney to London. A mere 19.5 hours.
In truth, I can’t do much beyond about 4 hours these days.
The follow-me car looks to be a Roewe i5.
The older Transit is an update of the 1986-2000 model, while that other van might be related to the Merecedes Sprinter/VW Crafter 2006-18.
The ground support vehicles are still the same as when I was there 2 years ago! Slightly less smog too. I had flown AirChina from Stockholm-Beijing on the way to Chengdu, have masses of photos of cars in Chengdu and Dujiangyan too, including some (relative in China because it’s a young market) CCs.
I can identify several of these for you.
So yes first is a late 2000s Changfeng Mitsubishi Pajero.
Next with the Acura-esque logo is a Changan CX20.
Jiangling Ford Transit Classic next, which was then facelifted into the stormtrooper-faced JMC Teshun.
Then of course a few JMC knockoffs of the mid-90s Isuzu truck.
The Nissan is a 1st gen Dongfeng Nissan Livina.
The next Transit is another Jiangling Ford Transit, could be a Tourneo instead.
Next is a Wuling Rongguang V (but a slim chance it could be the slightly higher-spec Hongguang V).
Next, the ‘full Texas truck’ is a variant of the Great Wall Wingle 6.
Then a Dongfeng Nissan Sylphy ZE.
At the intersection I see a couple of Jiangling Ford Transit again, with a Changhe Suzuki Landy in front.
The next one is difficult – the white small crossover further back could be a BAIC Senova X25 (later pic confirms this). The black MPV up front is puzzling me, could be any one of the large business MPVs inspired in some way by the Toyota Alphard & Hiace.
The next one is either a Zhengzhou Nissan D22 Pickup (aka Navara/NP300).
The ‘Chuck Norris’ one is another Great Wall Wingle 6.
The next image, peeking in at the left we have a Dongfeng Yufeng van, while on the right is a Zhengzhou Nissan ZN Van, based on the D22 Pickup, essentially with a huge covered load bay in the back and fairly often converted as an ambulance or fire vehicle. It could also be its twin, the Dongfeng Zhengzhou Rich ‘Multi-Function Car’
Next looks like a Toyota Coaster, but so many Chinese firms made knock-offs that it could be one of them. I rode in a Golden Dragon copy of the Coaster a few times in Chengdu, the interior quality was pretty poor but it was very tired. Strangely, a lot of these in service come with free mildly dodgy wifi.
Next is indeed a FAW-VW Jetta, which was almost every single taxi in Chengdu where it’s made.
The two follow me cars are a Roewe Ei5 (EV) and a 1st gen Beijing Hyundai ix35.
The two white models parked are an older FAW-VW Jetta and another Wuling Rongguang V or Hongguang V.
Next is a Changan Suzuki Alto.
The Nissan is a mystery. Next is another Dongfeng Yufeng, then another of the Nissan ZN Van/Dongfeng Zhengzhou Rich MPC… doesn’t look how the EV one does usually in terms of trim but meh.
Next is a GAC Honda Fit and another Wuling Rongguang V/Hongguang V.
Then another Dongfeng Nissan Sylphy (ZE?) and a BAIC Senova X25, which is almost certainly the EV version, the BJEV EX360.
Then FAW-VW Jetta and Dongfeng Nissan Sylphy ZE. The Jetta is a extended-booted sedan version of Europe’s Skoda Rapid and is different to all international Jettas, and the Sylphy is the same as the Sentra, but this one is an EV.
Next up is a BYD e6, then the Follow Me Roewe Ei5 again.
Hope this helps!
Wow…and I thought I was adding some info! (see down for my post).
As you have been there it’s quite likely that when we refer to the same vehicle it’s you who’s right.
The BYD e6 is quite common here as a taxicab.
Haha thanks! I quite like the weird stuff that goes down in the Chinese market so I know a lot of it from interest, but I still had to look some of them up to make sure! It was strange being there immersed in it, the number of Lamborghinis and Maybachs and BMWs where I was was pretty insane, to then be in poorer areas with falling apart well-used Suzukis and Citroens still running was strange. Perhaps I should submit something to this site sometime when they became more aged.
