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Cars in China


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In a recent post by CARGIRL one of the responders wondered if car sales in China would raise our car prices, I think not. This is an exerpt from a recent article in the "Economist" Mag. about China.

Murray

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Most of us don’t look forward to a visit to the local DMV, it’s usually crowded, unfriendly and very time consuming. All that being said its light years ahead of the Chinese version. In Beijing if you want to register a car you actually must enter a lottery that’s held bimonthly. To enter you must already own the car; the odds of winning approval to register the car you already own range from 2 to 6%. The obvious inverse is that 98 to 94 percent of car owners cannot register their car.

 

It’s a bit different in the Shanghai DMV; they put the plates up to an online auction. In April there were 217K bidders for 9,855 plates; the average winning bid was the Yuan equivalent of $14,022 which is more than most domestically made cars cost in China. The auction bids amount to over 2% of the cities budget.

 

To cap this all off Shanghai and most major Chinese cities completely ban out-of-area registered cars from using any of their roads during “business” hours once you get your car registered.

Who would have thought that our local DMV is actually a user friendly, lousy-goosey operation in comparison?

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It was my response, and I was wondering if sales of classics and collectibles would at some point take off in a country (2nd largest economy on Earth) that loves Buicks.  If so, our Reattas may be a bit more in demand if the Chinese start seeking out classic Buicks.  Ecomomics 101 - Supply and Demand.

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I checked with my friend in England, a real car guy, and he never heard of Reatta. Then, I checked with my good friend in Sweden. He not only owns a C3 Corvette but a real deal 1969 Hurst Olds as well. He attends the biggest all American muscle car show which is strangely held in Europe every year. This is what he had to say about his experience with the Reatta:    

 

Hello Brenda! Nice to hear from you. That's a really cool car. I have never seen any Reatta in Sweden. When I google, I see ads on one in Germany (Coupé) and one in Holland. I guess the car is not certified in Europe, and the few that are here are imported as so-called "moving goods", sometimes the only way to import certain models.

 

Based on these two conversations I am pretty sure most of the Reatta's will stay in North America. That news may not help the values of our cars but it just somehow feels right to me. I am glad they are staying close to home!!  :)

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