Hong Kong’s roads read like pages ripped from a luxury car magazine.
Hundreds of ultra-flash motors, from Ferraris, Lamborghinis and Porsches to Aston Martins, Rolls-Royces and Bentleys, inch through traffic on the city’s clogged and smoggy roads.
Even taxes of 120 percent don’t deter Hong Kong’s uber-rich from splashing out on the latest super-expensive “boy’s toy” — with dealers seeking to import as many supercars as they can get their hands on.
In the lead-up to Christmas, Marchy Lee’s CarPro showroom contained a Lamborghini Murcielago LP650-4. There were only 50 ever made and this was the last one on sale in Asia. Price on the road? A bank account-buckling US$800,000.
Or, there’s always the cheaper option, a black and gold Ferrari 430 Scuderia, at US$520,000.
“You buy this car, you want to be driving on the road and for some people to take a good look,” Marchy said from the Murcielago’s driver’s seat. “There are a lot of supercars in Hong Kong, even though it’s a very small place. A few successful Hong Kong businessmen own 30 or 40 supercars. They are big boys and they need to buy toys. So these are their toys.”
But it’s not just the boys.
Nicole Wang, a banker, zips out of a parking spot in Hong Kong city center in her Audi R8 — worth around US$300,000 — straight into a traffic jam.
“I chose this car because it suits my character,” she said. “It’s not for middle-aged men. It’s very special and very rare in Hong Kong — there are only about 50 here right now.”
Many young boys like to play with toy cars, perhaps having a Ferrari, a couple of Porsches and maybe an Aston Martin parked in their toy box.
But when Terence Ku grew up, his toy box became a real garage. He owns 16 cars worth around US$2 million. He imported a beautiful pearl white Aston Martin DBS from Britain because of his love of James Bond movies and a Ferrari 360CS because of the engine’s deep and distinctive growl.
But Porsches are his favorite. He owns six.
“I love Porsches,” Ku said. “But I’d put the Ferrari 458 at the top of my Christmas list, I don’t mind having to wait until next year.”
Ku, who owns a printing and publishing company, admits Hong Kong is not the best place for the motorist.
“It’s too expensive here and it’s too small. There’s no good roads to drive on. That’s why we get together and go away on road trips.”
Many Hong Kong car enthusiasts such as Ku join clubs and often ship their pride and joy to China or Malaysia — sometimes even to Germany —so they can enjoy them properly on the open road.
Bentleys and Rolls-Royces seem to be the luxury cars of choice for the “older gentleman” in Hong Kong, as well as for hotel limousines.
Rolls-Royce immediately sold 20 of its new Ghost when it made its debut in Hong Kong in September. The new “smaller and more dynamic” Ghosts cost around US$550,000 on the road and are built to order to the buyer’s specification.
Any rich man or woman who fancies a new supercar this Christmas needs to immediately double the price tag if they want to take it out into a traffic jam.
Lee explains: “The tax in Hong Kong is very, very high. All cars over HK$500,000 [US$64,500] are classed as luxury brands and are taxed at 120 percent, after the first third. So, to buy one of these ultra-niche cars, you have to really want one — and have a lot of money.”
Cairo’s new monorail slices across the city skyline, running above the familiar chaos of blaring horns and aging buses’ exhaust fumes that mark rush hour below. The US$4.5 billion monorail, opened this month, is among Egypt’s most prominent new transport projects, part of a debt-funded infrastructure drive criticized for sapping state finances while bringing limited benefits to most of the country’s 109 million people. “It feels like you’re in a different country,” said Ramy Sayed, a restaurant manager, aboard a driverless Innovia 300 train. “No noise, no traffic, we’re not used to this.” The eastern line runs 56km from the bustling middle-class
Taiwanese firms have increased investment in the Philippines in recent years as Manila’s ties with Washington deepen and global supply chains continue to shift away from China, an expert at the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The Philippines had not been among Taiwanese investors’ top choices in Southeast Asia, CIER Taiwan ASEAN Studies Center director Kristy Hsu (徐遵慈) said at a seminar in Taipei. However, Taiwan’s investment in the country has grown significantly since the COVID-19 pandemic, reaching US $257 million last year, a high in recent years, she said. Although Taiwan’s total investment in the Philippines still lags
Intel Corp regards Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) as a longstanding partner, as the US chipmaker would continue outsourcing production of advanced chips to TSMC, Intel chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) said yesterday. “I don’t look at people as competitors. I look at the collaboration... Nvidia is also, you know, a good friend,” Tan told a news conference following his keynote speech at the Computex trade show in Taipei. “It’s a very trusted partnership for us... We are a big, top customer for them, and we’re going to continue doing that,” he said, referring to TSMC, the world’s largest foundry
Artificial intelligence (AI) agents would supplant smartphones as the center of people’s digital lives, fundamentally reshaping personal devices and driving a major computing upgrade cycle, Qualcomm Inc CEO Cristiano Amon said yesterday. In his keynote speech for this year’s Computex trade show in Taipei, Amon said that the rise of "agentic AI" — AI systems capable of reasoning, planning and carrying out tasks autonomously — would transform how people interact with technology across phones, PCs, vehicles and wearable devices. Describing the technology as the next major evolution in computing, Amon said that "2026 is the year of agents.” For decades, smartphones have sat
RSS