To gain permission to manufacture their new model-a right then held by a few dozen state-owned factories-Wang and Pan lugged their prototype 2, 000 km to Beijing to show the Minister for Light Industry.
With the help of its tiny township government in Shunde county, its founders, Pan Ning and Wang Guoduan, turned it from the 42nd-largest fridge maker in 1984 into China's biggest in six years.