Paektusan and Kaengsaeng from North Korea.

In a recent entry, describing some cars made in North Korea (see here), I introduced you to an unknown car made in the 1970s/1980s. This car showed up in a second movie, named  Uliga saneun geoli (1982).

Thanks to our Japanese friend Kegare we now know that the car is named Paektusan, as is written on the mudguard.
Initially we thought that the text: “A handmade prototype of a sedan had been displayed at Pyongyang’s Exhibition of the Achievements of Socialist Construction during my 1979 visit. A guide there had said the country hoped to go into mass production. By 1989, the earlier model was gone, replaced by two new handmade prototypes of a car to be called the “Pyongyang” —out-and-out copies of the Mercedes-Benz 190, of-which the country had recently imported a fleet. Production would start soon at a factory then producing military Jeep-type vehicles, said an exhibition guide. I decided not to hold my breath. “written by Bradley K. Martin, in his book “Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader: North Korea and the Kim Dynasty” was describing a GAZ M20 Pobeda copy. But now I think it was the Paektusan.

Like the Chinese  Dongfanghong BJ760 and the North Vietnamese Chan Thang I guess that this car also is based on the Russian GAZ Volga M21.

The manufacturer is not sure, another speculation: the Pyongsang Auto Works, which was also making the Kaengsaeng cross country vehicles. (add
Here too a new discovery: we know the soft-top Kaengsaeng 85.  This soft-top vehicle was exhibited together with the Mercedes-copy in the Three Exhibitions Hall in 1994 (photographed by Gerhard Joren, see the Kaengsaeng 85 behind the Benz-copy) and later photographed by Heikki Majara in 1997.

In the movie Bugsanttang-ui ju-in (1987) appears the Kaengsaeng 85 with a hard-top.

In the same movie there  is a version with rectangular headlights. The headlights are the same as from the Paektusan above, which confirms the idea that the cars are from the same factory.

Kaengsaeng 85, rectangular headlights, front window in one piece.

We are not ready here.
In North Korean technical handbooks there are references to a Kaengsaeng 64, a 66 and a 75. Who helps us out??