Quote:
Originally Posted by JWE90
No way! Half the supercars in the world aren't even street legal here.
Per-capita I would guess its Switzerland.
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HALF? what are you talking about? OP is pointing out the circumstantial evidence that somehow China has more supercars in the world based on car wreck pictures. So I don't even know why per-capita even plays into this.
Have you even looked at the numbers?! The US hands down beats the crap out of all other countries in terms of annual supercar sales. Supercar sales, unlike all other cars, ebbs and flows with the world economy. The % changes every year swings larger than any other types of car. But no matter how you slice it, and regardless of year, the USA's take down every year just dominates the rest of the countries. We even beat most continents on any given year!
Those non-street legal cars you're talking about is even a FRACTION of annual worldwide supercar sales! If you don't believe it, look at the numbers, or just use your brain. You're telling me a small shop like Pagani and Grumpret will sell MORE cars (even combined) than Ferrari who has the manufacturing, sourcing, and marketing support of Fiat?! Give me a break.
Now OP to answer your question on why there's more picture on the werck site, I suspect it's a combination of reporting bias, the difference of cars owners in China, cultural acceptance of the rich, and the general disregard for traffic laws in China.
Reporting bias: Chinese cities are very dense. Therefore when a Ferrari crashes, you'll have probably 2-3 times more smartphones snapping photos posting it on websites. Finally, are you sure those photos are from China? How do you know some of those aren't crashes in other Asian countries like Japan, Taiwan, Indonesia?
Car owners: Chinese economic development skyrocketed in the 80s, but the ultra-rich didn't get to this point until the early 90s. So the composition of many of these owners are these "get-rich-quick" type people and corrupt public-private citizens who run state-sponsored monopolies. They give those cars to their kids, and there you have it. Also, many people also can do stuff with impunity. Likely some of these crash victims didn't even get cited as they're well connected in government, hence creating a culture of wrecklessness and playboy lifestyle. Finally, supercar ownership has become a status symbol in China. It's almost a necessity to tell everyone that "you have arrived", compared that to USA, I know many millioniares (liquid wealth, none of that homeownership wealth bullshit) that don't have supercars.
Culture: Same comment as above, but there's a general smug satisfaction in China that if some ultra-rich person comes crashing down (in any sense) the public would consume the shit out of it, they love the rags to riches back to rags stories. They love to look at pictures of the rich and disect and "character assassinate" them, and point out corrupt officials. Hence more reporting on stuff like this.
Traffic Laws: if you're ever been in China...then no explanation needed here.
