by China has once again proven it is capable of playing on the field of ultra-luxury by its own rules. A unique specimen—the Hongqi Golden Sunflower Guoli Lanting Yayun—was dispatched from the city of Ordos in Inner Mongolia to the UAE. It was sold for $1.5 million, making it officially the most expensive Chinese car ever exported in history.
The new owner is Stanislav Semenov, founder of the Dubai-based Quantitative Trading Equal Fund. But if you “dig deeper,” it’s about a fairly young Russian born in 1990 (who, nevertheless, has not lived there for a long time). He practices Eastern martial arts and is considered a sort of genius in IT and crypto. As for the car, he placed his order at the Shanghai Auto Show. But this is not just “bought a car”—it’s more like “ordered a mobile temple of philosophy on wheels.”
The car has the dimensions of a full-size limousine: almost 6 meters long, over 2 meters wide, with a wheelbase of 3.73 m. Externally—the classic Hongqi L5 style: a chrome waterfall grille, round headlights, vertical lines reminiscent of bamboo slips with hieroglyphs.
The flagpole on the hood rises at an angle of 23.5 degrees—the same as the tilt of the Earth’s axis. And the golden sunflower emblem is oriented towards the North Star. This is not just aesthetics—it is a symbol of the Chinese civilization’s aspiration for eternity in the Universe.
The interior is a true demonstration of handcrafted mastery. The panels are finished with 28 layers of lacquer, which dry and are polished for over two months. Mother-of-pearl inlays on the doors and console depict calligraphic fragments from the classic work “Preface to the Lanting Pavilion.” Under light, the surface shimmers, creating the effect of living writing.
The central OLED display rises smoothly, like a scroll. And the augmented reality system projects poems onto the windshield. The armrest lid is adorned with 0.15 mm thick gold foil engraved with the “Eight Scenes of Lanting”—each square centimeter requires over 2000 tool strikes. And the seatbacks are embroidered with silk using an ancient technique with a density of 300 stitches per square centimeter. Each scene takes 600 hours of work by two masters.
The cabin features 32 Dynaudio speakers, active noise cancellation, and nearly 20 cubic meters of space. Inside, traditional “silk and bamboo music” plays—not a playlist from streaming services, but atmospheric audio styling.
Under the hood is a 4.0-liter twin-turbo V8 with 388 hp and 530 N·m. All-wheel drive, an 8-speed automatic transmission, 0-100 km/h acceleration in 5.1 seconds. This nearly six-meter-long vessel moves quickly and smoothly.
Greetings from the Bottom of Premium: The “Trashy” Trim for putin and lukashenko
It is worth remembering that cars of the Hongqi brand were once gifted to two well-known characters—putin and lukashenko. However, they received base versions: no mother-of-pearl, no lacquer, no poetry. Just generic “wedding procession cars” without taste, depth, or idea. Whereas the specimen that went to Dubai is more like a work of culture than just a means of transportation.
