Trip to communist Budapest in 1984: me posing with a worn down Ford 17M from the early sixties
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View Reddit by Zaicab – View Source
Trip to communist Budapest in 1984: me posing with a worn down Ford 17M from the early sixties
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View Reddit by Zaicab – View Source
Looking good mate
“$1.83 American! What are we going to get with that?”
Dang they just don’t make cars like they used to. That car probably ran for another 10 years. Now days you’re lucky if your car will last even half that long.
Put it in H!
Hm looks like a present day photo of a Hungarian city that’s is not Budapest.
How much did being a spy pay in the 80s?
“Put it in ‘H’…!!!”
Guy in the back walking looking at his phone, explain that!
My favourite oldtimer
I have had the same at same years . two doors .
(in Bulgaria , Sofia )
https://preview.redd.it/ekj29jelc9qb1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e67c07874eb1f2c179bc86a6d9654373c09e439d
this is the location
Nice! That could be a scene from an old spy movie!
Great shot- Dacia, Trabant, polski Fiat, Peugeot 504, Lada and VW – missing are Skoda Tatra and Warburg
Went to Budapest last year. Beautiful city. Wonderful folks. Would 100% go back.
Thought I was scrolling past /r/AccidentalWesAnderson
Taunis
Ford Taunus
Green Mrk1 Astra over in the back there too.
17 goin on 50
That is the saddest looking Ford.
This isn’t a real photo
If you squint really…REALLY HARD it looks like the front end of a 64-66 t-bird lol
That’s an old Ford Taunus!
Directly across the river from the Parliament Building
Literally 1984
Jo reggelt fellow Magyar! We left in 56 but I always make an effort to say s, sz and cs the right way.
I spot a Fiat 126, I press upvote
I wonder what communist Budapest must‘ve been like back then – great photo though!
Let’s design a car which looks sad in more ways than one!
I went on a family vacation to Hungary two years later. My brother’s high school friend went with us, and he spoke Hungarian because his mother was a Hungarian refugee from the 50’s, so that gave a little bit more insight. It already had a lot of free market back then, but within the framework of an elitist communist regime with very complex and hard to know corruption.
I was actually surprised about how good looking the cars were, not impressive but a lot of cute design. Skoda 110R coupe, Tatra 613, really well done given the circumstances. It worked the other way around too, our modest Citroen BX14 drew a crowd in Budapest every time it started up because of the hydropneumatic suspension rising the car. It got engine trouble, I had to McGyver it back to working myself because finding a repair shop for it was a bit of an issue. Luckily I had just finished ‘Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance’.
The price/income gap was huge. We had an “airbnb”, officially we were unpaying guests of course, with a family in the luxury party area, with a swimming pool overlooking the city. Basically the father had a much better job than my father, but the 200 D-mark for the week was huge sum to them. The pair of jeans for the daughter of the house was also very much appreciated.
We ate beluga caviar for a tenner in the most elite restaurants. We also ate in state run restaurants, with waiter ostentatiously showing no interest at all, not bad food though. Private taxis wer much better than the state taxis too, in the sense that they were willing to drive you somewhere. After Budapest we went to the Balaton lake. There were ödelöjs there, vacation housing for families from all over Eastern Europe, reward for being a good factory worker for many years. Some German tourist’s Mercedes were wider than their family cars, transporting 7, were long. My week’s pay as a paper boy back home made me a big spender there. Of course I was raised well and we didn’t rub it in and I was fully aware this was not a deserved but an artificial financial difference, but it was just too big a gap, something felt wrong.
And it was still an authoritarian country. You feel it at border control, you feel it from the police, how you deal with unclear situations in what is legal you take the safe option. It wasn’t overall grim or something, but it was felt.
So you just walked up to a random persons car in a foreign country and acted like you were gonna get in it for a picture?
My had a Datsun with a hole in the floor on the drivers side.
is that a Taunus, pls?