(first posted 2/21/2018) On December 28, 2011, the funeral of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il displayed to the world a sight that many found shocking: a Lincoln Continental from the 1970s used as the official hearse. The North Korean regime owning an American luxury car over 30 years old and using it as the final conveyance of its deceased leader was difficult for many to understand. There was considerable discussion in automotive and general news media about this sighting, some of which doubted that the car was a real Lincoln and not a copy on a Soviet-made chassis, and some of which questioned how the North Korean regime could have obtained an American car. The discussion of how North Korea could have obtained “a” Lincoln Continental was badly uninformed, however. The North Korean regime has a fleet of Lincolns, not just one.
This screenshot of the funeral procession television broadcast shows how unobservant the earlier reports were. With the 1975-76 Continental serving as a hearse not in sight, there are three other 1974-76 Continentals visible, as well as a 1995-97 Town Car. There is a 1975-76 Continental carrying a huge portrait of Kim Jong Il, trailed by another 1975-76 Continental bearing an almost equally large wreath, and flanked by what appears to be a 1974 Continental made into a four door convertible. So there are at least four 1974-76 Continentals in North Korea, along with at least one 1990s Town Car.
Here are the three 1975-76 Continentals lined up in the funeral procession, with the portrait and wreath bearers leading the hearse, which is really a stretched sedan with the coffin laid on top of the roof.
There was considerable speculation at the time of the funeral regarding how a 1970s Lincolns ended up in Pyongyang. All of it that I have seen published has been laughably off the mark, because none showed much knowledge of foreign car markets or of North Korea. The car used as a hearse appears to have been originally sold in Japan, because it has the fender-mounted mirrors characteristic of Japanese market cars, here used as handholds by Kim Jong Un and one of his generals. North Korea finding a way to import a car from Japan in the 1970s is not shocking, because there was a long history of Japan being a source of hard currency and goods for North Korea, through ethnic Koreans in Japan.
Stringent economic sanctions against North Korea are a recent development, and North Korea had economic ties to certain non-Communist countries. In Japan, which has a large ethnic Korean population that South Korea did not contact for half a century under a diplomatic deal with Japan, sending money and goods to North Korea through Communist Party connections was a common practice until recently. At least one foreign car, a Volvo, made it to North Korea in this way (see the defector autobiography Aquariums of Pyongyang, by Kang Chol-Hwan and Pierre Rigoulet, pp. 26-34). This Volvo was a privately owned car in Japan shipped to North Korea, not one of the 1,000 Volvo 144s that North Korea acquired directly from Volvo in the early 1970s. This Lincoln could have been similarly directly shipped from Japan to North Korea, or first shipped to a third country port such as Singapore or Macao and then transferred to a ship bound for North Korea.
The origins of the other Continentals are less clear, because they appear not to have the Japanese-style fender mounted mirrors. They may have been re-exported from Japan before installation of Japanese market equipment, or imported separately from an order placed in another country. Considerable detective work would be necessary to find the truth, probably more than anyone (or any organization) would be willing to undertake.
Regardless of the details of their origins, each Continental differs significantly from the others in its roof treatment. The hearse car has a six window layout with a wide B pillar with a coach lamp. The portrait carrier has a six window layout with narrow pillars, and with the oval opera window introduced in the 1975 Continental in the rear pillars. The wreath carrier has four windows and especially wide pillars with no opera window. The fourth Continental is a full convertible. These four Continentals may have been stretched and given new roof treatments by multiple coachbuilders, possibly in multiple countries, or maybe the same coachbuilder worked on all of them. Each car likely has a builder’s data plate that explains the facts, but I doubt that anyone other than a few carefully selected North Korean drivers and mechanics will ever see them.
