North Korean cars

[Guest Leonard Hatred]

 

Oh, herro

 

North Korea fascinates me, it's up there among my dream holiday destinations with Pripyat. Its cars are interesting too, though I don't think they have built any original DPRK-designed cars which is something I'd love to see.

 

 

I didn't realise they built Mercedes 190 in the DPRK, I'd love to build a replica - the grille looks home-made so it's feasible.

 

 

Mercedes W123s were popular with the country and built in CKD form.

 

 

 

Volvo was keen to invest in North Korea in the 1970s, and shipped 600 cars over but the government didn't bother paying for them, taking them as a 'gift'

 

 

Today North Korea's few motorists can buy CKD Fiat Palios and all kinds of CKD Chinese cars, I like the ad with half-arsed flipped image showing a right hand drive car with a back to front Fiat badge

 

Here's the rather long-winded television advert for it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmhTKDqrEDo

 

And for some shite. Romania were communist allies and exported a few Dacias. I'm surprised they are allowed to look scruffy.

[Guest]

Apparently the North Korean W123 was badly-sealed so if you took it for a drive out of the city the interior would fill up with dust and road grime. Sounds great!

[Guest Leonard Hatred]

Were they built officially?

[RedSparrow]

I would love to visit. There was quite a good programme on a few months ago about a couple of Dutch comedians who went there. Fascinating yet totally bizzare.

 

I bet even the factory workers aren't told that the cars are old Fiat designs.

 

[Guest]

Were they built officially?

I read they were unofficial copies, but I dunno about that. I reckon they were CKD, but with cut corners.

[Guest Leonard Hatred]

http://www.caranddriver.com/features/10 ... ea-feature

 

Good article here.

Looking at the 190 more closely it does have some duff details like the ribbed front indicators

[Mr Lobster]

Theres an interesting account of a visit to North Korea here.

 

Interesting, if a little scary.

[barrett]

A strange documentary about DPRK

aswell. Seems they mostly drive Hirst-spec Laurels??

[Tayne]

.

[Guest Leonard Hatred]

Could be a GAZ Gazelle, they look very similar to a Transit

[CIH]

Hans Blix oh no!!

[Tayne]

.

[Dukestar25]

IIRC, the Chinese also ripped off the Daewoo Matiz as their own design, so the Koreans took one back to their place to prove it had been copied by try-fitting some of their Matiz doors on the Chinese 'original' - and suprisingly enough, they fitted perfectly

[Mike D]

Theres an interesting account of a visit to North Korea here.

 

Interesting, if a little scary.

The blue one on the left looks like a Transit.

 

The blue one is one the right! LOLZ!

[Parky]

Len,

 

With you on NK and Pripyat, the two places I most want to visit too.

 

Any NK fans I can thoroughly recommend the book "Nothing to Envy" which is a collection of accounts from defectors. Chilling, fascinating, sometimes funny but still begs the question "How the f*ck does the leadership manage to continue brainwashing the population?"

[Mr_Bo11ox]

I've got that book, been saving it to read on holiday in a fortnight!

[jnoiles]

I've been to pripyat (http://pripyat.smugmug.com/Other/Pripya ... 1826_qaDsP) and it was amazing. Some freakish stories to tell from there as well. The shite in the machine graveyard was incredible but we we didn't have a lot of time to view it. The radiation is quite high in that area.

 

North Korea is next on the list. Autoshite holiday in Pyongyang anyone? I hear they give discounts for group bookings if you take the extended tour up in the mountains

 

The Axis of Evil - World Tour book has a good section on DPRK. Including the only photo known to exist of the Dear Leader's (Kim Sr) Shrine.

[RedSparrow]

I've been to pripyat (http://pripyat.smugmug.com/Other/Pripya ... 1826_qaDsP) and it was amazing. Some freakish stories to tell from there as well. The shite in the machine graveyard was incredible but we we didn't have a lot of time to view it. The radiation is quite high in that area.

 

North Korea is next on the list. Autoshite holiday in Pyongyang anyone? I hear they give discounts for group bookings if you take the extended tour up in the mountains

 

The Axis of Evil - World Tour book has a good section on DPRK. Including the only photo known to exist of the Dear Leader's (Kim Sr) Shrine.

I would be well up for that, none of my mates want to go!

Could we organise a group of us to visit?

[jnoiles]

I would be well up for that, none of my mates want to go! Could we organise a group of us to visit?

Count me in. I want to do the one where they go up into the country though, not just the 3 days in Pyongyang. If you go for the longer ones you get the drive though the countryside and into the mountains. It's supposed to be quite beautiful. Time it for the Arirang games?

[ChinaTom]

If you go, make sure you stay in the Ryugyong hotel - it's not actually finished (and probably never will be), so take a sleeping bag.

 

 

I've not been to DPRK, although have seen it from the Dandong bridge. One day I may have a nose around. Despite the horror stories (everywhere has their fair share of those) there are worse places to be. I think anyone under 50 will see reunification in their lifetime.

 

China sends a load of vehicles there,and somewhere in PY, there is a lock-up with 11 Merc 560SELs bought with IMF poverty allegiance funds. There'll be some wicked Russian stuff under tarps too.

