Rolls-Royce is ringing in the Chinese new year early.

The British brand behind the famous Phantom says it's producing a line of limited-edition cars celebrating the upcoming year of the dragon.

The cars will feature a hand-painted golden dragon on the side panels, hand-embroidered dragons on the leather headrests and illuminated tread plates along the door sills with 'Year of the Dragon 2012' highlighted in LED lighting. The dragonedition will be available in both the regular Phantom model and the extended wheelbase Phantom model. The latter was created to meet Chinese demand for roomier, chauffeur-driven cars.

Rolls-Royce has yet to set prices for the special-edition cars. China's luxury car buyers pay some of the highest prices in the world when it comes to fancy vehicles: A Rolls-Royce car starts at 6.6 million yuan ($990,000), more than 2.5 times the price in the U.S., due mostly to the high import taxes on luxury cars.

In 2010, China became the second-largest buyer of high-end car brands behind the U.S. and overtook the U.K. for the first time. The brand's highest-selling dealership last year was in Beijing, where it sold 223 cars alone, or about one out of every twelve purchased in the world.

In recent years, a number of luxury car makers have created special limitededitions exclusively for the Chinese market. In 2010, BMW launched the 'M3 Tiger' sports car in celebration of the Chinese Year of the Tiger.

Porsche celebrated its tenth anniversary in China earlier this year with a limitededition gold-colored Porsche 911.

Do these limitededition gimmicks work on the Chinese market? The gold Porsche reportedly sold out before the car was even released to the Chinese public (it had a limitedrelease of ten cars priced at almost US$550,000). The BMW M3 sold out as well.

According to Yuval Atsmon, a consultant at McKinsey who focuses on the luxury sector in China, wealthy Chinese consumers are especially fond of limitededition runs of high-end goods.