bad co

I was browsing some articles on Kim Jong Il and his succession and a few pictures popped up of Kim's Limo and Hearse.

They look american built, can anyone guess the cars they're using?

LexBob2

Old Lincolns?? You think they'd use something from China, Russia or South Korea (maybe not from SK).

<VENOM>

Is that pic on the car for real, Im guessing 70's TownCars

bad co

I had a hard time telling my self these are lincolns. Maybe its a Cherry styled like a Lincoln :P

caddyowner

Those are mid-80 Lincoln Town Cars (or made to look that way). One of my sons had an 85 Town Car that looked very similar.

gengar

Those aren't American, Kim Jong-il built them himself by hand.

JessePS

Thing is their military jeeps look like G-wagons though :/

Och

iTrader: (3)

Noobs.

Those are GAZ-14 "Chaika" - Soviet built limos. They stopped making them in 1989.

Och

iTrader: (3)

Their military Jeeps are probably Soviet UAZ Hunters.

bad co

Gaz 14 Chaika

UberNoob

rumor has it that he built it by commanding the animals from a distant mountain to gather the resources piled it together

then a lightning strike came down and formed it into a car

ydooby

Wow... good eyes. Knew it would be next to impossible for the North Koreans to drive anything American. Russian imports suit them well lol.

Och

iTrader: (3)

Actually it looks like I was wrong... The cars in the pictures don't look like the Chaika. I also checked Soviet ZIL-114 and ZIL-115 limos, and thats not them either.

mmarshall

No. They are not 80s vintage. Those two big Lincolns in the picture, leading the parade, are 70s -vintage Continentals, before they were downsized for 1980. Even non-limo versions of that vintage were enormous (roughly 130" wheelbase), weighed over 5500 lbs, and had a pillow-soft suspension. They were arguably the smoothest-riding Lincolns in history.......I can see why Kim would have liked them.


Kim, BTW, had a taste for large, fancy, and/or expensive cars, wine, rich food (he had both diabetes and heart disease), and the decadent life in general.

DustinV

The hearse is definitely not a Chaika or a Zil.

It's an imperialist American product!

It's a 1978 Lincoln Town Car (I'm positive it's a '78). I suspect it got into North Korea via China. It may have even been an American embassy car in China (after diplomatic relations were established in the late 1970s) that eventually ended up with Chinese locals (or the Chinese government) after faithfully serving our embassy. From there, it may have been sold or simply given to North Korea by the Chinese - their only international trading partner.