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A MAN CALLED MR FERRARI
Back in 1992, Li Xiaohua was the first man in china to buy a Ferrari. A potent symbol of success, Li quickly became associated with the vivid, magical, red of the prancing horse. so much so, that people soon dubbed him “Mr Ferrari”. His global fame saw a succession of visiting dignitaries, including American presidents bush (father and son) and Clinton, British prime minister Margaret Thatcher and Russian leader Vladimir Putin, all signing his 348 TS

Growing up in the egalitarian scarcity of the Mao era, owning a car was beyond a dream for Li Xiaohua, now a successful tycoon and philanthropist, and China’s first Ferrari owner. ‘All of China was very poor, and I could not even afford a bike. It cost 100 to 200 RMB [Chinese Yuan Renminbi], which was then an unimaginable, enormous figure,’ Li recalls. ‘If we could just get enough to eat, we were doing well. A car was never even a goal, it was too far away.’ Reminiscing from one of his lavish mansions, a marble gilded palace in a villa compound near Beijing’s airport, Li explains how his precocious younger self was still fascinated by the machines. ‘I liked cars a lot in my childhood,’ he laughs. ‘China was not open, and there were very few cars, and all of them were Soviet imports. I loved to look at them; there were cars like Volga, Zim, [short for the Zavod Imeni Molotova from the Lenin Car Factory], and the Zis from the Moscow Stalin Car Factory. As China developed, there were a few domestic brands like Red Flag and Shanghai, which I also really liked. Sometimes I followed new cars and would even be late for class.’ Born in Beijing in 1951, Li endured some of the greatest privations of Chinese Communism, including eight years of hard labour imposed on his generation of urban youths who were sent out to the countryside to learn from the peasants. However, he came of age during the late ’70s, a crucial moment, just as China was beginning its excitingly transformative gaige kaifang, or reform and opening. Li was one of the first brave wave of etihu, or private entrepreneurs, who dared to go into business for themselves at a time when most Chinese feared that the economic opening up would, like prior liberalisations, prove temporary, and be followed by a crackdown on those who supported it. State-owned enterprises provided all of society with the security but also invasive control of a lifelong work unit, or danwei. Only a few initially left the housing allotments and stability of their work units to xiahai, or jump into the uncertain sea, of private endeavour.




In 1980, Li became one of those daring groundbreakers. His story is so well known in China that it’s now almost the stuff of legend: how he started off selling electric watches, then a luxurious novelty, on the street. Then he invested everything into another exotic device, a cold drinks vending machine, which was installed in the cadre resort town of Beidaihe and made him a fortune. His subsequent endeavours included opening a video game arcade, selling hair tonic in Japan and building highways in Malaysia. Being wealthy in China in the ’80s and ’90s was a different creature than it is today, Li muses. ‘In that era, it was all just starting, with the policies encouraging some people to “get rich first” for reform, as Deng Xiaoping famously suggested. There was not the hatred of the rich, or the flaunting of wealth, like today. Now, this society is starting to be very divided, with a wider gap between the rich and the poor. ‘It was not like it is now, where there is no such sensation of freshness and curiosity. China had not yet gone out and interacted with the world. Not like it is now that it has broken out, and everything is here. We used to be excited just to be able to eat pork, but now we want good Italian food. The level of demand and desire has improved a lot.’ The fascination with exotic imported gadgetry (watches, vending machines, video game consoles) was also its motivation. ‘As soon as I made some money, I wanted to fulfil my childhood dream of owning a car.’ He bought his first in 1980, for 2,000 RMB. ‘At the time there were only 10 privately owned cars in China, I was one of the first to own one. It was a small Toyota, which was acquired secondhand from an embassy, as China had no such things available commercially at that time.’
As the money came in over the subsequent years, Li changed his cars many times. Then, in 1993, he became China’s Mr Ferrari. Luxury foreign sports cars were the ultimate in exotic imports, a complete novelty previously unheard of in China. That year, Ferrari sent a bright red 348 TS to be exhibited at the Beijing International Conference Center in support of the city’s 2000 Olympics bid.