I just saw your comment below. Interesting about the FAW A50; the factory in China (Tianjin FAW Xiali/Huali) that produces them (the A50 sedan, CX65 wagon, A70, D60, D80, etc.) shut down in June and is being leased to an EV startup, so it’ll be interesting to see if any production for international markets continues, they’ve only been available in China for 2 years max before seemingly being binned.
Yeah the JAC S5 is very similar, but I could make out the Hyundai badge and the rear lamps are a giveaway. Also I’d expect a Beijing-built Hyundai in Beijing, China seems to subscribe to giving a local producer a higher market share or bulk buy deals, hence every taxi in Chengdu is a Jetta built in the city.
Yeah that was awesome, excellent spotting and thanks for including the JV partners! The big minibuses were in fact Toyota Coasters, I saw the logo, just the Coaster name escaped me.
I did end up riding in the Cobus 3000 tarmac shuttle, I didn’t realize it was a Wiesbaden, Germany company which was prominently displayed all over the interior.
Thanks! My interest is the Japanese and Chinese markets because they’re so alien versus almost anywhere else, so more fun too. As such I know comparatively little about the US, so I love CC for that!
Ah ok, they must’ve wanted to spend all the money then, the Coasters are top of the line there versus the copies I’ve encountered in daily heavy service. Our daily shuttle (if we managed to get a seat) between campuses in Chengdu was, if I remember, a Golden Dragon copy or a King Long copy depending on the time of day. They had wifi but not much else, but did have the lace or other fabric covers over the seats to liven things up!
I don’t remember the buses we used at Beijing Airport, I assume it would’ve been the same as the ones you did. I was too busy focusing on making sure everyone I was supposed to keep track of was there! It’s funny German buses are used in Beijing, while BYD EV buses are used at Amsterdam (or maybe Copenhagen, I’ve been to both so many times it’s a blur). Our landing there on the way back was very different as we had the head of Sichuan Province on our flight on his way to the Chinese Communist Party Conference, so there was a military welcome at the old 1930s/40s terminal and a greeting of soldiers, Toyota Prados, old Jettas, and other luxury vehicles (they were far away), then a long wait for the terminal bus.
That’s a pretty amazing effort there, Joe, as it’s well known that even avid car-spotters can’t tell one car from another above a certain height of view – and Jim’s shots are mostly high and pretty angled!
I have decided the black MPV I couldn’t identify is a JAC Refine M4, finally found a matching rear!
I grabbed some paper to write down the model names for preparing a long reply. Then I got 100% shocked by your 100% correct answer. I am showing my 100% respect to you, Sir. No one can give a better resolution, even a PRC citizen like me.
The black MPV confused you is a Ruifeng M4 by Jianghuai Automobile. The official English name for Ruifeng is Refine, which is invisible form their products. M4 is reverse-engineered from Hyundai H1. Jianghuai and Hyundai set a joint-venture in the early 2000s producing earlier version H1, which makes this dirty affair reasonable. Terrible reputation form rusty bodies and cheating in exhaust certifications makes nobody want a Jianghuai, except the VW. I guess that it was their shared interest in diesel engine tricks drove these two enterprises together to build a joint-venture with their most popular product is a new-model-forever-delay.
The Sylphy EV seems to be a regional model. But technically only the body part is. The chassis and the e-powertrain are grabbed from the current Leaf; then it was welded to a Sylphy body here. Our trunk-addicted Chinese make everything more practical, and this surgery carried out by Dongfeng is a massive leap in an aesthetic way. Decades ago this exact company smashed a rectangle box directly into Peugeot 307 hatch to make the 307 sedans. The localisation, aka trunklization of the Leaf, was indeed more undetectable.
