THE WILD, WILD EAST
Yu Guangyi's Taklimakan Rally racer
This article is from our archives and has not been updated and integrated with our "new" site yet... Even so, it's still awesome - so keep reading!
Published on Wed, Apr 1, 2015
By: The LACar Editorial Staff
Words by Gary Tokumoto
Pictures by Yi David Liu
It’s a Baja Buggy with a lightweight aluminum alloy chassis, powered by a 6.2 liter, electronically injected LS3 Chevrolet V8 tuned to 500 horsepower, and driving the rear wheels. It’s got California automotive consumer aftermarket written all over it. Except it’s not California. It’s a river bond near Shanghai, in the People’s Republic of China.
And it’s not Stillen, Penske or AEM behind this open frame tuner. The builder is Yu Guangyi, and he cranks out about five cars a year from his Eastern hot rod shop. The subject vehicle was designed for the Taklimakan Rally—one of Asia’s biggest rally events.
Since 2008, the automotive market in the People’s Republic of China has been the largest in the world, having eclipsed the United States. Since 2009, automotive production has surpassed that of the USA and Japan combined. Consequently, it should be no surprise that the aftermarket consumer car culture in China is now firmly planted. Builders like Yu Guangyi are making sure of that.
