The Korea Pictorial (in Korean) of January 1959 showed some vehicles exhibited at the Industrial & Agricultural Exhibition (the predecessor of the Three Exhibitions Hall). Our reader Kawaishi _Kanae found this item.
Chollima electric car 1958.
A motorcycle made by the Pyongyang Municipality Grocery Works, a three-wheeler made by the Ministery of Interior General Works and an electric driven car, made by the West Pyongyang Railway Factory.
Observant readers immediately will have seen the likeness of this car, named Chollima, with the Hillman Minx Mark VII.
Well, it seems that this is the Japanese Isuzu PH10, which was a ckd produced Minx.
Experimenting with putting electric engines into existing vehicles was quite common in Japan after World War 2. It is not strange that this also happened in North Korea. The reason was lack of gasoline.
I have introduced here already in 2018 and 2019 the PAEKTUSAN, initially seen in movies of 1980 and 1982. In the movies the car is painted a dark blue. Jörg-Peter Rabe made a painting which we show you here again (I like it so much, I even use it as my opening page of my computer!):
This car has also been exhibited at the Industrial & Agricultural Exhibition Hall. A book or brochure of the same name edited in 1979 describing the vehicles at the exhibition shows a line up with a light blue Paektusan, together with Kaengsaeng cross country vehicles and pickup, Sungri trucks, Jipsam and Chollima buses.
Another publication, the Japanese-language North Korean magazine, named The Korea Pictorial, issue March 1978, shows a green Paektusan.
So, this brings us the Paektusan in three different colors. The same car? There are differences. Look at the position of the front bumper of the green car, not straight. The direction indicators of the light blue car seem to be different from the ones of the green car, but that can also be caused by a bad quality photo. The light blue car has a white steering wheel, the green and dark blue cars have a black.
And the left rear view mirror of the dark blue car is different between 1980 and 1982:
Paektusan with black painted rear view mirror (in Yeolnebeonjjae gyeoul, 1980).
One car, regularly repainted? Or three or four cars? I have no idea. And I am happy that we have more and more pictures from different sources since the first movie showed up in 2018.
Two years ago I guessed the producing factory (wrongly). Now we can be sure, as confirmed by these publications: the Paektusan was made by the Sungri Truck Works in Tokchon.
This information is thanks to:
Sombritude: nkrecognition.proboards.com and here.
Twitter: 川石 @Kawaishi_Kanae
Twitter: 北朝鮮の自動車bot @DPRK_cars
Autopuzzles: Identification of the Chollima.
Paektusan by Jörg-Peter Rabe.
The Paektusan is probably a re-bodied Volvo 144. All the dimensions match visually (I have a 1976 144).
Hello Adam, great you have the Volvo, I always liked the 140-generation.
About the sizes: I think the Paektusan is more equal to the GAZ M24 Volga than to the Volvo. Probably the Paektusan is built on the Volga chassis.
Sizes in mm: wheelbase Volvo 2604, Volga 2700; length Volvo 4651, Volga 4810; width Volvo 1730, Volga 1800; height Volvo 1440, Volga 1610. The Volga is bigger than the Volvo 144.
The M24 Volga looks too wide for the Paektusan to me. When I look at the rear side of the Paektusan I see my 144. 🙂
It would also make more sense to base this on a 144 since they had a fresh batch of them at the time.
https://www.thedrive.com/news/16660/this-is-how-north-korea-once-stole-1000-volvos-from-sweden Any relation?
Yeah I think that’s more likely for NK to choose a Volvo base over a Volga. BTW the Jan. 1959 article is written in Japanese not Korean.
I don’t see the relationship between Volvo and an international Korean magazine named Korea Pictorial, published in many languages, including Japanese. the Volga base is much more logical than the Volvo base. The factory worked already together with GAZ people, to produce the Sungri truck. The whole line up at the exhibition shows Russian based trucks and all wheel drive vehicles. The Volga too wide, I don’t see it. I see the Volvo with a much shorter wheelbase and a longer overhang. And I see Volga wheels. I will believe you when you have any proof better then this. A… Read more »
Funny, the headlight housing is rectangular but the headlights inside are round.
this is not a volvo
it is also not a volga!!
Nice to meet you.I’m glad this article picked up the information I found. However, there are some mistranslations in this article. The only electric car is the passenger car, the other two are probably gasoline cars. This article claims the motorcycle was made at the Pyongyang municipal grocery factory, and the three-wheeled truck was made at the general factory of the Ministry of Interior. I think they really converted Isuzu Hillman Minx into an electric car. In Japan immediately after WWII, it was popular to convert gasoline cars into electric cars due to lack of gasoline. North Korea at that… Read more »
Many thanks for your comments, Kawishi Kanae! Always nice to get comments, especially when they improve the text. I will change the text according your comments.