I was in Budapest two weeks ago and saw quite a few makes of cars which are
relatively unknown to people from the States.  The ones I can remember are:
        - Trabant (2 cycle with gravity feed fuel system)       
        - Llada (or was it Lada?) - this car's trunk is in the front and it
         is hinged along the side)      
       - Wartburg (can there be a more beautiful name?) 
        - Fiat Polski (a truly teeny car with a 650 cc engine)
        - Moskovich     

Also, while I was there I saw three different Dodge Vipers.  Some people have
too much money.  Can you imagine buying $4-5.00/gal gasoline for that V10?
I saw several Mercedes v12's and lots of other super-luxury cars.       

Finally, we were driving (2 cars) and made a left turn where it was
prohibited.  The cops were waiting, out of their car, flagging over violators.
They asked us for 5000 Forints ($35.00) for the violation.  One of the drivers
indicated he did not understand the cops.  The policeman then said "ok, 2000
Forints!"  We paid the fines ($14.00) in cash and took off.  

31 responses total.

How about the Skoda and Tatra, cars built in the Czech Republic?

  Marc, maybe you should have counter-offered "we're *starting* to
understand you?"  :-)
 
  Whenever I'm in Greece, I see lots of cars I've never seen here.
I've got a bad memory for names, but among the more unusual ones are
three-wheeled cars.  (The only one I've seen around here is a late-
1940's Davis, I think).  It's also strange to see so many non-luxury
Mercedes vehicles, like buses and trucks.  There's also some cheap
car that looks like late 50's styling, yet is still made today...it
looks like a pampered classic vehicle, but I'm guessing the maker is
just cutting costs on retooling for a new body style :-).
 
  Another oddity is cars that are equipped with high-end features,
but the cars are smaller than a Yugo.  My cousin has a tinier car
than is sold in the States, yet it has remote-controlled power locks,
power windows, CD player, and the like.  It's an odd combination!

In England, I saw two three-wheeled cars.  I was told that in addition to
being cheaper to buy, they are not subject to road-tax as other cars are. 
I can not recall the name, but it was a typical British (person's) name. 
        
A couple of years back, in Japan, I saw the micro cars which were fully
loaded, including turbo, locks, all the bells and whistles.  It turns out that
in Japan, housing is so expensive, not very many even plan to save to buy a
house.  They dump all their discretionary cash into their cars.  .

Bruin, I saw a few Skodas and, I think also a few Tatras.  (I forgot).  I also
saw the ever-present Citroen C2V's.   I saw a model of Citroen which I have
never seen before.  It looked like a body of a Sunbeam with a Citroen roof.

   if i remember correctly, those english three-wheeled cars are made for
handicapped folks and old-age pensioners who can drive. the government helps
these people out by not taxing their vehicles.

This item has been linked from Cars 92 to Intro 102.
Type "join cars" at the Ok: prompt for discussion of
motor vehicles and such.

You were in Budapest?  Cool!  I spent a week in Budapest and another part of
Hungary a year ago.  Yeah, there were a lot of kinds of cars I really wan't
very familiar with -- from what I understand many of the Eastern European
countries had their own car companies during the communist era, so as not to
have to deal with Western (capitalist) cars.  Hungary didn't, so it imported
cars from several of the other Eastern European countries.  Trabant was East
German, Lada was Soviet, Polski was Polish, I think Skoda may have been Czech,
or something, but I'm not sure.  And of course there was the Yugo, the
Yugoslav car, which was the only one of the Eastern European cars to also be
marketed for a short time in the US.  I think most of the older cars I saw
there were from those five companies, or maybe a few others.  The Ladas had
a reputation for being cheap cars that were always breaking down, and I
thought the Trabants looked really cute since their front always looked like
somebody with big eyes and a big smile.  I'm not sure if any of those are
still being made, although apparrently the Trabants are starting to get into
high demand, having somewhat the same status as the VW Bug did here.

In addition to all the older Eastern European cars, there were a lot of new
cars, mainly the mix of Western European and Japanese cars that you see
anywhere in Western Europe.  Hungary does seem to be modernizing very quickly.

There is a lot of money being poured into Hungary.  On the plane, I sat next
to the CEO of a US based company which built a modern new plant near Budapest.
He told me of quite a few other companies which are making major investments
in both manufacturing and services.  I got stranded on a return trip to the
hotel (mini-bus too full) and struck up a conversation with the sales manager
of a firm which successfully bid on cellular phone rights to four major
regions around Budapest.  You saw a lot of cell phones being used in cars and
on the streets.

In the outlying regions, I saw many new factories with international names
on them.

On another note, I was surprised to see the Roman ruins there.  There was a
huge area, fenced off and apparantly available to the public.  It was perhaps
2 acres of foundations and walls.  Also seen was a portion of a huge aquaduct.

The castles and other architecture were amazing.  Did you get a good look at
the "chain bridge"?

Hmm... I don't remember the chain bridge.  Several of my cousin's friends were
talking about the Roman Ruins, but I didn't make it there either.  I did spend
some time wandering around the old walled city, and some time wandering around
that area of Pest that's now a rather Western seeming shopping district, and
some other areas.  Mostly, I was really in awe of the public transportation
system, which was well enough designed that during the week I was there I
didn't once find myself wishing I had a car.