“Why a fleet of 1970s Lincoln Continentals?” is a question that must be bothering many. The answer is simple: at the time, it was the obvious choice. In the mid-1970s, the Lincoln Continental had been the car of Presidents of the United States for over a decade. John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford each had a Lincoln Continental limousine as his official car, with the infamous 1961 Continental in which Kennedy was assassinated also serving Johnson and Nixon, and the 1972 Continental that replaced it serving Nixon and Ford and continuing into the early 1980s as the Presidential limousine of Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. The Lincoln Continental was an internationally established symbol of American power in 1974-75 and an obvious choice for a dictator envious of the United States such as Kim Il Sung.
The inevitable questions “Why would he want an American car when Americans were his enemy?” and “Wouldn’t he want a Communist-bloc car?” simplistically overlook that Kim Il Sung and the regime that he created have never looked up to the Russians and Chinese and sought to emulate them, and that they have always measured themselves by their own strange ideology and where they stood relative to the United States. Possessing a token of American power in the form of the President’s car is what Kim Il Sung would have wanted, not a ZIL or a Hongki from his second-rate allies, when he went to what must have been great lengths to acquire these Lincolns over 40 years ago.
Now we must say farewell to these long-lost products of the American automobile industry that have spent their lives serving three generations of one of the worst regimes that the world has ever seen and are likely to have to continue their servitude for many years to come. Each likely spent two decades conveying Kim Il Sung (d. 1994), and since then they have passed to his son Kim Jong Il and then his grandson Kim Jong Un. They are a bizarre family tradition that cannot come to an end too soon.
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Communist dictators have a very long tradition of using cars made by the Capitalist enemy, starting with Stalin and continuing with a number of his successors as well as their Comecon allies, so…
It may have started with GAZ, a joint venture between Ford and the Soviet Union. Commies were never shy about soliciting help from their class enemies. There was earlier precedent: industrialist Armand Hammer did business with his friend Lenin.
I’m sure that some enthusiast of American limos can probably tell us who the coachbuilders were for each of those cars. I seriously doubt they were modified after their long trip, but were probably bought already stretched. Between year-to-year changes and idiosyncrasies of their modifications, I bet that our B&B will have cleared some of these questions by the end of the day.
As for the cars themselves, I’d take a fuselage Imperial over any of the Continentals that post dated suicide doors.
The big question for me is who armored it, and when? I attached a photo of a White House authorized version. The bright trim around the partly lowered window in picture 4 is a dead giveaway it’s armored.
Maybe, or they could be faking it.
Not sure if this caption is correct:
‘At Camp David, Nixon presents Leonid Brezhnev with gift of Lincoln Continental, June 1973’
If so, then this model represents something more than just prestige. I’d say subsequent models (after the Japanese-sourced stretch) probably made their way into NK via black-marketeers who knew and exploited the regime’s soft spot for Lincolns.
Great to read another of your pieces Robert, they always cover a part of automobilia not covered anywhere else.
Nixon recalled Brezhnev taking him along on a hair-raising test drive of his new Conti at Camp David. Afterwards, Brezhnev said something like, “This car handles very well.” I bet he was messing with him.
That gift and hair-raising test drive was well portrayed in a movie I saw on TV ages ago. I’d see it again if I could remember the title!
I think this is the one. The Lincoln seems to handle better than Bud Lindemann’s Impala…
Yup, that’s the scene I remember.
Still no clue what movie it’s from, though!Ah, looks like it’s 1989’s “Final Days”.Nice link .
This was filmed in Griffith Park a road that’s been closed to the public for decades .
-Nate
Nixon also gave him a Cadillac Eldorado in 1972, the Lincoln in ’73, and a Chevy Monte Carlo in 1974. Supposedly Brezhnev specifically requested the MC because of a review he had read in Motor Trend!
Monte Carlo? Surely this cannot be a car of the proletariat?
Capitalist pigs are lying to us! 😉
And the french gave him this one
Cars can be pigeonholed into Marxist classes:
2CV: Peasants
Beetle: Proletariat (even fascist Hitler got that right)
B,C-class: Petty Bourgeoisie
Citroën: Revolutionary leaders who need comfort to contemplate Marxist theory
Yank Tanks: Very bourgeois
Rolls-Royce: Landlords or reactionary aristocrats like the Romanovs
Brezhnev’s Roller
Incredible post, Robert! Those cars have been on the back of my mind (in the “WTF / Investigate someday” file) for, well, six years.