Also much orient Jetta here. This VW badged Skoda has a sibling in Shanghai named Santana. The Santana name was taken over the Shanghai version of Passat B2. These two have different headlights and taillights, bumpers, hood and trunk lid, and shape of vents inside. That is a massive difference when compared to Opels and Vauxhalls. PEK is in the northern part of our country so the visibility of the Jetta will be higher. Things got different in southern cities or cities which has a Shanghai VW plant.
Salute to your detailed and informative reply. And a big thank for caring about the communism cars.
Great work, Jim, especially as you found a way to bring us info from faraway lands…
Now, as to my contribution:
The “Chuck Norris” trucks are Great Wall Motors Wingles (yes, that’s a reasonable brand for Chinese vehicles….) They are sold here in Uruguay and have been quite reliable. My brother owned an earlier model (one that looks just like the JMC – they don’t worry too much about the mix and match between brands). The basic body is very similar to an ’80s Isuzu with bolted on fenders, grille, hood, doors, with a different design.
I think youmay have suffered from the “Chinese copy” delusion. The “Follow me” SUV you identified as a Hyundai Tucson might be a JAC S5. Not a badge engineered copy…a copy, period. It’s also sold in these parts. Nice car, though.
The other mystery “Follow me” station wagon might be a FAW A 50 wagon.
If it is, it’s a very nice looking car, which is also sold here.
Hope you had a nice stay in Tokyo. And keep up your great work.
When I was in Ecuador last year, we saw many Great Wall Wingles. At first I thought they were badged Wing LE but after never seeing any non-LE Wings, I realized that was indeed the name.
Seeing a pic of the beloved 747 always puts a smile on my face. If I blur out all the non-plane vehicles, these shots look like they are from the 1970s…which is interesting. Perhaps it’s the haze!
I’m puzzled a bit. You’re taking a flight from LAX to Narita but have a layover in Beijing? What airline was this? A Chinese one out of LAX? I’ve flown 52 times over to Asia and most times Narita was the hub unless I flew the country airline like Eva or Cathy Pacific then the hub was Taipei and Hong Kong. All 52 flights were on the 747 my favorite long haul plane.
Yes, I was wondering something similar. What happened, Mr Klein, did your pilot forget to land?
There are a lot of really cheap airfares to Asian destinations connecting through Beijing. In the Seattle and Vancouver markets, you can save several hundred dollars on a coach ticket (thousands for business class) instead of using the traditional flag carriers such as JAL, Cathay, etc.
LAX – PEK – HND (closer to Tokyo) – via Air China $405 round trip. Yes that included a place to sit. 777-300ER to PEK then AIrbus 330-300 to HND. DEN -LAX was another couple hundred RT.
That’s what I thought. A PRC airline which I would never fly among others. Let’s just say that with my brother being one of Uniteds top diagnostic mechanics in the country I listen to what he says at times.
I don’t particularly want to continue this thread but I will point out that:
A) Air China has had ONE fatal accident to date in the entirety of its operations and it was weather related, not mechanical, as well as being 17 years ago.
B) they codeshare with United so your next United-ticketed flight to China may be on an Air China plane
C) the inflight service on Air China was head and shoulders above what United offers these days and has offered internationally for many years.
D) I’m MUCH more concerned about flying on a Boeing product in general nowadays than on any specific airline that is certified to fly in and out of the US.
Wow, that big Ford F series truck was the last thing I expected to see over there.
Fascinating stuff! Especially the Sylphy. I wonder if there is an STD model? Or could it mean something like a tree symphony? (If a tree falls in the forest and there is nobody there, does it still sound like it has 4 cylinders?)
I remain amazed at how Asian countries that use characters instead of the English alphabet put English letters on the nameplates of their cars.
For some mysterious reasons, USDM vehicles appear in the Chinese airport more frequently than how it turns out on average in China. These days it’s getting rare, but few years ago, some 4th gen Taurus, Impala regularly showed up in airports over there. And quite a large number of big vans too.
These days probably F-650 soldiers on due to the lack of local replacements.
