SHANGHAI -- Despite the global economic downturn, China's auto makers are working to build higher-end brands and fancier cars to woo China's affluent entrepreneurs, and, eventually, they hope, overseas buyers.
In April at the Shanghai auto show, Geely Automobile Holdings Ltd., which got its start making bare-bones subcompacts, unveiled its concept of an extreme luxury car. The outside looks like a Rolls-Royce Phantom. The rear has a single, well-cushioned seat, making it a modern-day sedan chair for capitalist mandarins.
Geely says the car, the Geely Excellence, will only be made to order, and will have a likely price tag of more than $100,000. But the company sees it as an important symbol of its hopes for the future: catering to China's growing, urban middle and upper classes with fancier autos.
