2023-06-02 17:05:00
The Chinese premium brand Hongqi, which is part of the FAW concern, promises to start official sales in Russia by the end of June. Now the initial dealer network is being formed. But at least four car dealerships are already ready in Moscow. I visited two of them and studied the proposed model range.
The name Hongqi is the English spelling of the Chinese characters 红旗, meaning “Red Banner”. The correct pronunciation is “Khonchi”, with the accent on the last syllable. The FAW concern began using this brand in 1958, and at first it was carried only by analogues of the Soviet ZIL cars – large sedans and limousines for the highest echelons of power. The cars had American V8 engines, and their production was actually carried out by hand.
In the nineties, the Hongqi brand was carried by converted Audi 100 cars, later by Lincoln Town Car and Toyota Crown models, but they also did not go on sale. The first “market” model only in 2013 was the Hongqi H7 sedan, created on the basis of the Crown. A few years later, the management of the FAW concern decided to make Hongqi a full-fledged premium brand with a wide range of models.
Now there are already thirteen models in the Chinese range, not counting the “secret” cars for the PRC government. If in 2018 27 thousand Hongqi cars were sold in the domestic market, then the result of 2022 is 310 thousand cars. Export deliveries began only in 2020, the volumes are still modest, but the brand is already represented in the countries of the Middle East, Southeast Asia and Northern Europe (Norway, Denmark). There is even a showroom in Japan. Now Russia has appeared in this list.
The distributor was the same company FAW – Eastern Europe, which already represents cars under the FAW brand in Russia. Deliveries are made directly from China, but the organization of local assembly is quite likely, given the large number of “freed” factories in the Russian Federation. And with the choice of dealers Hongqi acts without too much modesty.
Avilon allocated a showroom for the Hongqi brand, where Audi cars had recently stood: the premises have already been re-arranged, although there are no signs on the street yet. And the Panavto dealer placed the “Red Banner” in the same huge car dealership with Mercedes. All signboards are already ready, German cars will be pushed to the second floor, and the front room below will be completely occupied by Chinese cars (although the lion’s share of the area has already been given to them).
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