China Is Kicking Our Asses In The Full Size Cars Made Of Burnable Paper Market

There’s a global war happening, and we are losing. Well, I guess “we” is only relevant if you’re not from China, specifically from the Chinese paper company Dachanglong Paper Company (大昌隆紙號), who seem to be the dominant global leader in close-to-full-size cars made of paper designed to be burned in accordance with traditional Chinese worship and mourning rites and rituals, part of a larger category of papercraft known as Joss paper.

Joss paper – which may be best known in its form of representation of money and luxury goods – is burned in rituals where a symbolic connection to the underworld, ancestors, and deceased loved ones is established, and the money or jewelry or other luxury items – including, yes, cars – are sent as gifts to specific people in the underworld, transported to that realm via the process of burning.

Most Joss paper cars are sub-scale models of cars, maybe a foot and a half long or so. You can find these for sale on places like Amazon and other similar sort of small-scale mom-and-pop retailers:

Now, these are great and all, but if you really want to honor those ancestors, wouldn’t you like to get them a full-sized Joss paper car? Or at least, close to full-sized, like maybe a Smokey Yunick-style 7/8-scale car? Something like that sounds great, right? Sure it does. And, as far as I can tell, there’s really only one outlet that delivers on this promise, and that’s the Dachanglong Paper Company. Check out what they offer, as seen in their social media posts:

That’s a fantastic Beetle there! I think I can even identify a year – it looks like a ’68 or ’69, I’d say. That more modern Alfa is impressive, too – note how they have actual interiors, with seats and even a driver!

For whatever reason, the company seems to have been getting more attention lately, with a number of articles and social media posts showing up in the past week or so, leading to a friend sending me this Reddit link that showed a number of their cars. Their paper bandwagon is rolling along, so who am I to avoid jumping on?

I think the reason these have had such a peculiar spike in mainstream interest has to do with the large scale of the cars and the remarkable detail:

That’s a pretty faithful recreation of a Mini; those headlights look especially good!

There’s even what looks like a half-scale Toyota AE86 that’s available, leading to wonderful Chinese market stories like this one:

Yes, let your ancestors drift! Why not?

Just look at the variety of these cars they make: Land Rovers, and Teslas, strange Mercedes-Benzes, Porsches – there’s a pretty good variety of cars in the afterlife, it seems.

A lot of the detail comes from the printing on the paper, of course, but it’s a lot more than that; there’s real sculptural elements, too, like the fendertop turn indicators on the Beetle or the side mirrors or the hood bulges – there must be some pretty elaborate armatures under all that paper and foil.

The window glass looks like clear plastic, which makes me wonder how well these actually burn? Or do they just melt and make noxious smoke? Maybe that’s part of the fun.

(top image sources: Dachanglong Paper Company, Deposit Photos)