The thing that bothers me about those Lincolns is that most tin-pot red despots usually went for Soviet or at least COMECON-made State cars. Can’t think of any who was driven (even to his mausoleum) in an American-made vehicle. There were a few odd ones, like the bulletproof Citroen CX limos ordered by Honecker, but US-made cars? From the most direct enemy of Socialism? Only Tito ever did that, but then his country was not part of COMECON.
And this is North Korea — the regime officially and explicitly abhors anything associated with the US. This is still a mystery to me — and no amount of “Stalin used to do the same” would be sufficient. Find me a post-1945 picture of Stalin or any of the “cold climate” Eastern Bloc leaders on home soil in an American car. It just wasn’t done!
With regards to “How they got there”, I do agree with you that Japan is a likely source. Huge North Korean community there, including North Korean schools and such. Ethnic Koreans who have lived in Japan for generations — since before the Korean War — have also split into “North” and “South” factions, in a way. So the North Korean government has plenty of potential agents in Japan, which they may call upon for special requests (such as: “Mid-’70s Lincoln Continental. And make it a big one.”)
I’m still not sure why they did this, though. When, I presume, was in the ’70s or ’80s. Who buys a 10-year-old limo for their Dear Leader? North Korea did not have the same reputation (certainly in Japan) back then. People went to North Korea on holiday. Things started to change in the ’90s.
Lincoln limos are more LBJ than KGB. The Kims should have gone the full Tito and got a few Mercedes 600s.
Actually, there is evidence that the Kim dynasty does have a certain infatuation with parts of American/western culture. Kim Jong-il was known to have had a huge movie collection (along with a huge porno collection), and Elizabeth Taylor was reportedly his favorite movie star. He also seems to have had an Elvis infatuation.
Kim Jong-il (as is his son Kim Jong-un) was a huge basketball fan, and the younger Kim hosted Dennis Rodman a few years ago.
It’s important to remember that North Korea is less a state based on socialist idealism than one based on the Kim family’s cult of personality. Their choice of vehicles may simply be based on the fact that the Kim’s thought big American cars were cool.
When I lived in Beijing in the early 2000’s, First Automobile Works imported new Lincoln stretch limos which they re-badged as Hongqi (Red Flag) limos. They later made new Hongqis that resemble the ones Mao used.
Also, GM chose Buick (now China’s #1 brand, I believe) as their brand to launch in China, after asking their JV partner, Shanghai Automobile Works, if there was any particular brand they preferred. They replied that Zhou Enlai had a Buick he liked when he was based in Shanghai, and Buick it was.
Interesting article about Hongqi of China; the Lincoln years
https://carnewschina.com/2012/01/05/hongqi-of-china-the-lincoln-years/
Another one from CC
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/global-cc-hongqi-ca-7465-c8-and-ca-7460-the-chinese-lincoln-town-cars/
Adding to Tatra’s remarks:
“Many [pachinko] parlor owners come from North Korea, have families in North Korea, or sympathize with the North Korean regime. In the 1980s, as pachinko grew, parlor owners increasingly funneled pachinko profits to North Korea. No one has any idea of the exact amount—estimates range from tens of millions of dollars per year to more than $1 billion per year. Some of this cash probably went to North Korean relatives, but much of it fed North Korea’s awful communist dictatorship. Pachinko, in fact, became a critical source of hard currency for North Korea, probably subsidizing arms purchases and military research.”
Source: http://www.japansociety.org/pachinko_nation
Very interesting article. I too was surprised by that hearse and unaware of the other Lincolns. FDR, Truman, and Eisenhower were also chauffered in Lincolns but they weren’t Continentals.
Very interesting stuff. In the US Lincolns went back to FDR who began using a 1939 Lincoln Model K (dubbed the Sunshine Special). Truman modernized the fleet with some coachbuilt 1950 Lincoln Cosmopolitans, one of which had a plexiglass rear roof added later.
