A Very Expensive Chinese Wedding

You ain't seen no fairy tale weddings until you see weddings of rich Asians! Below is apparently the wedding motorcade of a Chinese celebrity - a certain Chinese actress named Liu Tao. The photos below are all for the SAME wedding.

Lamborghini Gallardo LP560-4





Ferrari F430 - poor man's version.


Ferrari F430 Spider - richer man's version.




Rolls Royce Phantom - the most expensive production car in the world


Only poor peasants have one Phantom.


Bentley Flying Spur - the fastest production four door saloon in the world.


Audi A8. In the largest car market in the world, the top mainstream luxury car brand is not a Mercedes or a BMW but an Audi.


Rolls Royce Phantom Drophead.



Ferrari 575M (lead car)


Ferrari 360 Spider



Range Rovers on the left, Porsche Cayennes on the right.


The motorcade.




The people.








More on Liu Tao's wedding here and here.

Apparently she is married to the son of a Chinese mining tycoon magnate. If it's true, this only serves to further highlight great divide between the have and have-nots in China. Each year thousands of miners die in mining accidents due to lax safety regulation, but in a country of 1.2 billion people. many of whom are poor, hungry and are willing to work on almost anything for a penny, losing a couple of thousand lives each year is a small cost.

The most expensive wedding in history (apparently) is that of Vanisha Mittal, Forbes magazine's No.1 Billionaire Heiress and daugher of Indian steel magnate and one of the richest man in the world Lakshmi Mittal. It was estimated that Lakshmi Mittal paid USD 60 million dollars for her daughter's 5-day wedding celebration in a 17th-century French chateau, Vaux le Vicomte in Paris.

To put things into perspective, Forbes magazine listed the most expensive celebrity wedding was USD 3.5 million - the wedding of Liza Minnelli & David Gest. The couple divorced the next year. In fact, 40 percent of the weddings listed in Forbes ultimately end up in divorce.



But this is no Channel-E! blog, this is an automotive industry focused blog. So we have to link it back to the industry.

Not long ago I had dinner with a former director of a German manufacturer's operations in China. At that time, the Beijing Motor Show had just concluded, where the VW Group's Audi brand presented the Audi A8L to the world. Within 5-days of the Beijing Motor Show, 87,000 orders were collected for the 6.3-litre W12 engine powered Audi limousine. 87,000 orders in 5 days! And this was despite the fact that the official price have not been announced by Audi and the display at Beijing was only a "preview."

Rolls-Royce had to upgrade its facility in GoodWood, UK to accommodate an additional production line - specifically to meet the orders from China. To date, the most expensive Rolls-Royce ever built was sold to a Chinese buyer for USD 2.3 million, who then decided to leave the car in the Rolls-Royce showroom, simply to have a kick of seeing his name written on the "Sold to" sticker

So this German chap was saying about the Chinese mentality of wanting to own the biggest and the most expensive of everything. Whether is it boats, planes or cars. That it's just crazy to see the way rich Chinese buys things. If it is not the best and the most expensive, they won't have any of it. Not that he is complaining of course, judging by the sheer number of cars his company sells in China. Like any business operations, they are merely meeting the needs / demands of their customers. But when he switches back from his "company manager" hat to his "regular car nut guy" hat, he does frown at the ostentatious display of wealth. Back in Germany where he comes from, people pay extra to have the badges on their cars removed. There is a "badge deletion" option for many cars in Germany, and customers actually choose to pay more to hide the fact that they are driving a far more powerful higher end model variant. The practice started way back in the 1960s (I think) with the first European "sleeper" Q-car - the W109 Mercedes-Benz 300SEL 6.3 V8. Aside from the discrete looking 6.3 badge at the boot lid, there was very little clue of the corrupting power that hides underneath the conservative looking sedan that looks more like your grandfather's Mercedes. But buyers wanted the 6.3 specifically for its huge power hidden under an unassuming look. A majority of the German buyers opted the "badge deletion" option and received the cars with the 6.3 badge inside the car's glovebox instead.



He further added in Europe or America or any of the other developed markets - luxury car brands are selling a lifestyle, a dream. But in China, and certain parts of Asia - they are selling status. Purchase of high end luxury car is a membership to an elite club of the rich and famous. Of course this is not to say that perceived brand status don't play any role in luxury automotive marketing in Europe, but the difference is that in China, the "automotive hierarchy" is a lot more obvious than in anywhere in else in the world. There is a very clear line between what level of managers drive what sort of cars.

It is only in China that customers demand for a long wheel base version of their mid-range luxury sedans. In Europe, most of the rich prefer to do the driving themselves. Chauffers are for company presidents and politicians. But being chauffeur driven is seen as a status symbol to the Chinese. Hence the demand for long wheel base Audi A6L, BMW 5-series LWB, Mercedes E-class LWB and even a Volvo S80L.

He ended the conversation saying that personally for him, in his opinion, he wants a fast car not because he wants other people to be jealous of him or look at him with greater respect, but simply because he loves the car. And if there are other people who notices his car, it should be because they share a similar interest and values the car for what it is in the same way as him. And that sense of appreciation only by a select group of individuals is what makes it so special. It should not be because of the price tag for the car.

But then again, the whole point of sleeper cars (as the Americans call it) / Q-cars (as the Brits call it) seems to be slowly getting lost in this age. Just look at the current offerings for Audi RS line, BMW's M models and Mercedes AMG models - all of them are shouty cars that scream "look at me". Contrast this to the earlier generation M, AMG and RS-line models, a time when enthusiasts were happy to play "spot the real from the fake" every time one of these models pass by. You've got to look at all the subtle hints to find out if this is the real deal E39 M5 or some fake replica replica built of an entry level 520i. At the other extreme end, you might come across a real M5 owner who swapped his M5 badge with that of a 520i to further confuse observers.

Societal trends is constantly changing, and aside from the fashion world, people's changing attitude are no better reflected that in car designs. Today's consumers are more brand and status driven than ever before. Consumers, whenever they buy something expensive, they want it made known to the rest of the world that they paid big money for it. Thus, car companies are always competing to do a one-up with one another to get consumer's attention. Mine have to be louder than yours, and the one before.

Related link : China automotive market related posts.