Shields on wheels: the luxury (and bulletproof) cars that will carry Xi Jinping and his entourage around Hong Kong

Top-of-the-line model also favoured by city’s tycoons

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The BMW 7 Series is the top offering from the German car maker. Photo: Xiaomei Chen

Published: 5:12pm, 30 Jun 2017Updated: 6:17pm, 30 Jun 2017

During his visit to Hong Kong, Chinese President Xi Jinping will be ferried around in a car that not only looks fit for a head of state, but one which can repel bullets, has a reinforced body, and is the luxury brand of choice for the city’s super-rich.

The BMW 7 Series is the prestige offering from the German car maker.

Other buyers in the four-wheeled fortress market include Hong Kong’s richest man Li Ka-shing and the Kwok brothers of Sun Hung Kai Properties, all of whom also favour BMWs.

Parts of Hong Kong have been placed under an unprecedented security lockdown for Xi’s three-day trip, his first as China’s president, during which he will mark 20 years since the city returned to Chinese rule.

President Xi leaves a training school for Junior Police Call in the well-protected car. Photo: Xiaomei Chen

Large barricades ringed a security zone at the Wan Chai waterfront, with building work nearby halted for the duration of the trip.

And that nothing-left-to-chance attitude extended to the president’s choice of hotel. While his delegation will stay in the high-end Grand Hyatt, Xi opted for a room in the nearby, and less fancy, Renaissance Hong Kong Harbour View Hotel, which reportedly hosted rapper G-Dragon in 2013 and Russian pop duo t.A.T.u in 2003.