Posted on 09/05/2014 12:11:28 AM PDT by Olog-hai
When we ran a story a while back about the cars of North Korea, one photo in particular caught my eye. In that photo was a green 1974 Volvo 144, which made me wonder if it was part of those 1000 legendary stolen Volvos I’d heard rumors about. It was, because those rumors are true.
It’s around the 40th anniversary of one of the greatest state-sponsored mass carjackings in history, a fact that Newsweek commemorated with an article last week. That article stated that the total amount owed for those thousand Volvos is now up to €300 million ($393 million US), or if you prefer Swedish Krona, a nice cool three billion or so. It’s a lot of cash for a bunch of used Volvos, and I don’t think anyone in Sweden really thinks they’re ever going to see any of it. …
(Excerpt) Read more at jalopnik.com ...
who’d trust that the money they’d use to pay wasn’t counterfeit?
“$393,000 per car.”
Includes 40 years of interest.
At least they aren’t Toyota PUs.
Is that counting the interest?
Interestingly, Volvo Cars is now owned by Red China.
Yes, thanks to Ford.
The B18/20 engines in these 144s are reputedly among the toughest and, if treated right, longest-lived; the record-breaker 1966 Volvo P1800 racked up its 2.5 million miles on its original B18. Remarkably high horsepower for the time out of a four-cylinder, too, with a lot of models over the 100-hp mark.
North Korea Still Owes $393,000,000 For Volvos...
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CNN is reporting that Kerry (who spent a month boating in Viet Nam) has secretly been in negotiations with his counterpart Un Too Tree (who spent three weeks in the North Korean conflict as a trench digger) for the release of the three American tourists in exchange for the debt.
CNN informed the tourists of the good news and they were elated they might finally be released and be able to travel on to the last two legs of their touring schedule, Syria and then on to Gaza.
I recently had to get a new used car.
In order to be able to afford the payments I had to stop eating out and stop ordering pizza. It’s that tight. I had to give up one thing to be able to afford another.
Maybe if NK could let a year or two go by without having their huge extravagant parades and festivals, they might be able to feed their people and pay their bills.
Wasn’t ‘74 the year of the amazing 8 cyl 164E ?
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