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This had us scratching our heads seven years ago:
Kim Jong-il’s last ride was in a 1976 Lincoln hearse
Peter Orosz
12/28/11 9:30am
For a dictator whose country has never been on particularly rosy terms with the United States, North Korea’s recently departed Dear Leader was allotted a rather peculiar hearse after a life of Mercedes-Benz fetish. That's totally an old black Lincoln.
Kim Jong-il, one of mankind’s most prolific mass murderers, was carried off to his grave in a fifth generation Lincoln Continental, flanked on all sides by military trucks and followed by a fleet of his dear Mercedes-Benz cars. Walking next to the Lincoln, sporting his modified Hitlerjugend haircut, was Kim’s son and successor Kim Jong-un, who, like his father used to, likes to look at things.
Peter Orosz
12/28/11 9:30am
For a dictator whose country has never been on particularly rosy terms with the United States, North Korea’s recently departed Dear Leader was allotted a rather peculiar hearse after a life of Mercedes-Benz fetish. That's totally an old black Lincoln.
Kim Jong-il, one of mankind’s most prolific mass murderers, was carried off to his grave in a fifth generation Lincoln Continental, flanked on all sides by military trucks and followed by a fleet of his dear Mercedes-Benz cars. Walking next to the Lincoln, sporting his modified Hitlerjugend haircut, was Kim’s son and successor Kim Jong-un, who, like his father used to, likes to look at things.
CC Global: North Korea, Land of Lincolns
BY ROBERT KIM – FEBRUARY 21, 2018
On December 28, 2011, the funeral of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il displayed to the world a sight that many found shocking: a Lincoln Continental from the 1970s used as the official hearse. The North Korean regime owning an American luxury car over 30 years old and using it as the final conveyance of its deceased leader was difficult for many to understand. There was considerable discussion in automotive and general news media about this sighting, some of which doubted that the car was a real Lincoln and not a copy on a Soviet-made chassis, and some of which questioned how the North Korean regime could have obtained an American car. The discussion of how North Korea could have obtained “a” Lincoln Continental was badly uninformed, however. The North Korean regime has a fleet of Lincolns, not just one.
This screenshot of the funeral procession television broadcast shows how unobservant the earlier reports were. With the 1975-76 Continental serving as a hearse not in sight, there are three other 1974-76 Continentals visible, as well as a 1995-97 Town Car. There is a 1975-76 Continental carrying a huge portrait of Kim Jong Il, trailed by another 1975-76 Continental bearing an almost equally large wreath, and flanked by what appears to be a 1974 Continental made into a four door convertible. So there are at least four 1974-76 Continentals in North Korea, along with at least one 1990s Town Car.
Here are the three 1975-76 Continentals lined up in the funeral procession, with the portrait and wreath bearers leading the hearse, which is really a stretched sedan with the coffin laid on top of the roof.
There was considerable speculation at the time of the funeral regarding how a 1970s Lincolns ended up in Pyongyang. All of it that I have seen published has been laughably off the mark, because none showed much knowledge of foreign car markets or of North Korea. The car used as a hearse appears to have been originally sold in Japan, because it has the fender-mounted mirrors characteristic of Japanese market cars, here used as handholds by Kim Jong Un and one of his generals. North Korea finding a way to import a car from Japan in the 1970s is not shocking, because there was a long history of Japan being a source of hard currency and goods for North Korea, through ethnic Koreans in Japan.
Stringent economic sanctions against North Korea are a recent development, and North Korea had economic ties to certain non-Communist countries. In Japan, which has a large ethnic Korean population that South Korea did not contact for half a century under a diplomatic deal with Japan, sending money and goods to North Korea through Communist Party connections was a common practice until recently. At least one foreign car, a Volvo, made it to North Korea in this way (see the defector autobiography Aquariums of Pyongyang, by Kang Chol-Hwan and Pierre Rigoulet, pp. 26-34). This Volvo was a privately owned car in Japan shipped to North Korea, not one of the 1,000 Volvo 144s that North Korea acquired directly from Volvo in the early 1970s. This Lincoln could have been similarly directly shipped from Japan to North Korea, or first shipped to a third country port such as Singapore or Macao and then transferred to a ship bound for North Korea.
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BY ROBERT KIM – FEBRUARY 21, 2018
On December 28, 2011, the funeral of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il displayed to the world a sight that many found shocking: a Lincoln Continental from the 1970s used as the official hearse. The North Korean regime owning an American luxury car over 30 years old and using it as the final conveyance of its deceased leader was difficult for many to understand. There was considerable discussion in automotive and general news media about this sighting, some of which doubted that the car was a real Lincoln and not a copy on a Soviet-made chassis, and some of which questioned how the North Korean regime could have obtained an American car. The discussion of how North Korea could have obtained “a” Lincoln Continental was badly uninformed, however. The North Korean regime has a fleet of Lincolns, not just one.
This screenshot of the funeral procession television broadcast shows how unobservant the earlier reports were. With the 1975-76 Continental serving as a hearse not in sight, there are three other 1974-76 Continentals visible, as well as a 1995-97 Town Car. There is a 1975-76 Continental carrying a huge portrait of Kim Jong Il, trailed by another 1975-76 Continental bearing an almost equally large wreath, and flanked by what appears to be a 1974 Continental made into a four door convertible. So there are at least four 1974-76 Continentals in North Korea, along with at least one 1990s Town Car.
Here are the three 1975-76 Continentals lined up in the funeral procession, with the portrait and wreath bearers leading the hearse, which is really a stretched sedan with the coffin laid on top of the roof.
There was considerable speculation at the time of the funeral regarding how a 1970s Lincolns ended up in Pyongyang. All of it that I have seen published has been laughably off the mark, because none showed much knowledge of foreign car markets or of North Korea. The car used as a hearse appears to have been originally sold in Japan, because it has the fender-mounted mirrors characteristic of Japanese market cars, here used as handholds by Kim Jong Un and one of his generals. North Korea finding a way to import a car from Japan in the 1970s is not shocking, because there was a long history of Japan being a source of hard currency and goods for North Korea, through ethnic Koreans in Japan.
Stringent economic sanctions against North Korea are a recent development, and North Korea had economic ties to certain non-Communist countries. In Japan, which has a large ethnic Korean population that South Korea did not contact for half a century under a diplomatic deal with Japan, sending money and goods to North Korea through Communist Party connections was a common practice until recently. At least one foreign car, a Volvo, made it to North Korea in this way (see the defector autobiography Aquariums of Pyongyang, by Kang Chol-Hwan and Pierre Rigoulet, pp. 26-34). This Volvo was a privately owned car in Japan shipped to North Korea, not one of the 1,000 Volvo 144s that North Korea acquired directly from Volvo in the early 1970s. This Lincoln could have been similarly directly shipped from Japan to North Korea, or first shipped to a third country port such as Singapore or Macao and then transferred to a ship bound for North Korea.
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