26/4! (del 2)

"Cé hé sin" (michael-m-mouse) 04/26/2018 at 15:36 • Filed to: Volvo, 264 TE

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Let’s spare a thought for the leadership of the late and glorious socialist workers’ paradise that was East Germany. They wanted cars appropriate to their status as first among equals (ha!) but they couldn’t be seen in anything as capitalist as a Merc, much though they might secretly thus like. What to do? Go to a socialistish and unaligned country of course. Sweden was deemed to fit the political bill in the 1970s and 80s and orders were made for the Volvo 264 TE (Top Executive) and for the TE landaulet, specially for that nice Mr Honecker who needed to be seen by his devoted socialist workers. Both were converted by a suitably socialist Swedish coachbuilder, Nilsson Karossen.

As Swedish Wiki tells us, “Modellen var speciellt populär i Östtyskland dit över hälften av produktionen sålde” which my pidgin Swedish translates as “the model was specially popular in East Germany where over half of the production was sold”.

Nice to see that the leaders of the socialist people didn’t have to slum it in a stretched Wartburg.

BvdV - The Dutch Engineer > Cé hé sin 04/26/2018 at 16:08

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Herr Honecker had quite a good taste in cars:

The Swedish Bandit > Cé hé sin 04/26/2018 at 16:20

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Are you sure the guy who built these were actually called “Karossen”? If that’s the case then it’s extremely ironic since that word literally means “the body of a car” in swedish.

Intresting cars nonetheless, didn’t know they made these.

Cé hé sin > The Swedish Bandit 04/26/2018 at 17:19

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He wasn’t. It’s the name of a company, actually Yngve Nilssons Karosserifabrik (although the reference I saw was Nilssons Karossen) and they’re still around .

Cé hé sin > BvdV - The Dutch Engineer 04/26/2018 at 17:22

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New one to me! I guess the French qualified as being sufficiently socialist too.

The Swedish Bandit > Cé hé sin 04/27/2018 at 02:00

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Ah!, makes sense. Really cool that they’re still around though.

AuthiCooper1300 > BvdV - The Dutch Engineer 04/29/2018 at 08:02

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Allegedly Leonid Brezhnev was very much into cars but was not a very good driver (and managed to seriously prang one, while, allegedly again, under the influence.) Here is a short and otherwise not terribly interesting video showing his SM (they say it was auctioned by the KGB in Switzerland?) - a state gift from Mr Pompidou, no less. Some sources say the crashed car was indeed this SM; others that it was a Royce.

PS Anyone here old enough and well-travelled enough to remember whether Intourist guides really looked as spectacular as the mannequin?