I AM WATCHING Telefishion on a cabin-width TV in the back of a gleaming, royal-blue, long-wheelbased Bentley, where I can take off my surgical mask, shut out the cacophony of Shanghai Auto 2003 and talk to Bentley Mulliner director John Killick about the kind of customised luxury that accommodates Britain's Queen Elizabeth and China's super-rich.
The gentle whirr of a cut-glass whisky decanter's rise from a customised console and soft, Connolly leather seats are a welcome respite after a morning's traipse past 723 companies in the Sars-thinned jostle of Pudong's 81,000-square metre New Shanghai International Exposition Centre. And as Killick clicks off the chauffeur's intercom in this sound-proof, bullet-proof cabin, and a leather humidor somehow grins a dozen fat stogies, I sense Bentley has pressed all the right buttons in China with the help of Hong Kong distributors who have seen better days on Gloucester Road.
The Crewe-based Le Mans marque appointed Hong Kong's Dah Chong Hong as its national distributor and sent its full range of cars to last year's less-swish auto show in Beijing, just to see what would happen. When one of the capital's richest bought a similar top-of-the-range stretch limousine for about '11 million yuan [HK$10.3 million]', Bentley has never looked back, says the marque's Asia-Pacific chief Derek Davies. 'We now have four dealers in the major cities in less than 12 months,' he tells Motoring. 'China is our biggest market in the Asia-Pacific outside Japan. Last year we sold 41 cars and took 80 orders. We are looking for a similar, if not greater, number this year.'
So Bentley is trying Shanghai and top-end business seems brisk. Only 'eight of these V8 tubocharged-engined cars have ever been built worldwide and four have gone to China', he says. 'We have already sold one car, an Arnage RL, to a Shanghai businessman for about five million [yuan] and there's interest in another.'
The mainland's promise seems to have eclipsed Hong Kong's pre-eminence as a haven for luxury cars. Davies admits Bentley hasn't brought this stretch limousine to Hong Kong, even if the city's rich, he says, are aware of it.
'Given the current market circumstances, I don't think there's the strength of demand for this type of car in that market at this point in time,' Davies says. 'I think the [Hong Kong] market is tough. The recent tax hikes have certainly not helped anyone's cause and although the customer base probably still has the financial wherewithal to spend, [the city's rich] are not going to spend on such a high level of taxation for some little while. It takes some little while to get [new prices] into the system.'
Italian Motors senses a better future in Shanghai. The distributor launched the Maserati Trofeo and the sublime Ferrari 575M, packed its stand with Maserati-loving mainland singer Richie Jen and plan to downgrade its Hong Kong set-up.