Nice article and good way to do something interesting at the airport. I am impressed you saw so many vehicles from inside the terminal.
I spent a summer in China in 1998 and seeing real world pictures from there always brings back memories. I was in Chengdu (I’d like to see your photos, Joe), but we flew into Beijing and spent a few days touring around there. I don’t remember the airport at all.
The intersection you show looks very familiar, because organized chaos is the typical traffic management strategy there. As I recall, most intersections didn’t have traffic lights or even stop signs. Drivers would just go through as they saw fit, usually honking their horn. The horn wasn’t used as a “get out of the way” or “what are you doing, jerk” the way it is used in the U.S., it was more of a “look, here I come”. Streets were filled with constant short horn honks. I never discerned any consistent rules of the road for intersections, but maybe there were some I couldn’t see. Just looked like a mish mash to me.
Neat seeing all the vehicles. 4 door (small) pickups were common there in 1998, at a time when they were just starting to be seen here. Took me a long time not to associate them with Asia in my mind.
I’d love to go back some time and get some Jouza (dumplings) and hot pot (meat soup)!
I guess 2017 Chengdu is extremely different than 1998 Chengdu, so I’d love to see yours too! So much of the city centre was pretty much brand new, and a lot of the places we went were part-built, new developments, or recently restored, and of course there’s a metro system, highways, ring roads, etc. now cutting through it all and the city sprawl is giant, having swallowed smaller towns on the edges.
The chaos was dulled a bit as the volume of traffic was so large we were frequently stuck in huge jams. There’s a lot of traffic lights around so a bit better controlled, and a lot of brand new highways and flyovers, but there were still some intersections when we were on-foot that we had to risk life to cross. I experienced some interesting taxi driving styles, lots of random lane-hopping and pushing in, and one terrifying drive at reasonably high speed in a mid-00s (so 80s) Jetta along a pavement with no pedestrians to avoid a jam, which almost resulted in us plunging into an underground parking access the driver managed to avoid at the last second just as I felt death was imminent. In the rural area we went for the panda reserve SW of Dujiangyan, there was no system to join or cross a major intercity suburban highway, meaning the driver of our Citroen C-Elysee panda livery taxi launched himself across one at 90 degrees, narrowly avoiding being hit side-on by a giant speeding cement truck. Exhilarating but not in the best way.
I agree on horn usage, constant horns from cars and mopeds and trucks and buses and bikes and pan-pans to let you know they’re there.
The car landscape when I was there was dominated by small Chinese crossovers such as the Changan CS35, Dongfeng Fengguang 580, MG 3 SW (odd seeing these British orphans), etc, and a variety of VW and Peugeot models, mini-trucks and breadvans from Hafei, Wuling, Chana, Jinbei, DFSK, etc. but also an unusually high amount of imported luxury cars in the city centre traffic from Mercedes, Maybach, Lamborghini, Maserati, BMW, Audi, Lexus, Porsche, etc. It was exciting to see something out of the ordinary or rare, like a mid-00s Nanjing Fiat, an ancient (so mid-90s) Hafei Songhuajiang, and my favourite was a disguised (in soft mint green plastic sheeting) Toyota C-HR that was being pre-production tested stuck in a jam while I was on a bus I couldn’t get my camera out fast enough to capture.
I think at the time I was there, pickup trucks were banned in the city (common across China) except for specific permit holders as I recall seeing almost none, I think now cities are starting to lift these bans again. The dealers were crazy, saw a Subaru dealership and many others in a line that looked very professional, which was very different to the unkempt urban string of shabby garages with a selection of random brands of factoy-fresh models from Skoda, VW, etc spilling out onto a Dujiangyan street, and the very sad closed and dusty yet still brand-new construction GAC-Fiat dealer (the Viaggio and Ottimo had basically died out by this point).
