Luxury Car Makers Create Year of the Dragon Models for Chinese Market
CNN's Eunice Yoon is at the Beijing Auto Show. Luxury car makers are focusing intently on the Chinese car market. It's the Chinese Year of the Dragon, and carmakers are making the most of this symbol of wealth and prosperity. It's pretty much everywhere at the car show.
The Chrysler Jeep Wrangler
is emblazoned with a dragon which
wraps around the car. Rolls Royce offered
a line of dragon-enhanced Phantoms
that sold out in just weeks.
Eunice asked the CEO of Rolls Royce,
Torsten Muller Otvos if it's a sterotype
to put dragons on everything because
Chinese people like dragons. A
horrified Otvos denied that it was a
stereotype. He said it's all about the
beauty of the dragon.
Ferrari has unveiled a Year of the Dragon car which is Marco Polo red with gold embellishment and a gold dragon on the hood. The Ferrari logo of a horse is actually blended with the dragon to create some kind of Ferrari chimera on the 458 Italia special edition. Even Aston-Martin got into the act with a dragon car which features an embroidered dragon on the headrests and gold inlay on the dashboard. Some customers said dragons on cars are too flashy, but they appear to be in the minority. Those sold out Rolls Royce Phantoms retail for $1.2 million each. Take a look:
