Having travelled many times to the Czech Republic in the past six years, it struck me over our Christmas holiday trip how much the mix of metal has changed in that time, and with this, a shift of attitude towards car ownership. Originally, nearly every car in SWMBO\'s backwater home town was a beat up, ancient, rear engined Skoda, the odd Favorit or Lada, or one of the few Japs on the road. Average age? A lot.
Now, in her town alone, there are any number of Threes and Fives, just about any VAG offering you care to name (including a W12 six litre A8 as well as the expected Fabias and Octavias), the odd Merc, more and more Hondas and Nissans, and a few Volvo XC70s. Korean Cheapies are moving in on traditional Skoda territory, though Ford is conspicuous by almost total absence.
Domestic building infrastructure still has a drab, neglected air to it, (though a fortune is being spent on public buildings it seems) and whatever has brought relative personal wealth in advance of EU membership has been massively spent on cars. If anything, this is showing signs of increasing at an even faster rate in the future, and a straw poll of friends shows most motors to be imported second hand up to four years old from Germany.
The roads are still usually empty, and the main ones are of good quality, though for how long now on either count? Connex run the local bus company though, and Tescos are springing up everywhere, so it is becoming more like home from home each time we go, even without congestion and worn out roads!
Shifting the goal posts a little, you might expect Prague to be in advance of the rest of the country, which it is, but even so I was amazed at the number of new model stretched Seven Series Beemers (all with totally blacked out windows and my-rims-are-bigger-diameter-than-yours attitude), top spec new Merc 600s, and even Porsche Cayennes (not a single one of which was a non turbo) yesterday.
Out of interest (and without comments about our inept Government\'s attempts to get us off the road in the UK!), has any other Backroomer seen such a motoring shift first hand in any other part of the world, in recent times?
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HI. Can you tell me if there are still any TATRA 613 cars running around? This is a car ive long had an interest in and the last time I saw one (ironically enough) was in my local village in Derbyshire and before that when I visited Vienna in 1990 they were using them as Taxi's at the main airport.
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Mods - please change my W8 reference to W12 in original post, before I am corrected by another BRer! ;-)
{Done. DD}
John - I am not very au-fait with specific Tatra models, but yes, I saw a Tatra of some description, huge, rear engined, and apparently V8 powered from the woofle, in the town of Olomouc two days after Christmas.
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Hi again SjB - same story in Slovakia which as you know is still a bit behind the Czech Republic after they split away taking all the good stuff with them (well that's Mrs V's version of the facts anyway:-)).
On honeymoon saw loads of nice cars in Bratislava, The Tatras Mountains and even Banska Bystrica as well as the obligatory Tesco's. I know from the in-laws that some people are doing very well but most are not and prices are going up almost as fast as the new buildings! Still very good value for money for us though.
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