I was there for an architecture/urban design project partnered with a university there, so it was intense 8 days staying on one uni campus and commuting to the other for workshops, with 2 free days, some free evenings, and a full site survey day in nearby Dujiangyan (which we revisited for one of the 2 free days because it was very necessary, plus temples and pandas were calling), so a lot of my photos are survey photos of an earthquake-damaged slum. Still plenty of car-spotting amongst, a lot of stuff was impossible to capture while passing in a bus or a Jetta taxi.
The food was incredible as well, still find myself craving some of the peculiar specialities I tried at the various restaurants, and I’ve never eaten so cheaply anywhere in my life (a full good quality lunch meal for 8 yuan, basically 80p? Yes please!). That so much of the food was local and fresh was really great. Hot pot and dumplings were an art form, and I could actually manage the heat of the chilli, although many Nordic classmates couldn’t. Our itinerary didn’t allow us time in Beijing, but one classmate who was denied boarding on the flight back to Sweden in Beijing (she has misplaced her residence card) managed a further 5 days there at the uni’s expense.
I’ve basically written an essay, oops!
No, I am really interested in your experience. I never rode in a taxi, just buses. I can only imagine how terrifying that was. The only automobile I rode in was when I had minor surgery in a hospital (ingrown toenail). That was an experience. The hospital, not the car. It was a VW, Fox type, I forget what they called it there.
Construction was everywhere then, too. We also saw Pandas in two places. One was the major Wolong preserve, but I don’t remember what the name of the other was offhand.
I will have to look through my photos with an eye to street scenes and see if there is enough to make a good CC article. Then I will scan them, since they are all chinese-developed prints. You can imagine how relatively cheap photo processing was there!
my email is jon7190@yahoo.com if you care to send me some of your Chengdu photos, I’d love to see them.
Those boxy Jetta was in production with the square headlights somewhere into the ’00s, and it was given a facelift similar to Passat in the late ’90s also
Back then there were plenty plenty of Dacia trucks! That’s how I remember Beijing ( and I’m sure that betrays my age )
the pickup pulling the ground “tarp or mat” was I would guess a magnetic blanket/net for sweeping the ramp and taxiways of FOD(foreign object debris) since screws etc anything metal will be ingested into an aircraft engine causing damage. so you sweep for fod. Most vehicles have a magnetic strips to do this as well. You also do a FOD walk.
Just an FYI from my airline days.
I agree. FOD plays hob with jet turbines, and these engines excel at sucking up ground debris, so airports go to great lengths to find and eradicate it.
Here’s an article on the subject from wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_object_damage
Lovely collection!
The Benz chassis-cab is a Vario, introduced in 1996, merely an evolution of the second gen T2 (Düsseldorfer Transporter).
“EVs (while making sense for lots of people in lots of places) would really seem to make sense at an airport as they can just be hooked up to charge when not being used and there isn’t any reason to have any range anxiety whatsoever.”
Speaking of EVs, I’ve heard a few airports are experimenting with electric tractors for pushing planes back from the gate. That really seems like a perfect application — the massive amount of torque from an electric motor would certainly be useful there, and there’s no need for any significant amount of range.
What would really save fuel would be a dedicated tractor to pull the plane from the loading area to the hold position at the runway, where the jet would then start up. The last time I flew, we were held up for almost two hours due to severe thunderstorms over Hartsfield-Jackson until we were given permission to take off. We spent that entire time idling, which probably meant about 800 pounds of fuel consumed, plus the fuel spent getting to the runway
” At least the lounge my dear wife hooked me up with has private shower facilities (OMG is that nice during a layover!) ”
Narita has the same, bed and a shower, bookable in 15-minute increments.
I’ve always been curious about the not-street-legal airport specialty vehicles like baggage cart haulers, scissor-lift cargo loaders and aircraft tugs.
At one airport they used Schopf tugs, which is a small specialist manufacturer in Stuttgart using Mercedes chassis.
Beijing airport is the only time in my life I have observed smog inside the airport terminal.
The coal smoke that day was so thick visibility was less than 100m.
You needed IFR rules to get to the boarding gate!
The Sylphy is known as the Sentra here in the USA