BY JOHN POWERNOV 02, 2015
The United States has Ford. Germany has Volkswagen. Japan has Toyota. And North Korea has Pyeonghwa Motors.
Run by Kim Jong-un’s regime, the company produces a tiny number of vehicles at its factory in the city of Nampo, a seaport on North Korea’s west coast. At its sole dealership in the capital Pyongyang, visitors can view its lineup up close, take a test drive and even purchase spare parts.
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Andray Abrahamian, research director at North Korea-focused nonprofit Choson Exchange, visited the showroom last month, and provided Mashable brochures on the current selection of 25 models:
reported that it made 1,450 cars that year.
Simon Cockerell, general manager of North Korea travel company Koryo Tours, said the cars make up a sizable minority of the vehicles on the country’s streets, where imports are more commonly seen.
“I would estimate around 10 to 20% of the cars in Pyongyang are Pyeonghwa vehicles,” he said. “In the other cities and countryside, it’s not as high a proportion. Overall, they are reasonably common."
While billboards lauding the automaker are among the only advertisements in the country, most North Koreans can only dream of actually owning one of its cars. Not only does most of the population live in dire poverty, the regime heavily restricts private car ownership to a select few. Even though visitors to the capital say traffic in Pyongyang has increased considerably in recent years, vehicles still remain few and far between throughout the country.