This is a Hongqi CA7180A2EL1 stretched limousine, seen in the far north of Beijing in March 2012. The gentleman cleaning the car was the driver, waiting for his boss to come back from his business.
Initially, he completely ignored me taking photos, but when he found out I spoke some Chinese and smoked heavy stinkin’ Honghe cigarettes, he told me a lot about the car.
His boss was a factory owner from Siping City in Jilin Province, an 850-km ride from Beijing. He bought the car new in 2001, and it had 655.000 km on the clock. The boss had business across northern China, so the Hongqi was on the move for about 2 weeks each month.
The driver claimed the car rarely had any problems – it always started up, even in the cold northern winters. I asked him if he talked a lot with his boss on those long journeys. He nodded, suddenly looked a little tired, and said his boss “talked all the time” about money, politics, and his dream to buy a Mercedes-Benz.
The Hongqi CA7180A2EL1
The CA7180A2EL1 was a stretched-limousine version of the Hongqi CA7180A2 sedan, which was based on the FAW-VW Audi 100. Hongqi created many limousine versions of the Audi sedan.
The Hongqi CA7180A2EL1 had a 232-millimeter extension at the B-pillar, with an extra window. The quality of the extension is rudimentary, with large and uneven panel gaps, but in those days, that’s what you got. Hongqi sold most of these limousines to the government, companies, and hotels for VIP-shuttling.
There’s a pretty blue Xiali sedan in the background. This is the 2006-2011 model, with the updated grille and a long antenna on the roof.
Specifications
Power for the Hongqi CA7180A2EL1 came from a FAW 1.8-liter four-cylinder petrol engine. The engine code was CA4GE; it was based on an older Audi design. It had an output of 94 hp and 157 Nm. Hongqi mated the motor to a five-speed manual gearbox. Size: 5024/1814/1422, 2919.
The driver kept the limousine in perfect condition! The sporty alloy wheels were standard on the CA7180A2 sedan, and Hongqi simply kept them on for the CA7180A2EL1, even if such wheels don’t really match the character of a stretched limousine. Note the factory standard mud flaps with the First Auto Works “1 logo.
The CA7180A2EL1 is a pretty rare Hongqi limousine; it was only made from 2001 until 2003. Today, these are no longer allowed in Beijing because of the though emssion standards, but some are still driving around in smaller cities. I don’t know what happened to the car in the photos, whether it is still racking up the miles, or whether the boss ever got his Mercedes. Either way, I think the Hongqi is much cooler!
For a long time, FAW didn’t really talk much about the Audi-based models, focusing instead on its self-developed cars. FAW didn’t hide it, but you really had to dig deep into its website history section to find anything about these cars. That is slowly changing. FAW is building a new factory museum, which, for the first time, will display Audi-based Hongqi cars. I hope to go there as soon as it opens.