A camouflaged wagon was spotted parked in a Melbourne car park. The exposed panels match perfectly against Hongqi’s Global SUV that was revealed at the Beijing Auto Show.
A heavily wrapped SUV has been spotted in Melbourne disguised bumper to bumper in a chunky black, white and green vinyl pattern. Nothing about the wrap gives it away as it is a new design that I myself had not seen before. But the details behind its number plate matched with hits exposed panels gives it away.
The car first went public on The EV Show by Ludicrous Feed Live on Wednesday night, where hosts Tom Gan and the crew fielded a steady run of viewer theories through the broadcast. Nobody landed a confirmed answer on air, but the room got close. Several viewers pegged it as a Hongqi, the Chinese luxury brand due to launch here in the coming months.
A registration check on Victorian Plate 2FN3QV comes back to FAW, body type wagon, model year 2026, white underneath all that vinyl. The VIN reads as not yet confirmed and the compliance plate field shows a placeholder date. An engine number is on file too, which rules out a pure EV and lines up neatly with the range-extended petrol-electric powertrain this particular Hongqi is expected to run.
What’s visible under the wrap
Hongqi has never sold a passenger car in Australia so a wagon-bodied FAW isn’t something the local rego system has filed before. What is filed though, are the panels this wrap doesn’t quite cover. I lined the exposed sections up against Hongqi’s own reveal photos from Beijing, panel by panel.
The lower front grille peeking out beneath the camouflage carries the same trapezoidal opening as the car Hongqi showed off in April. The bonnet’s crease line runs the same path. Around the back, a sliver of exposed tail light matches the through-type light bar Hongqi carried over from the HS5. Even the slivers of visible wheel spoke line up with the five-spoke petal-shaped alloys from the Beijing car. For a vehicle under this much vinyl, that’s about as close to confirmed as it gets before FAW says something official.
| Hongqi Global SUV (Beijing reveal) | |
|---|---|
| Price | TBC |
| Length | Approx. 4,750mm |
| Powertrain | EREV, petrol engine as generator |
| Electrical architecture | 800V |
| Battery integration | CTC 2.0 Technology |
| Chip | Qualcomm Snapdragon 8650 |
| Thermal management | 27-in-1 integrated system |
| Registration expiry | N/A |
The Leapmotor connection
Hongqi calls this one the Global SUV, and it’s the product of an unusual partnership. FAW, China’s oldest car brand, signed a cooperation deal with Leapmotor, one of its youngest, back in March 2025. Leapmotor supplies the electrification and software. FAW brings traditional powertrain engineering and its supply chain. The result rides on Leapmotor’s LEAP 3.5 architecture, the same underpinnings as the B10 small SUV already on sale here.
FAW backed the deal taking a 5% stake in Leapmotor worth roughly US$500 million, with half of that funding earmarked for joint R&D into PHEVs and EREVs. The Global SUV itself runs to around 4,750mm long, sits on an 800V electrical architecture, uses CTC 2.0 battery integration and a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8650 chip. Hongqi’s design boss, former Rolls-Royce stylist Giles Taylor, has been upfront that the car keeps Hongqi’s face and cabin feel even though the underpinnings are that of Leapmotor.
Production is slated for the second half of 2026, running as an EREV. That means the petrol engine on board works purely as a generator for the electric drivetrain, not something with a mechanical link to the wheels.
FAW is spreading its bets wider than just Leapmotor too. Separately, Hongqi is lined up to be the first brand outside BYD itself to get BYD’s second-generation Blade Battery and flash charging tech, through a battery joint venture called FAW-FinDreams. That’s earmarked for a future pure-electric Hongqi platform though, a different project to the EREV spotted in Melbourne.
Hongqi’s run-up to Australia
Hongqi is already committed to Australia, trading locally as HQ through Sydney-based distributor Greentech. The first confirmed model is the E-HS9, a three-row electric SUV, due here around January 2027 with a second SUV pencilled in for April 2027. Greentech’s local boss Jim Wu has flagged ambitions well past that opening pair too, three models total, aimed at sitting above Tesla and level with BMW and Mercedes-Benz on price.
Wu’s background makes the Melbourne sighting easier to read. Before Greentech, he was Wu Baojun, co-founder and president of Leapmotor, a role he left in 2024. He’s now the man tasked with building Hongqi’s Australian dealer network from a standing start, and he knows precisely what a Leapmotor-based car can do because he helped build the company that makes them.
Not yet on the local roadmap
Coverage of the FAW-Leapmotor tie-up out of China has already named Australia as one of the export markets earmarked for the Global SUV, alongside Europe, the UK, New Zealand and the Middle East. HQ Australia hasn’t put that car on its public roadmap yet. A test mule quietly clocking up kilometres in Melbourne, on fresh FAW plates and carrying a fleet number on its guards, is exactly the kind of thing that shows up before an announcement, not after one.
The number 2448 stencilled on the front guard is worth a second look too. Fleet numbering like that points to more than a single car, which means there’s a reasonable chance this isn’t the only Global SUV currently running around Australian roads in disguise.
Beyond EV will keep tracking this one. If HQ Australia locks the Global SUV into its local lineup alongside the E-HS9, expect the camouflage to come off well before any local unveiling does.