[scooters]

fukin hell what a shit hole - those vans look so wonwey

[scooters]

well, if you want to go it wil cost you about 2000 Euros

 

http://www.korea-dpr.com/travel.htm

 

mind you - quite why anyone would want to go to that fucked up, evil, stalinist, tyrant run, abortion of a country is beyond me - funny as it is to sneer at their tin the human rights record for North Korea is abysmal - spend an hour on wikipedia and it is enough to turn your stomache-

 

visiting such an evil, nasty, inhuman, barbaric place run by a bunch of obnoxious syphalitic cunts merely endorses their regime.....

[ashmicro]

I reckon it might be quite interesting. I visited East Berlin when I was 16 - what an unrelenting sea of grey, precast-concrete misery (and mullets). Looking over the wall, from quite far back on the Ostie-side, most visible was a BFO, laser-backlit sign proclaiming "Mercedes-Benz". Talk about rubbing it in!

 

I remember giving and East German soldier what remained in my pack of Marlboro red label (probably about 10 or so) when he asked me could he have one. This kid wasn't much older than me at the time. He looked cold and hungry too.

 

Some other punter asked could he buy my trainers, the poor sod. And a few months after I was there, they had to put up with David Hasselhoff singing at them, wearing a light-up jacket...

[scooters]

And a few months after I was there, they had to put up with David Hasselhoff singing at them, wearing a light-up jacket...

that was a fucking war crime if ever there was one - poor bastards

[nigel bickle]

I was on the wall, at the Brandenburg gate -the day it came down.

 

Some news coverage you can see me,pissed as a newt,leaping about in a multicoloured skijacket.

 

Loads of pics of before, during & after-along with a bag of rubble someplace.

[ChinaTom]

mind you - quite why anyone would want to go to that fucked up, evil, stalinist, tyrant run, abortion of a country is beyond me - funny as it is to sneer at their tin the human rights record for North Korea is abysmal - spend an hour on wikipedia and it is enough to turn your stomache-

 

visiting such an evil, nasty, inhuman, barbaric place run by a bunch of obnoxious syphalitic cunts merely endorses their regime.....

Yeah, but, also full of millions of ordinary folk who under a different regime would feature the same cross section of society as other countries. The top leadership is so far up their own collective backsides, they won't notice. The ordinary folk need a trickle of exposure to an alternative in order to catalyse any form of relief from it. Set that lot "free" and I predict the 20th generation Ssangyong Rodius will be a sight to behold.

[Torsten2001]

well, if you want to go it wil cost you about 2000 Euros

 

http://www.korea-dpr.com/travel.htm

 

mind you - quite why anyone would want to go to that fucked up, evil, stalinist, tyrant run, abortion of a country is beyond me - funny as it is to sneer at their tin the human rights record for North Korea is abysmal - spend an hour on wikipedia and it is enough to turn your stomache-

 

visiting such an evil, nasty, inhuman, barbaric place run by a bunch of obnoxious syphalitic cunts merely endorses their regime.....

My kind of place!

[Negative Creep]

I'm fairly sure the accounts of the Korean War that I've read are slightly different to this one.........

 

http://www.korea-dpr.com/mother.htm

 

In front of this political-military situation, the Great Leader Kim II Sung organized the tactical temporary retreat to organize the troops for the final and definitive stroke against the U.S.

Gotta love those optimists

[gtd2000]

I'd certainly be interested to see North Korea.

 

The problem is that we are all exposed to a lot of propaganda and not all of it is objective.

 

I remember going to Beijing for the first time in 1997 and fully expected to be followed around by secret police etc.

 

To be honest the cops in China appeared to be pretty laid back from my experience.

 

I'm not saying for one moment that I endorse these regimes but I have worked with a cross section of people from all around the world and you'd be quite surprised at some of the responses that people give from locations that were under the control of "Communism" (State Capitalism) now that they have their "freedoms".

 

When I was in the Army the images they showed us of life in Russia were pretty grim to say the least - I've had Russian colleages and they told me all about the "closed cities" where people generally had everything they needed. We always saw photographs of Russian peasant hags pissing in the street with their skirts hitched up - legs apart etc. Don't think for one minute that I believed life in the USSR was wonderful - but it's not in the West either for the majority of people.

 

Have you ever actually seen women from parts of the USSR such as Georgia or Ukraine? Make your bloody knees wobble they would - funny they never showed us that aspect

 

You really can't compare any of these regimes with the West of 2010 and expect them to be at the same level.

 

Just look back in our own history and you'll see life wasn't so open and free for the lower classes.

 

Look back 60/70+ years and it might be a more accurate comparison.

 

Did the communists tie their soldiers to the wheels of Artillery cannons when they suffered from PTSD?

I've read that they (The Russians - who saved Europe in WW2) used to shoot the soldiers that tried to retreat.

Did the communists send millions of men to die in useless battles - yes quite probably but so did the free Westen regimes.

 

As a non-religious chap - "let he who is without sin cast the first stone..." neither side has much to gloat or feel smug about when you look at the records.

[jnoiles]

mind you - quite why anyone would want to go to that fucked up, evil, stalinist, tyrant run, abortion of a country is beyond me - funny as it is to sneer at their tin the human rights record for North Korea is abysmal - spend an hour on wikipedia and it is enough to turn your stomache-

 

visiting such an evil, nasty, inhuman, barbaric place run by a bunch of obnoxious syphalitic cunts merely endorses their regime.....

I find it fascinating. How better to appreciate a thing than to see it first hand?