China car firms gear up for booming sales

Shanghai’s urban planning museum has a useful exhibit – a series of photographs taken from the same spot, now, and 20 years ago.

The transformation is startling.

Where once there were muddy lanes, now concrete highways soar.

In two short decades, roads that were crammed with bicycles have given way to highways choked with cars.

China’s landscape is being remodelled by the car.

Ten years ago there were almost no privately owned cars in China.

By the end of 2005 there were almost 24 million.