Romaniashite

[vulgalour]

Hmm... I may have been misinformed.  I'm aware there's apparently two different Syncros, the regular height 4WD version and the jacked up 4WD version as the above.  Suffice to say, whatever is correct, it's rarer than a rare thing with rare stuff on it.  I bow to your probably superior knowledge.

[Adrian_pt]

Interesting questions. The guy with the photos is called (I think) Cristian Popescu, I have one of his books at home. Taking photos of a lot of things was heavily frowned on but luckily there were a few around who took some pretty invaluable documentary stuff.

 

A lot of Romanians live in flats. The rural poor and the urban well-off tend to live in houses, though. From the Fifties onwards housing policy was to replace individual houses with flats, on a grand scale. This had the effect of 1) making everyone ostensibly equal and 2) making it easier to control people. If you can fit an entire village into a mega block of flats (by no means impossible) then it's a lot easier to stamp out subversion. So the norm, in a town at least, is a flat.

 

By and large people quite liked living in them - clean, convenient, and modern: you'd get things like central heating and an indoor bathroom, which for most people were a step up. Of course, there was a massive hierarchy, from one-room affairs with communal bathrooms to some quite swish and spacious apartments far bigger than the average UK purpose-built flat. But the fact that many of them were jerry-built, and Romania is pretty prone to earthquakes, means there's been a bit of an exodus in favour of houses - for those who can afford it, of course.

 

History lesson over, time for the remaining pictures from my November jaunt:

[Adrian_pt]

An update. Most of the really interesting (even vaguely interesting) stuff has gone. Still a bit of 80s stuff around but it's rare. Dacias are a dying sight, everything else from the East has almost totally disappeared. 5 years of very generous scrappage schemes has clearly taken its toll. The upside is that the enthusiast scheme has expanded quite a lot, so a lot of older cars are now quite valued and sought after. I never thought I'd see the day when I'd snap a standard 1310: it's come much quicker than I'd imagined.

 

1. Communist Party-spec Dacia 1310

2. Same

3. Another early 1310.

4. One of the very few 1300s left in normal use

5. An unusual sight - a Lancia

6. VW Beetle - owned by an enthusiast

7. US spec Ford has been there for years

8. A very well restored Renault 16. These were officially imported for a while in the 60s and were a definite sign of social status

9. Old Skoda in the smartest residential quarter. Got into a lot of agro for snapping this. There is a P6 round the corner, totally covered by foliage: God only knows how it reached 70s Romania.

10. Old Volga languishing in a courtyard

[Skizzer]

Blimey, not just any Skoda but a 1000MB.  Properly good spots.  Sad that this stuff is disappearing, really, though I'm sure* that's all very good for the Romanians.

 

Renault 16...a definite sign of social status

 

I think you'll find that still holds true today  

[Adrian_pt]

These are from provincial Romania in early 2016 (apart from the last couple of photos which are from Bucharest). Still a lot of early Dacias around once you get off the beaten track. The black early 1310 is an ex official car. Sadly a few of the cars pictured here have since been scrapped, although others are in good hands.

[Adrian_pt]

A jaunt to Bucharest in the autumn last year yielded surprisingly little. All Communist stuff is getting scarce. The highlight was the P6 on one of Bucharest's most expensive streets, in front of a highly dilapidated villa. Apparently it's been lying there since the late 80s. Numberplate suggests very senior ownership. Must be a fascinating story behind it - pretty unusual to have a P6 behind the iron curtain (though there were some quite lively vehicles imported in the 60s and 70s).

 

The silver Dacia 1310 is also quite special - it's a Canada-only model from 83. They were much better built than ones for the local market, so export models were highly sought after. Ceausescu's sun had an identical one.

 

The Dacia 2000 belongs to a friend. It was the one used by Ceausescu as an official car, with lots of goodies such as an automatic gearbox. Obscurely there were at least three versions of the Dacia 2000 - roughly corresponding to the TL, TX and TS IIRC. There's a permanent mini expo where it's parked, in the basement of the Intercontinental.

 

Sad to say the grille on the Sierra wasn't grey....

[adw1977]

No grey grille, but the Sierra is a base model, complete with the centre caps on the wheels, a great find.

In the UK there was never a 3 door grey grille model because the grille changed to body colour before the 3 door was launched.

[Felly Magic]

Loving the FUK plate on that buttery biscuit base, it would be a shame if those centre caps went missing and somehow ended up on the the Holy Grey Grille LOL

[Shep Shepherd]

I really like the Dacia 2000 

[Adrian_pt]

A few more from trips in July and November 2017, and February this year. As before: it's now quite tough to see much of real interest, especially in the big cities. The most frequently seen older cars are still Dacias, though never on the main roads (seeing two in the same carpark is highly unusual). Dacias, plus a light dusting of 80s tat, can be found mainly in residential districts, especially those where pensioners live. Most don't move much. Aros and Oltcits have all gone though there's still the odd ancient Roman truck in very rural areas. On top of this, I saw, but didn't manage to photograph, a Dacia 1100 and Fiat 125, still being driven around by old giffers.

[Adrian_pt]

Very sadly, most of the interesting Romanian cars I used to enjoy seeing are long, long gone - even the R12-shaped Dacias are really hard to see these days. This was from a week or so spent there and admittedly I was in pretty well-off cities, but the pickings were slim indeed. I did enjoy the lash-ed up Merc hearse thought, and the old Rover (rotting on that driveway for at least the past 30 years) should be a protected monument by now.