Automakers are now looking to China to drive revenues amid weakness in the United States and Europe.
New models on the show include a Chrysler Wrangler, a Ford Motor SUV, a luxury sedan from Japan's Infiniti, and a display model of the first car from an electric vehicle joint venture between Daimler AG and China's BYD.
Amedeo Felisa is the CEO of Ferrari.
"Last year 2011, China became the second market, beating Germany. That was historically our second market."
Automakers that used to sell the same models around the world with few local changes now increasingly create products with Chinese buyers in mind.
Big players are targeting both ends of the Chinese market, rolling out luxury models for newly rich urban Chinese and economy models for the low-income but vast rural population.
However, China's auto sales growth plunged last year after the government tightened lending and investment curbs to cool an overheated economy.
Total auto sales rose just 2 percent in the first quarter of this year over a year earlier, compared with the 35 percent growth rare back in 2010.
But the global enthusiasm for the car market in China remains strong.
Joe Hinrichs is president of Ford Motor Company for Asia Pacific and Africa.
"China is a big part of our growth plan, it is the largest market in the world, and a great potential opportunity for Ford to grow our business even further as part of our plan to sell eight (m) million vehicles annually by 2015 around the world."
The Beijing Auto show will last until next Wednesday.
For CRI, I'm Su Yi.