‘It was a fast, curious car, and a style statement, and so I bought it’
‘No one knew what it was. People only knew a little about Ferraris from newspapers and magazines, but had never seen one of them in the flesh,’ Li remembers. ‘People thought, “It’s too short, it only holds two people!” It was very stylish for the time, for the Chinese – so few people could buy something like that, few had even been abroad. It was a fast, curious car, and a style statement, and so I bought it.’ Li was attracted by the car’s ‘passionate red, its design, and its speed’, and its purchase realised his childhood dream and fascination. It became big news, reported in major media around the world. China had its first Ferrari. Li and his 348 TS, with its bold Beijing “A00001” number plate, became an international symbol and sensation. For Li, it represented how ‘China had gone from poverty to become so rich and civilised that young Chinese could buy Ferraris. It made me the captain of the new self-made class. It was a symbol of China’s reform and openness: people were getting rich, Ferraris were becoming affordable for the average people.’ Dubbed “Mr Ferrari” in the press, and frequently photographed next to the 348 TS in places like the Forbidden City, Li jokes that the media appointed him as Ferrari’s free spokesman, giving him a public voice as the face of China’s success: ‘In those times, Ferrari was associated with me, a successful young man who had come from nothing. Ferrari represented a dream that I had realised and I represented China’s Reform and Opening, three corners of a triangle.’ International leaders and celebrities visiting China, including Bill Clinton, both Presidents Bush, Margaret Thatcher, Vladimir Putin and Yasser Arafat, sought out meetings with Li and signed his famous car. ‘Ferrari was very lucky, as it was the first importedluxury car and was the big boss at that time,’ claims Li. His association with the brand made it the go-to car for successful businessmen in China. ‘For a lot of people, it became a symbol of wealth, of success.

‘Everybody wanted to jump into the famous car to feel what it was like’
I think people recognised Ferrari because of me and I contributed to making it more popular in China.’ Beyond the public eye, Li smiles, his friends were ‘all very excited. Everybody wanted to jump into the famous car to feel what it was like. Beijing’s traffic was better then; actually it was very good at the time and there were no cars on the airport road. It allowed you to experience what you should experience as a young man. It is the most beloved of a man’s best toys. I mostly just drove it myself, apart from ceding the wheel to a few close friends desperate to try it.’ Now, though, Li does not have as many chances to drive it. ‘It is not my main means of transport: it is not a car for getting around. It is more for a track than daily use, a car you drive to drive. The manual gearbox is not suited for Beijing’s current traffic. It is a collector’s item, not for daily use. But I still drive it to events.’ Along with being China’s Mr Ferrari, Li is also renowned for being one of the country’s leading philanthropists. In particular, he has donated extensively to fund the establishment of schools in poor regions, the education of disadvantaged groups and the daily supplies for areas hit by natural disasters. ‘I have a lot of stories,’ Li recounts proudly. ‘For example, in the place where I founded the Xiao Hua School, the local farmers were mostly uneducated and a lot of young people would not have had the chance to study before. After the school was opened, the people were able to access learning and culture for the first time and that led to knowledge, which changed the situation in the countryside and opened up new possibilities. Some of them even have doctorates now.’ He also helps the mentally and physically disabled to lead normal lives, and tells the stories of individualswho have gone from total dependence to living flourishing lives due to his programmes. ‘I started doing charity work as soon as I had money. The wealthy should have that concern, and business people should look after people and return the wealth back to the society,’ Li insists. ‘It is a spirit and challenge of how much you can do and, while in China the development of the country and the society cannot rely upon charity, it is the spirit of mutual assistance.’ In China, ‘charity is not an easy path, and it faces challenges. People have to have loving hearts, and that power cannot be obliterated; without goodness, society won’t change.’ While too few of his peers have similarly given back, ‘Chinese people have a tradition of caring and giving: and more and more that tradition is returning these days.’




Li’s dedication to charity has been recognised with honorary chairmanships of the China Charity Association and the China Red Cross, and membership in the Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. He was a torch-bearer for the 2008 Beijing Olympics and a representative at the handovers of Hong Kong and Macau. In 1996 he received a more astronomical tribute when his support of astrology research prompted the International Minor Planet Center to name Asteroid Number 3556 the Li Xiaohua Star. ‘It is an encouragement, since all star names have been given to such influential people, while I am just a regular businessman,’ he says. ‘It is a bit too big for me and is inspiring and encouraging, but humbling. It reminds me that I have to do my best.’
Li retains a certain humility, which is remarkable given his well known affluence. His showcase villa is an aggressive statement of success, with its basement pool, its floor-to-ceiling marble, its mink bedspreads, its collection of Italian furniture in lush purple velvet and gold trim, and its painted Italian frescoes. Li expresses a broader appreciation of Italian artistry and workmanship beyond his Ferrari 348 TS. ‘Italian industry is very advanced: it has the best brands for cars, furniture, clothing, and daily commodities. Italian brands have good strategies to make their goods highly covetable and value-added. They are well made, so their prices are high. ‘China also has that rich cultural history, but with such different results. Italy is at the pinnacle of Western culture and that cultural content is evident and in everything it produces, from industrial technology, to top-end brands and everyday goods. That is something China can learn from.’ Li believes that China can, should and will learn from other countries and cultures, and the ability to absorb everything is precisely the reason why it has adapted to such transformations in society and economy. No other society has changed so overwhelmingly, so fast, going from too poor for bicycles to owning Ferraris in two decades. ‘So much in China has changed, and it is completely connected to culture,’ he explains. ‘China is very open to external influences. We want a better life and to change ourselves, so we find out what is good abroad, chase it down and study it. Now parts of China are even more modern than abroad. Chinese people like to study and learn, and a lot of things are happening here because of that.’