It would not strain credulity that these cars could have been ordered new through intermediaries and shipped to neutral destinations before being rerouted to North Korea. Like some others, I am amazed (though I shouldn’t be) at how despots who preach equality for all seek the most luxurious things for themselves.
I will admit that it is tough to top those 1970s Lincolns as dignified parade cars.
What I would like to know is how did the N. Koreans keep that portrait of the Big Kahuna, that is attached to the roof of the Town Car, from blowing over once it started moving?
+1 – The drag coefficient of a Lincoln Continental Town Car is bad enough. ;o)
This picture makes it look like he is really moving! He’s opened up a full 4 car length lead on the wreath carrying Lincoln that is similarly hindered.
You can dislike a country foreign policy&still like their cars.khomeini used to own a 1977 blazer k5.
Indeed.
If only I had $1 for every despot with fleet of W100 Mercedes Benz Grossers…I could still not afford one.
Meanwhile the south favored GM products.
Times change: GM now wants support from S. Korea to fix its troubled operations there:
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/biz/2018/02/367_244559.html
Note is made of what happened in Australia.
Well, North Korea received 1,000 Volvo 144s, but never paid for them—still haven’t—so “purchased” isn’t quite the right word. It was foolish of Volvo (and Sweden more generally) not to insist on cash upfront.
hehehe. whodathunkit
Thanks for pointing this out. The wording is corrected. It was an instance of bad word choice in a long article; North Korea’s failure to pay is a central part of that story, so it should be accounted for!
I may have more about the Volvo “sale” to North Korea in the near future, perhaps in about a month.
Lookin’ forward!
Military fashion note: Those officer visor hats look like the late Soviet type, which Viktor Suvorov said (in his “Inside the Soviet Army”) were introduced by a certain vain general who wanted a more prominent style. Problem was, these were more prone to being blown off by wind gusts than the more modest WW2-era variety.
The televised military parade last week prominently featured several new Mercedes jeeps carrying generals back and forth in a sort of automotive dance routine. Zoom across the ranks, screech to a halt, salute, bark commands at the troops, zoom away.
German stuff also seems like an odd choice when most of the military equipment in the parade was Soviet or Soviet-designed. Russia and China produce several modern jeeps.
Very interesting! I remember seeing the Lincoln at the time but I forgot all about it. I think it is impressive that they have kept them in attractive, running condition all this time, given that getting parts must be a b*#@h for them.
I was also fascinated to learn from your very knowledgeable article that Presidents Johnson and Nixon still used the Kennedy assassination car. I would think that would be a bit too morose or disquieting for them (and especially their wives, though Lady Bird doesn’t look as carefree as LBJ in the picture). I’ll bet that would never happen today.
I had heard in some report at the time that either Il Sung or Jong Il had a personal appreciation for these big Lincolns, and that their use eventually became traditional. It would be interesting to see if they continue to be used by the younger Kim.
On a related note I wonder if the new Continental will gain any favor for new limousine conversions, or if that role will stay on the Cadillac side of the fence? Not that car-based stretches are much of a thing anymore outside the funeral trade, the ultra-mega-quadruple stretch Hummer/Escalade/Navigator being firmly ensconced as “official tacky prom/bachelorette/wedding/etc ride”
Continental limo as a commercial chassis, yes
Good posting. I remember seeing that car in pics of the funeral
I don’t think there was any actual sanctions on North Korea buying American cars in the 1970’s.
I suspect that these old Lincolns were procured by North Korea some 10 to 15 years later. By that time these old Lincolns were unwanted.
Just look at any 1980’s action show(like the A-Team), when a limo needed to be blown up it was one of these.
It might also have been possible that these limos were legally bought by North Korea. While the USA does not have relations with NK, North Korea is a UN member and is entitled to have a UN diplomatic mission in the USA. As the UN mission was the most highest and prestigious post in the NK diplomat corps, I am sure it would have owned a few of these big cars. After personal were recalled, they might have shipped the cars back to North Korea.
