Global CC: Hongqi CA 7465 C8 and CA 7460 – The Chinese Lincoln Town Cars

hongqi-ca-7465-c8-1-458x234images: carchinanews.com

We’ve had a spate of Chinese posts in the past few weeks, including the legendary Hongqi “Red Flag” limousine, which is now again in production in its modern (RR Phantom-imitation) form. But in between, during the 1990s and aughts, there was an interim Hongqi, thanks to Ford, which sent over Lincoln kits, minus the front clip, obviously.

carchinanews.com has the full story on these Lincoln Red Flags, but only a few hundred of the first version were built in 1996-1997 or so, and only a few have survived, used as wedding cars, like the one in the top photo.

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But Hongqi got more serious with the subsequent model, called Qijian (Flagship). There were several versions, all built between 1998 and 2002.

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Obviously, the front and rear ends were customized in the Chinese style, and there were numerous variants in terms of stretches, all the way to serious parade cars.

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But they were all Ford except for interior changes, and 4.6 V8 powered.But don’t tell FAW that; as they insisted that they owned the full intellectual rights to the whole car because of their re-style. I’m sure Ford had no problem with that.

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In any case, Ford was dumped for the next generation, as FAW reached out to Toyota and used their Crown Majesta for the basis of the Hongqi HQ3, which went into production in 2007. Just as well, as FAW also entered into a major JV to produce a wide range of Toyotas for the Chinese market.

There’s more details and photos at carnewschina.com