001 was fortunate enough to get the call from Mercedes-Benz to drive the fifth and final leg of the E-Class long distance drive from Paris to Beijing. The Chinese city of over one million situated on the Yellow River was simultaneously the most southern point of the E-Class Experience, which lies on the same latitude as Gibraltar (Spain) and San Francisco (USA). The journey headed for Beijing, which is to be reached on November 17th, at first went to the north into Inner Mongolia.
On the way to Wuhai we drove the new E-Class through Ningxia, the autonomous region of the Moslem Hui-Chinese. Numerous mosques on both sides of the route gave visible testimony for the practice of the Islamic faith. At the same time, the wide and often uninhabited landscape was a reminder that Ningxia with its area of 66,500 square kilometres is not only the smallest, but also among the most sparsely populated regions of the People’s Republic of China. The autonomous region is located on the north-western boarder of the large loess plateaus and blends into the Mongolian steppe and dessert land in the north, which the E-Class long distance drive will pass on tomorrow’s route.
Look for more coverage as the week presses on and a special surprise for all AutoSpies.com readers from Beijing…