Ether way I am sure the US. Government really could have cared less if North Korea bought a few aging land yachts. There were other things to worry about in foreign policy at that time.
As for that 90’s Towncar, it might have been given by the US Government to North Korea or at least legally allowed. the mid 1990’s were a period of relative thaw in relations, it is possible North Korea asked to buy a Towncar and were granted an export license.
As for using Western cars, a lot of the Eastern Bloc countries also used them. Honnecker and the East Germans were huge fans of Volvo products
I recalled as kid in China from the documentary flim, North Korea had few Mercedes 600 Pullman (w100) including a open roof version used during Chinese Communist Chairman visit to Ponyang in 1978. Mercedes 600 is the favorite vehicle for dictators. Communist China had ten in 1970s, one of them was used by wife of prime minister Zhou in 1990s. And the website of the state house once feature one 600 as rental for any visitor. I suspect the China top boss gave up Mercedes 600 because it is not a armored model. By late 1960s China Hongqi CA 770 was armored limo tjat met tge security need. That model of Hongqi was paased US serect service test to be used during Nixon visit to Peking in 1972.
Back to the North Korean US limo, i read in New York Times saying the herse is Mercury, not Lincoln, it speculated it was the daily vehicle for the grandfather Kim un his later life. Korean and Chinese prefers the stately squared vehicle, Lincoln Continental from 1970s had a special place in thier mindset.
I think some of these cars were bought directly from US through its UN mission, or got from Iran or other middle East countries. But my question is how much cost they maintain them in running conditions in the last 40 years.
While the ’75-’77 Mercury Marquis does look quite similar to the ’74-’76 Continental, if you know what to look for it’s clear that the hearse featured here is a Lincoln. Though the grille is nearly identical and both have hidden headlights, the Lincoln’s lights are lower in relation to the grille, and there is more sculpturing on the hood. The fenders are more prominently bladed, running the length of the car, and the marker lights are different. Towards the back, you can’t see the very rear of the hearse but the kick-up in the shoulder line at the rear of the back door is the right shape for the Lincoln and the wrong shape for the Mercury.
I’m guessing the writer of the NYT article you referenced was wrong, or at least a lazy fact checker. Or perhaps they were more familiar with the narrow ’77-’79 Lincoln grille and confused the wider piece with the Mercury.
IMHO, of Communist leaders, Erich Honecker had the best taste in cars: he was a Citroen man.
Interesting article and comments – thanks to all!
I too also wonder how these Lincolns got over to North Korea, it is a Tom Clancy esque mystery.
I’m not really surprised that North Korea uses these, most dictators tend to have cars like these (for reference, Francisco Franco owned a 1965 Imperial Limo and a 1970 Cadillac Series 75 as well as three custom ordered Rolls Royce Phantom IVs and the Mercedes Benz 600 has been owned by more dictators than you can count). What does surprise me is how well kept these look. These Continentals are over 40 years old, and while I don’t imagine North Korea using these everywhere, they look almost showroom new even after all this time.
But, like them or loathe them, these 70s Lincolns certainly have an undeniable presence that makes them perfect for these kinds of conversions. I can’t imagine a Cadillac from the 70s that would look as natural as these do if they were stretch limo conversions.
One last question, the head funeral car does look Japanese import spec judging by the headlamps. But, as is my understanding, Japan has strict laws with regards to engine displacement size that make cars like these Continentals a burden to have on the streets. Were these laws always in place, or has this been a more recent development that didn’t exist back when these cars were new and (possibly) exported? (Assuming that the funeral car was an import to Japan in the first place)
Perhaps Franco may have had a 66. By that time the tooling had been shipped from Ghia to Barreiros – Coachbuilders in Spain. Internet say 10 vehicles were built. For 67 unibody limousine production was undertaken by Stageway in Texas
“These Continentals are over 40 years old, and while I don’t imagine North Korea using these everywhere, they look almost showroom new even after all this time.”
Well I doubt the NK use salt on their roads – probably can’t afford it and second, there’s lots available labor for washing and polishing. It’s probably a punishment for certain army recruits.
