Playing ‘where’s the car’ on the streets of Hong Kong

I recently saw a car advertisement where the first thing I noticed wasn’t the car, but the backdrop. I swear it was somewhere in Hong Kong, but I couldn’t quite pick the location. So where could it be?

Time to start digging

I initially got Kennedy Town vibes.

Western District Public Cargo Working Area at Kennedyt TOwn

Or Quarry Bay.

Looking over the harbour towards North Point

Definitely somewhere residential, with twisting roads up the hillsides looking down on a mix of residential towers, and not a New Town down at sea level.

The foothills of Kowloon around Wong Tai Sin was my other guess.

Apartment towers at Diamond Hill in Hong Kong

But after scanning around Google Earth for some time, I couldn’t find anything that matched.

A clue

These tall buildings looked rather distinctive.

So I headed over to Wikipedia’s list of tallest buildings in Hong Kong.

And I got lucky on entry #99 – ‘The Pacifica‘ in Lai Chi Kok was a match.


Exploringlife photo via Wikimedia Commons

I headed back onto Google Earth, and discovered Lai Chi Kok was right where Google’s 3D scanned buildings cut out. ๐Ÿ˜‚


Google Earth

But the problem was actually at my end – turns out Google does cover it, but bad internet meant the page didn’t load the first time around.


Google Earth

Once I’d orientated the buildings in Google Earth to match the photo, I followed the terrain backwards until I noticed this loopy road hanging off the side of a hill.


Google Earth

Switching to Google Street View, I found it was a driveway leading to the ‘Villa Carlton’ development at 363 Tai Po Road, Cheung Sha Wan.


Google Street View

There’s another photo of this loop ramp over at the Gwulo website.


Photo via Gwulo.com

Unfortunately Google Street View doesn’t actually go down the driveway.


Google Street View

But it looks like the same spot to me.

Especially in the extra angles I found from the same photo shoot.

Definitely the same looping ramp.

Footnote – more Hong Kong locations!

I looks like the marketing team for the Polestar 2 electric car spent some time in Hong Kong.

Visiting Des Voeux Road Central.

This very familiar elevated road that I’m unable to pinpoint.

And this ‘generic’ freeway shot that just screams Hong Kong.

Any takers for finding the location of the last two photos? ๐Ÿ˜‰

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4 Responses to Playing ‘where’s the car’ on the streets of Hong Kong

  1. Ryan C says:

    I think photo 2 is probably somewhere along the Hung Hom Bypass, but there isn’t a good angle on google maps images.

    https://goo.gl/maps/fc1wQdg7Q5LDzSzS7

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