China Saves Buick... [PIC]

China's love affair with Buick goes back to the days of Imperial China in the 1910s, The young emperor Henry Pu-Yi imported the first two Buicks as Imperial cars in 1924 to be the first cars allowed to enter the Forbidden City. By 1930, Buicks accounted for 1/6 of all cars in China. Premier Zhou Enlai in the post war era had Buicks for his personal use. With the post Mao rise of a middle class, importation of Buicks reached such a level that GM partnered with Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation (SAIC) to produce Buicks in country. In 2010, when GM USA was bankrupt, more Buicks were sold in China than the US keeping GM from scrapping the Buick Division. To commemorate the Buick's impact on the Chinese industry as well as the consumers, CSM/LJP International Ltd released two Buick models in late 2011, the Chinese built 2010 Buick Enclave (shown here) as well as the first imported Buick, the 1913 Buick Model 25 (will be shown on a later post). Looking at the two models, it seems to me like they used two different vendors. The Enclave seems like something Kyosho would build and the '13 Buick, although well done, seems done very differently. Note the bilingual signage in English and Chinese.