These aren’t Lincolns; they’re hand-built Kimsons. Any similarities with Lincolns is strictly accidental. 🙂
Great article; we did a shorter on these at the time of the funeral, but you’ve dived quite a bit deeper into this murky subject.
Wonder how these Lincolns handled the snowfall. These big rear wheel drive sedans were a bit iffy in the snow, especially on hills.
“Wonder how these Lincolns handled the snowfall. These big rear wheel drive sedans were a bit iffy in the snow, especially on hills.”
I would disagree. I found these Lincolns quite good in the snow. As a rule these large cars tended to be much better snow cars than the smaller platforms of the era. The GM A body cars, for example, were much worse in snow. I think the bigger the car the less a front engine fouls up the front/rear weight balance.
I recall Dads ’89 Town Car being a bit dicey in the snow when I drove it, but then it didn’t have snow tires and the standard radials had some wear on them.
Agree with your assessment of the GM A bodies. I had a ’78 Pontiac Grand Am that was terrible in the snow with the standard 70 series radials. Radial snow tires helped greatly. The best car (non SUV) I ever owned for snow driving was an ’84 Pontiac 6000 (the only thing good about it). FWD and relatively skinny tires that dug down into the snow worked well.
I recall the days when everyone had snow tires that they would switch to in the winter months. This seems to be a rarity now with the abundance of 4WD SUV’s and FWD.
The 89 TC did not have the size and weight of those old 70s models. I never drove one of those TCs in snow but I did an 85 Crown Vic. It was decent but not as good as the 60s-70s big cars I had driven. My mother’s 72 Cutlass and 74 Luxury LeMans were simply awful in the snow and would go virtually nowhere without snow tires in those pre-radial days. At the same time I had a 67 Galaxie convertible and later a 63 Cadillac Fleetwood and those things would go anywhere I wanted to go. A friend with a 68 Cougar got stuck early and often because the Mustang/Cougar platform was terribly light in the tail end as well. Our 64 Cutlass had not been too bad, from my mom’s experience. I only know because her first day in a light early snow in the 72 that replaced it was memorably awful. She went out and got snow tires on it the next day.
Weird detail are the headlamps on the one used as a hearse. It looks like it’s been retrofitted with new rectangular headlights the size of the covers – or are the covers themselves chromed? I think they’re lights; there seems to be a pattern to them.
The covers were for some reason chromed.
Thanks to everyone for their interest in the article and for their many comments, which are insightful as is usual here. There were many issues that I left out, to avoid making the article excessively long, and the commenters addressed practically all of them.
One detail that I will add is that it is a little understood fact that Kim Il Sung had a background heavily intertwined with Americans. His parents were early Korean Presbyterians in the Pyongyang area, which was a heavily Christian city in the early 20th Century, whose American-led mission was the largest on the mainland of Asia. As a child he attended an American school in Pyongyang, before his family moved to Manchuria and set him on the trajectory that led him to Communism and serving in the Soviet army. So the seed of the thinking that led him to acquire these Lincolns was quite likely planted more than half a century earlier by the Americans that he had been familiar with and looked up to.
This article is going to appear on a blog that I have been publishing recently, although in very different form. This version focused on the cars and minimally addressed the nature of the person who acquired them; the other version will do the opposite, minimally addressing the cars and focusing on the nature of the person who acquired them. The blog, which discusses many things relating to Pyongyang and North Korea, is at: http://www.americanpyongyang.com
When I was stationed in Korea in the early 80’s, we were shown pictures comparing North and South Korean products as part of our introduction to the country where we’d be serving. South Korea was hardly the technological powerhouse it has become today, but even the comparison to North Korea showed stuff from the North was laughably obsolete. I remember the photos of North Korean cars supposedly taken during the 70s showing the newest cars on the street looking like pre-war WWII Packards. The Lincolns would have been a great advance.
I kind of feel sorry for that old Lincoln, and I’m a Mopar guy. It’s living its days in the land of dictatorship and oppression. It was born in the land of freedom and opportunity.
