Thanks, ingo

On a Chollima-bus platform: http://imcdb.org/vehicle_568189-Chollima.html

http://www.chinesecars.net/content/chollima-working-platform

The colour tone looks different, but maybe it's the same, we already have listed. The orange one stands always on the same place in the town center of Pyongyang. I've seen it, too.

Someone at the Lighting Gallery web site posted an interesting picture: Streetlight repair in North Korea

Can anyone identify this van?

O.k., it's only a fictional movie (and, as all James Bond-movies with bad mistakes in the recherche, as just meant as bockbusters withot a relation to the reality), so a sports car collection is really unlikely. But either Kim Jong Il, as his father Kim Il Sung always had a large fleet of Mercedes Benzes.

And when they had the feeling, that some interior problems can come up, they have ordered a few hundred of new Benzes and have distributed to the highest military stuff, to keep them quiet. IIRC it was just one year ago, when Mercedes Benz has delivered ca.150 brand new cars to the DPRK.

@Ddey65: no, it was much easier: the cars were bought regulary in a Western country by a special department of the North Korean government, which job is, to purchase Western good for HIM, his family and the rest of the Nomenklatura.
As the plenty of Mercedes Benzes, which are popular for the most upper people since many years.

There is a very interesting book about this -unfortunately not on English AFAIK: http://www.amazon.de/Im-Dienst-Diktators-nordkoreanischen-Agenten/dp/3800074508/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1325269166&sr=8-4
Written by the responsible "manager" of this special department. He escaped in 1994 - and lives since then in the underground in Austria.

Nono, it was always easy for the highest ranked stuff to get Western cars and all kind of other Western goods.

Btw: for the all COMECON-nomenklaturas in the times of the Cold War it was not a big deal either. They had all stuff they wanted to have.

The only way I could think of that a mid-1970's Lincoln Continental limo could wind up in North Korea is through some communist sympathizing group in the west. Perhaps the Worker's World Party or an organization like Northstar Compass.

On the other hand, the opening scene of "Die Another Day" contains a scen where James Bond meets a North Korean military goon who lambasts the excesses of western capitalism, while having a collection of expensive sports cars.

It's a service trolley-bus.

Here I came across an article today:

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Thursday, December 29th, 2011, page A3

Death of Kim Jong Il

N. Korea’s lavish farewell

U.S.-made limos in funeral

More than the flag-draped coffin or wailing mourners, what most caught the attention of some observers of Wednesday’s funeral for Kim Jong Il were three American-made limousines rolling through the North Korean capital.

Kim’s body rode on the roof of a black Lincoln Continental. His portrait was balanced atop another, while a Lincoln limousine rolled behind them carrying a wreath.

“The Lincoln Continental in the old Asia was considered to be a solid, robust powerful car,” said Kongdan Oh, a senior researcher at the Institute for Defense Analyses who has written about daily life in North Korea. “They are a time capsule. North Koreans are living still the 1970’s life.”

She said the cars, apparently modified version of gas-guzzling behemoths from the 1970s, were likely been chosen because they were used in the 1994 funeral of Kim Il Sung, the founding president of North Korea and the father of Kim Jong Il. It was not clear how the cars were obtained by North Korea, which is subject to economic sanctions by the United States and other world powers.

New York Times

It's recommended to bunch the DPRK-related pics here, which now are spreaded a bit in the database, as here http://www.imcdb.org/movie.php?id=450065 , http://www.imcdb.org/vehicle_124220-Nissan-Cedric-Y31.html , http://www.imcdb.org/movie_987374-National-Geographic-Explorer--Inside-North-Korea.html , http://www.imcdb.org/yourcomments.php?formovie=987374 and here: http://www.imcdb.org/movie.php?id=267419

Found in the book about the architecture in Pyonyang:



In the same book even three of the well known Volvos, used as decoration:

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/406/img0372tu.jpg/
- and still my question, what's the car on the right page, whose back only is visible? Nissan Sunny Traveller maybe?

Annother still unsanswered question: can anyone identify the airport-truck on picture number 10: http://www.rp-online.de/politik/ausland/so-sehen-wir-nordkorea-selten-1.2539966 Sorry, you cannot sort out just the pic.

And for now about something irritating: See the orange truck in the background: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGbQ7QRndcA&feature=g-vrec&context=G22d9758RVAAAAAAAAAA (maybe a maintenance truck for the overhead wiring?)
This truck, standing -obviously- at this crossing is visible other times, too, on pics of other tourists, but also in books! I stumbled over it last evening, when I read again in a book, a Swiss traveller has written in 2006 about his DPRK-trip.

Many thanks for this thread!

You could see in the background a bunch of W126-Benzes. For sure this scene was shown in our news, too.


Today I had annother book, bought via eBay in my postbox (I'm still busy to buy all German literature about this fascnating destination), an antiquarian one, printed in 1987 in the DDR, also written by a DDR-guy. In it I've found a few interesting car-pics. Except the usual Benzes (W123 and 1974+ W115, also a few W126) and one of the legendary, never paid Volvo 244 ( http://www.flickr.com/photos/jourtor/3758405108/in/set-72157606649201640/ ) there are:



Can anyone identify the third car left by its roofline? I had the idea of a VW 1600 "Longnose", but it's rather unlikely, as none of it was ever seen there.
I've tried to make a better pic with the help of a magnifier:



Two other pics:






Something for the scale-model-collectors