OK, let’s see what we have:
March 1989, 6 photos of a yellow car, confirmed “Pyongyang 4.10”, photos taken by Eckart Dege and Meinrad Freiherr Von Owe, behind their hotel in Pyongyang.
April 1992, 1 photo of a red car, taken by Gerhard Joren at the Industrial Exhibition Centre in Pyongyang. Photo for sale by Getty Images for 475.- euro. Already copied at 147 websites, which means that Joren must have earned nearly 70.000 euro, but he probably didn’t get anything.
January 1995, two photos of a red car, taken by Japanese tourists at the Three Revolutions Exhibition Hall in Pyongyang.
May 1995, one photo of a blue car, taken by a Japanese tourist named ‘Harabo” at the Three Revolutions Exhibition Hall in Pyongyang.
And now the new photos:
Summer 1996, three photos of the red and blue car together, confirmed “Kaengsaeng 88”, taken by Jay Ullal, at the Three Revolutions Exhibition Hall in Pyongyang.
Jay Ullal is a famous photographer from India who worked for Der Stern magazine. The Stern photo archive was given to the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, these people found the pictures when they were looking for the black and white photo of which I only have a bad photocopy.
Let’s start with a photo of the blue car together with the red car.
This photo proves that I was wrong, when I wrote: The blue car ‘can be the same car as the red one, repainted’.
This makes that we have proof of the existence of four cars: the car with the rhombus logo at the black and white photo copy, the yellow Pyongyang 4.10 and the red and blue Kaengsaeng 88.
The cars again. Behind the red one, the green Kaengsaeng 85 (with soft top) is poorly visible.
The red car, with a sign post:
At the signpost left: sizes, number of seats, curb weight, max. speed. Right: not readable. It is a pity I can’t read the figures.
Step by step, we find more about the Mercedes W201 project of Pyongyang. I am still convinced they re-badged an existing Mercedes into a Kaengsaeng or Pyongyang.
In the first picture you can see the emblem is at a crooked angle, I think they just replaced the Merc star with that thing and called it a car.
and the plate looks euro sized, NK plates would be shorter
Paektusan, Kensen, Pyongyang, you guys think these prototypes are rebadged Benz. However,I think these are illegal copy product.North Korean diplomat Ko Yong-fan, who was in exile claims in “Pyongyang 25 o`clock” (平壌25時)as follows. In 1985, at the Red Cross parley, a North Korean delegation rode a Korean-made passenger car. Kim Jong Il was furious when he heard that and said: “Make a car like Mercedes-Benz and defeat the puppet government of South Korea!” Benz 190 was imported from Germany and disassembled. The munitions factory was ordered to copy hundreds of its parts. By 1988, 10 of them had been completed… Read more »
Thanks, Kawaishi_Kanae.
When Bradley Martin visited, what he called the Pyongyang’s Exhibition of the Achievements of Socialist Construction in 1989 there was only 1 car. I suppose that is the same exhibition and I would love to see photos of 10 cars in 1988, never heard about that!
Yes please, hard proof! Thanks again for all your efforts.
Erik.
By the way,Can these pictures in archive of Bayerische Staatsbibliothek be seen on the web?If so, please post a link.
Thje pictures from Jay Ullal which are stored in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek are not on the web, except for the three photos with the two Kaengsaeng cars, which I bought from them and printed in this article.
Hello. At the bottom of the red kaensaeng 88 description it appears to say “November 26 factory”. I have never heard of a factory with that name, but it may have been one of the munitions factories that produced copy parts for Mercedes-Benz.
Super, DPRK-Cars, so at least we have a factory name!
yes dprk cars that are very ridicolus! if kim jong il was in there, he would ban the kaengseng car brand