  I gather that in former Eastern Bloc countries, cellular phones
aren't as much of a luxury or status symbol as they are in the U.S.
The telephone infrastructure is so bad that getting an actual
telephone line to a home can require several years of waiting.
The ability to make cellular phones available much more quickly
has made them a viable alternative to regular wired telephones,
and the denser market penetration has made them economical.

That is the exact situation, per the Cellular Phone exec I met in Hungary.

When my cousin and his wife bought an apartment in Budapest recently (just
in time to move back to Illinois, but that's another story...), one of the
major sticking points was apparrently whether the phone line would come with
the apartment.  If they had had to get their own phone line installed, it
would have taken years.  I think my cousin's wife also showed me a newspaper
add for a house in Budapest about a year ago.  This was a really huge fancy
house, but the main feature being advertized was that it came with ten phone
lines.

And we think Ameritech is hard to deal with...

I remember hearing a while back that the wait to get a phone line in the
Berlin area was ****30**** years.  The cell phone system was getting maxed
out in consequence.

I think a little undercover money works well in these areas, sadly.

Well, yes.

Well I would say that if any of you can drive a car in India, then he or she
would have no problem driving a car anywhere in the world.

I've never been to India, but from what I've heard about Indian drivers they
might have a lot of trouble in a place where poeple weren't expecting them.
When my dad was in India a few years ago, he was talking about the bus that
he took from his hotel to the place where the conference he was there for was.
The hotel was on a devided highway, where there wasn't a way to cut through
the median right by the hotel.  So, since traffic in India goes on the left,
and the bus driver didn't want to turn left out of the parking lot, they would
get on the road going the wrong way until there was a convenient place to cut
over to the left side of the road, where they were supposed to be.    In the
US, driving on the wrong side of the road would be a pretty good way to get
killed.

Hungarian drivers were pretty scary too.  As far as I could tell, the left
lane on a two lane road was prinarily the passing lane.  Oncoming traffic was
a secondary purpose.  This attitude seemed to be shared by drivers going both
ways.

In Hungary, the drivers would stop their car ANYWHERE, get out and look
around.  We saw this on the left lane of a divided highway, on city streets,
any lane, and immediately around a corner.  Needless to say, there are lots
of rear-end collisions there.  Also, the 40mph Trabants would hang in the
high-speed lane giving the 12-cyl Mercedes' reason to test their brakes.

I was doing a random web search and came across the Peugeot 307CC

It's a fine looking car. Too bad they don't sell em' here. I bet
they even get good gas milage.

When I was in England last month, I walked past a Peugeot dealership.
The cars were selling for much less there than similar cars in the
US, so seemed very reasonable.  But I guess, if I were to buy one,
the shipping and import duties would mess that up, not to mention the
steering wheel's on the wrong side ;) A couple of the hired cars (with
driver) that we used in England were Peugeots.  One was a 2000 with over
200,000 miles on the odometer and still was running fine, according to
the driver (on petrol yet, which amazed him vs. diesel).  The cars were
comfortable, had decent acceleration for getting down the slit road in a
hurry to merge with traffic, etc.  Are there any Peugeot auto dealers in
the U.S.?  It's difficult to find any on the web.  The Peugeot company
web site doesn't show any North American activity, but it's quite
annoying to navigate, so I wasn't sure if I just missed it.

Peugeot hasn't been in the States for awhile from what I understand, but on
their website they had a mexican link, so maybe it would be possible to import
one from there? I think people in mexico use regular gas and drive on the same
side of the road as us.

You can't import a car to the U.S. and register it for road use unless
it either a) Has been certified to meet U.S. safety standards, or b) Is
over 25 years old.

Okay, then, add the certification hassle to the shipping and import duties
costs.  I don't think I'd want to drive a 25 year old Peugeot even if the
steering wheel was on the left side.  In any event, it's been made too
expensive to think about importing unless you have lots of money to spare.

I once saw a Dacia 1300 on eBay.  I think it was a 1978 and it was in perfect
condition and being sold down in California.

here are a few fords that aren't available in the States.

http://www.ford.co.uk/ns7/streetka (looks sorta like a porsche)

http://www.ford.co.uk/ns7/fordgt (looks like an ol' skool ferrari or jag)

I think i'd like to own a streetka.

The second one is pretty cool.  The first one borrows too many styling
cues from the Ford Focus for my taste.

I'm fond of the Daewoo Tico.

http://www.magnetonic.org/imgs/tico.jpg
(It's the lil go-cart on the left)

I'm fairly certain it is not street legal in the USA.

The Tico gets about 62mpg and is 4 1/2 feet tall and about 9' long.
You can seat 4 in it and I've seen a ton of them used as taxis around eastern
Europe.

That looks like one of those east german cars

The tires have innertubes..

I've heard of people who have cars with old alloy wheels running inner
tubes.  It seems the Michigan salt eventually pits the rims and the tire
beads won't seal properly anymore.

They actually handle potholes much better for the same reason(i.e.pitted rims)

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