For car buffs out there, the local media is speculating on what type of car that Pres. Roh will ride on his visit to Pyongyang.
The candidates so far, are a BMW 760Li or a Mercedes-Benz S600. For Equus haters, the Equus is off the list, because unlike the German-made cars, it is not bulletproofed.
I have to give the Blue House credit for creating this gossip-like buzz around the Pyongyang visit. Would the local media have cared enough to generate all this buzz, if Pres. Roh, like former Pres. Kim, decided to fly to Pyongyang via the Presidential 737-300, instead of going by ground?
26 Comments
Don’t know what car but do know this. It will be Black! Just like all the other big shot wannabes out there.
The Great Pretender is responding to his master’s whistle, so it’s only appropriate that he should go in a Huiparam.
Does it really matter? If the North Korean army decides to kill him, will a bullet proof car stop them?
why not ride a korean car? he is the president of korea after all…
Exactly what I was thinking… I think he’ll drive a Daewoo.
The obvious answer is the car with the most trunk space for all that cash.
He should ride an Equus or Chairman, and make a big point of mentioning to KJI that it is factory-made in Kyonggi-do before innocently asking “And where is your car made? Germany? Ahh…”
#3 is exactly what I was thinking - bulletproofing? Who cares? He could go in a tank, but if KJI wanted him dead he’d be dead.
Why would the President of Korea drive a General Motors car?
Z z z z z . . . Z . z z z z
To #7 agreed! The summit will make a lot of damage anyway, but if he takes a Korean made car, it will be at least a good show. And about being unsafe. Well, who wants Mr.Roh to be killed?
Yes, going to the summit in an Equus would be good show, but an Equus cannot be made bulletproof. I don’t know the exact reason why an Equus cannot be made bulletproof, but from what I heard, Hyundai for some reason, does not have the technology to build bulletproof cars.
And despite what’s been said, I don’t think anybody in S. Korea is crazy/stupid enough to send Pres. Roh up north in a non-bulletproofed car.Also, since the Presidential Security Chevy Suburbans in the convoy are bulletproofed, it would be bad press, if the car that Pres. Roh is riding on isn’t.
Any car can be made bullet proof if it can withstand the extra weight of the plating. You just have to pay someone to do the conversion for you. So, if it can’t be bulletproofed it’s a matter of suspension and horsepower, not technology. They could fit the thing with something like an Edelbrock high performance suspension and engine…anything is possible with the right amount of cash.
In any case, even if the car wasn’t bulletproofed, would it help Roh escape North Korea if they decided to assassinate him? Probably not, but they don’t want to risk giving the Norks the chance to having him shot by a sniper in order to blame the Americans or a Japanese. They wouldn’t want him to be shot by a dissident who mistook him for Kim Jong Il, either.
My dear professor Lankov, you made a splendid funny that is very Russian in tone.
Perhaps this is an excellent scenario for a cellphone game: help the president escape NK in his Daewoo. I will call the Gamevile guys right away . . .
You’d be surprised how good the north korean cars are. Here’s a pic i took of three of them on display (saw plenty on the road). I had a look under the bonet on the FWD and the engine was Chinese - maybe they just assemble them in North Korea. Anyway, they looked good:
http://www.gwangjuinterfc.com/.....rs200k.jpg
# 14,
Those cars are monsterous looking… Wouldn’t be caught dead in one.
# 1,
Hey! Be nice. I too drive a black german made car and I do not consider myself a “big shot wannabe”… those would be the Koreans who have Bimmers or Benz’s and pay for it by eating cup noodles everyday!
I recall reading that KJI has a fetish for the Mercedes S-Class, owning TWO HUNDRED of them. So I guess it’d be best if Roh rolled up in his benzo for conformity.
#6 by yankeesfan_77
“The obvious answer is the car with the most trunk space for all that cash.”
Actually there’s more than just a consideration of trunk space involved, as you will realize if you give some careful (as opposed to disrespectful) thought to the matter. KDJ didn’t transfer the $500 million personally, did he? He used third parties not only to hide the transaction but to give DPRK plenty of time.
DPRK isn’t going to accept a cash transfer unless their experts have several days to examine all the banknotes, individually and thoroughly (don’t want to get stuck with more “supernotes”, got plenty of those already). In spite of your disrespectful jokes about a possible demise of our ROK President, DPRK/KJI aren’t in a position to unceremoniously detain him for several days under the eyes of the world press while this task is accomplished.
I suppose Krugerrands could be a solution but a couple hundred iron-jawed DPRK security men would have to be detailed to carefully bite down on each one while the summit is still ongoing. And there are power-to-weight considerations; even a powerfully-engined auto that is nevertheless armor-plated and full of Presidential party may not be able to climb the hills between Seoul and Pyongyang with the necessary authority, if the trunk is full of heavy, shining gold.
And offering to leave the car itself behind (cars? can’t read the article) could be positively dangerous, as it could be deemed an insult! Even twenty expensive foreign autos at $100,000 each, conveniently “forgotten” in Pyongyang (while the Presidential party flies back to Seoul to receive the acclaim of the masses) amounts to only $2 million in tribute; pshaw, that’s nothing.
Uhhhh, OK. I guess the fact I was being facetious would be moot at this point.
I think we are operating on an incorrect assumption;
Are we agreeing, despite the severe flooding that has decimated over 10% of the NORK farmland and left countless thousands homeless with who knows how many killed, that this “dog and pony show” will still occur?
My vote is an 11th hour appeal by KJI to postpone the visit so he can “take care of his people” and Roh will be compelled to send an extra boat load of rice and cooking oil in his place.
#17,
I can’t remember if it was here or in another blog, but an American soldier stationed along the DMZ claimed that he had seen shipments of gold being sent up north.
The more important question, what will KJI drive?
VW sent a half dozen Phaetons and a boatload of Passats north last year.
Isn’t it ironic that the South Korean president will be held captive in NORK during the largest annual Wargame?
The chance that a US soldier saw anything along the DMZ makes the comment suspect. US forces only work at Panmunjom and the South Koreans run the inter-Korean highway checkpoints.
Being that our man Roh is a man of the people (Abe Lincoln-style) he should just take a bus. I’m just not sure which number bus he would catch though.
“US forces only work at Panmunjom and the South Koreans run the inter-Korean highway checkpoints.”
Panmunjom is in the DMZ. In any case, I wrote my post from memory. You’ll have to find the original one to find what the guy had written. It’s hard to tell if he was lying without it.
I have heard a similar story from a US soldier who was stationed at Panmunjom who said he saw 999 cows walking across the border. Another guy said on an Internet bulletin board that he saw a canary-yellow pixie fluttering between the huts in the middle of Panmunjeom. The Pixie was reportedly about 3 inches tall and wearing a beige velvet vest, pair of diesel jeans and a ny mets baseball cap.
Be sure to rug up warm tomorrow as heavy snowfall is expected across most of Gyeonggi-do.
Equus? I think Equus is far below the every penny. Definitely it is piece of shit!
Equus has just a value of $10,000.