China's Hongqi outsells Rolls-Royce two-to-one in its home market

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Hongqi’s Golden Sunflower luxury brand is outselling Rolls-Royce in China by two to one.

Patriotic buying trends encourage wealthy customers to embrace domestic luxury brands.

Honqqi’s expansion plans target Malaysia, Russia and other emerging premium markets.

For decades, the formula for displaying automotive success in China was fairly simple. Buy a VW if you could afford a basic car, a Mercedes if you were doing well, a Bentley if you were doing very well, and a Rolls-Royce if you wanted everyone to know it. Now, a growing number of wealthy buyers are apparently choosing something with its roots much closer to home.

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That something is Hongqi, the luxury division of state-owned automaker FAW. Best known for building limousines used by Chinese political leaders from Chairman Mao to Xi Jinping, the brand has spent the last several years reinventing itself as a serious player in the premium, luxury and ultra-luxury segments.

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Its latest flagship, the Golden Sunflower Guoli , leaves no doubt about those ambitions. The range-topping cold-war-chic sedan unveiled in April at the Beijing Auto Show carries a price tag equivalent to roughly $1.6 million, putting it firmly into territory normally occupied by the most exclusive bespoke machines from Europe.

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And Hongqi isn’t trying to beat luxury rivals on horsepower figures or Nurburgring lap times. Instead, it’s leveraging Chinese culture, craftsmanship, and national identity. At the Beijing show, FAW chairman Qiu Xiandong described the Golden Sunflower Guoli as “a work of art that embodies cultural confidence,” according to Nikkei Asia .

The Rolls-Royce Phantom Regatta

The details are elaborate, even by Rolls-Royce standards. While the British brand is famous for its illuminated headliners, Hongqi says one of its master artisans spends more than 1,200 hours creating intricate embroidery for the special edition model. One hundred different colored silk threads, each thinner than a human hair is used to create the illusion of clouds above passengers’ heads.

Buyers Are Lapping It Up

The strategy of tapping into Chinese pride, heritage and craftsmanship appears to be working. According to FAW, Hongqi’s ultra-luxury Golden Sunflower line launched in 2024 found 1,400 buyers the following year. While Rolls Royce doesn’t break out its China figures, industry analysts MarkLines reckons only about 700 of the posh BMW brand’s 5,664 global registrations in 2025 happened in the country.

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Now Hongqi wants to see whether that appeal can travel. The company is preparing to enter Malaysia and is expanding in Russia, where sanctions put in place after the start of the Ukraine war that prevent official BMW and Mercedes sales have created opportunities for alternative luxury brands.

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FAW/Hongqi