A cool Ferrari California sports car, seen in November 2013 in a cold Beijing. The California, however, made me hot again. The good Italian was wrapped in a shiny pink wrap, and made more pretty with matte black pillars and mirrors, black alloy wheels, and a small chrome strip around the grille.
Purple neon on fence reflects in the rear window. I met the California at a small repair shop. They always had nice machinery there.
The Ferrari California was produced from 2008 until 2017. It features a classic sports car design, with a long bonnet, rear wheel drive, and a convertible hard top for driving in the summer sun. Power came from a 4.3 liter V8 engine with an output of 490 hp and 505 Nm, good for a 312 km/h top speed and a 0-100 in 2.8 seconds. Gearbox was a seven-speed DCT. Price in China in 2013 was 3.52 million yuan.
The plate is special too. Blue 京A license plates are not the same as black 京A license plates. The blue ones were issued to the very first batches of privately registered cars in Beijing, as opposed to cars registered to companies or the government. Surely, this California isn’t old enough to be one of those. That most likely means the plate was taken from a scrapped car or from a car that was sold on to a buyer in another city.
Right at that moment I had to jump aside. A gentleman on a scooter decided it was a good idea to drive between the expensive Ferrari and a tree. This all happened on the sidewalk. The car and the scooter were not allowed there. Only I was, and I had to run! The world is unfair. Anyway, I felt nice and wrappy-warm and moved on.