The state once intended to put Hongqi on the license plate of official cars, but the effort stalled almost from the start. Beyond the sheet metal and styling, most of what lay under a Hongqi hood came from suppliers, and the core technologies were tied up in foreign patents. That might have been tolerable with government backing, a dignified path for a heritage marque. Then the order came down from above, blunt and nonnegotiable, to develop a powertrain with fully independent intellectual property.
To help, the government purchased design data for an older Mitsubishi engine as a seed project and poured in hundreds of billions of yuan for research and development. With that, Hongqi's engineers drafted a new C-class sedan internally, the Hongqi C5, and resolved to localize the entire drivetrain. It sounded clean on paper. In the lab, it turned into a swamp. Early teardowns revealed nothing alarming, but long-cycle testing did. As the team dug deeper, they uncovered design flaws that would show up later as reliability failures. The engine program hit a wall, and the entire project slid into a dilemma that meetings and slogans could not solve.
While Hongqi was spinning its wheels, Audi's HX8888 came online. It was positioned not as a parts-bin special, but as a domestically controlled engine platform with a clean chain of rights. The following year, Audi's entries took top slots in the industry's engine awards, and momentum shifted. When procurement time came, the official fleet went to the Audi A6 instead of the Hongqi. Inside the industry, that reversal became a punchline. How could a storied brand, with a war chest and policy wind at its back, end up outpaced by what some dismissed as a "parts factory"
The fallout was predictable. Hongqi's leadership took a beating, and the senior team nursed a grudge. None of it changed the marching orders. The engine program had to continue.
So when Heifeng Lu arrived in Beijing, word reached Hongqi quickly. The instruction to Xia Chenggong was simple: find Heifeng, sound him out, and try to secure technical support from Audi. Xia happened to be with Chengming Liu when Heifeng called to set a meeting, so he shamelessly invited himself along. Chengming understood the angle immediately. Xia wanted a bridge, and Chengming, who knew both sides, could at least make the introductions.
At the table, the pleasantries were textbook. "Congratulations on the new car launch, President Lu." "Audi has been everywhere online lately." "Let me offer a toast." Xia was a seasoned bureaucrat. If you needed something, you shelved your pride first. Heifeng gave him an easy smile. "You flatter me, Director Xia. Compared to Audi, Hongqi is the true national pride."
The line wasn't random. Heifeng had already guessed where the conversation was headed, and his nod to Hongqi saved Xia the trouble of circling to it. Xia took the opening with a sigh. "I'm not afraid you'll laugh at us, President Lu. Hongqi has become a joke."
Heifeng played the innocent. "Why do you say that?"
A wry smile, then the story in outline. Hongqi's engine project was bogged down, the path they chose had defects, and every quarter the gap widened. He didn't mention Mitsubishi by name, and he didn't dwell on who had sold what to whom. He ended with the real ask. "To be blunt, I asked Old Liu to bring me just to meet you. On behalf of Hongqi, I want to request technical support."
This was within what Heifeng expected. Lending a hand on a process hiccup or a calibration snag, sending a team to troubleshoot a subsystem, those were favors he could consider. The industry would be better if Hongqi got its footing. "That's workable," he said. "Tell me where you're stuck and I'll have someone follow up."
He was thinking of targeted problems, things like injector strategies for in-cylinder direct injection, or variable valve timing maps tied to emissions constraints. What Xia said next wiped the smile off his face.
"Exactly, President Lu. Could you share the engine technology used in the Audi A4 and the Audi A6 with Hongqi?" Xia leaned forward, earnest. "We'll pay every penny."
For a second, Heifeng simply looked at him. He had expected an engineering request. He'd gotten a vault key request. Sharing the HX8888 platform from the A4 and the 3.0-liter turbo stack from the A6 was not "technical support," it was the whole crown. Hand it over and, after a few nominal changes, Hongqi could stamp "independent R&D" on the brochure, claim a clean IP chain, and use the political halo to climb. Pay a license fee, say it was fair, and rise on someone else's shoulders.
Chengming's expression soured. He had brought Xia; now this. "Director Xia, that's too much," he said, unable to hold back. "I'm no engineer, but even I know what an engine program means to a car company. Asking someone to share it, that's not support, that's pressure."
The air cooled. Xia realized he had overreached, but backing down gracefully is a skill learned the hard way. He set his glass down and adjusted. "President Lu, if a full platform license is difficult, can we discuss a narrower scope. Even a limited technical exchange would help." He forced a smile. "We'll keep it proper."
Heifeng let the silence work for a breath, then answered evenly. "Exchange is possible. Platforms are not. If you have specific pain points, list them. I'll arrange for engineers to connect with you." He paused, making sure the boundary was clear. "On the record, on commercial terms."
That was the only line that made sense. Friendly or not, Audi was not about to give away its spine. There were ways to help without handing over the blueprints to your own house. Process audits, supplier vetting, failure-mode analysis, emissions certification workflows, and even assistance on calibration tools. If Hongqi was serious, there were a hundred honest paths forward. If it wanted to skip the climb, there wasn't.
Xia nodded and let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding. "Understood." He changed the subject back to safe ground, the new model's launch, and the interviews lined up in Beijing. The meal loosened. Toasts resumed. On the surface, nothing had happened.
Afterward, stepping out into the late-summer heat, Chengming shot him a look. "You were generous."
"It costs nothing to be polite," Heifeng said. "It costs everything to be careless."
The work never stopped. One side of the table was trying to build a car that could stand on its own, the other was guarding the know-how that made its own vehicles run. The policy winds would shift and the headlines would move, but the fundamentals did not. Engines are earned. Shortcuts don't run.