I’m shocked that North Korea–a country where its government holds huge contempt for our country–sought out American iron. It is a little comforting to know that, despite their strong contempt towards us, they view a car or two of ours in a positive light enough to own one.
Something like a Mercedes-Benz is to be expected. It’s a car that’s more or less universal in the world. Every country will have many Benzes traversing its roads, and many heads of state are chauffered in one. But old-money Lincoln? Hardly something that you’d expect to find outside of the US.
Excellent work, Robert!
I won’t soon forget watching the funeral – the snow and general level of gloom made it perfect – and chuckling over the great Satan’s Lincolns of long ago bearing the great man’s body.
I’m quite a bit late, but I happened to be watching a YouTube video of Pyongyang. I was surprised to see what appears to be a late model Lincoln Navigator around 7:17 and it left me wondering how exactly such a car would find its way into North Korea. Curious, I did some searching on the internet and of course encountered this page. Video is below.
At least Fidel Castro showed some restraint and mostly had Soviet Gaz-14 Chaika limos in his fleet, with some older model Benzes and military-grade Jeeps.
Makes sense since luxury does not exactly go well with olive drab attire.
He should have been dragged behind a rusty farm tractor.
I think this is terrific article that I missed the first time it ran. The author does a great job of parsing politics and automotive desire (albeit automotive desire by an insane autocratic regime).
I do wonder how the Glorious Leader’s mechanics manage to procure parts for 1970s Lincolns. But I guess they can get Chinese knock-offs from eBay just like the rest of us.
Then again, put into the context of the fact that N. Korea apparently also manages to operate a theme park, I guess maintaining a small fleet of 50 year old American limos is all in a day’s work.
You can bet it wasn’t snowing where the Dear Leader wound up.
It’s not clear. According to Dante, were the Dear Leader sent to limbo (on the basis of being unbaptized) he’d find the weather quite pleasant whereas if damned for lust, gluttony, greed, wrath, heresy, violence or fraud (and he was guilty probably of all), those circles of Hell are hot, fiery places and he’d likely have ended up trapped for eternity in a flaming tomb, the (frequent) punishments including being whipped by demons, immersed in excrement and transformed into a reptile. However, if judged for treachery, the circle of Hell reserved for them is a freezing wasteland where the inmates are tortured by being frozen in ice, gnawed on by three-headed demons and, from time-to-time, being devoured by Lucifer himself.
The dynasty has assembled quite a mews. The Great Leader was the one who bought a brace of Mercedes-Benz 600 Landaulets and it’s believed it’s the only case of two of the “presidentials” (the ones with the fabric extending over the whole rear compartment) being in the same ownership. The factory made only a dozen of those. Along with the rest of the DPRK, the Great Leader passed all the cars to the Dear Leader and from there they passed to the Supreme Leader. The speculation is that should the Supreme Leader die (God forbid), the household garage will fall into the hands of his daughter but predicting anything about the DPRK is difficult. If it does work out that way, she’ll also get something really exclusive; a Russian-made Aurus Senat, a long-wheelbase version of the Senat which is now the presidential state car of the Russian Federation. Mr Putin has given the Supreme Leader one as gift. Like the earlier Soviets takes on the idea, the Senat is a pastiche (the Zils were influenced variously by Packard, Lincoln, Cadillac & Mercedes-Benz), the most discernible influence the twenty-first century Rolls-Royce Phantoms.
I’m scratching my head trying to figure out how they could even drive those cars with the huge picture and wreath. Some type of openings to allow wind through in order to not break it off? They are huge.
Old American cars find their way to all corners of the planet used ex US cars have been coming in here for decades, there was always a ready market for them, so a few old Lincolns in North Korea isnt surprising, some cars from the country they beat to pad out the govt fleet is ironic.
If I remember correctly, the East German leader in 80s used a Volvo 740 sedan as his limousine. I could say he probably wanted to have a S class of Mercedes, but he simply couldn’t afford politically. Picking a car from neutral and real socialist country was more sensible.