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Israel has many small villages, formed back in the day within agricultural areas, once when there was actual agriculture. People worked the land, and lived a quiet life in the village. Once the Hi-Tech / Start-Up age dawned and took over from agriculture, many of these places- especially those not far from Tel-Aviv, turned to real-estate havens, folks coming in from the big city to live in what they call “high quality of life in the country”. Also, many small businesses rent warehouses for production and such, the renting fees much lower than similar estates in the city.
These villages, being far from prying eyes, also host CC lovers, and driving through such places you might come across some finds that their owners have not seen fit to stash away- they just leave them outside their houses.
I was in such village the other day, going to a place that manufactures mosquito-netting. They have this cleaver solution in which the net is attached to the bottom of the pull-up blinder, so once you lift the blinder, the net is also up and doing its job. I wanted to see it in action and not just in a YouTube video. So my wife and I headed to this place and just at the entrance to the warehouse, we saw this:
The dusty Cavalier might be circa 1995-1996. I once had a friend with an almost identical car. Not too sure about the Firebird, but this was imported to Israel back in the 1990s, according to the license plate. The 00 also reveals that it was a private import, which is no surprise considering this generation was never imported to Israel officially.
Later, upon leaving the place, the Firebird was gone, so good to see that it’s in use. Oh, and we decided to go for this type of net…
It’s interesting to see such commonplace cars be so rare in other areas.
I always get excited when I see a Land Rover Defender in Canada, but they are dime-a-dozen in the UK from what I’ve heard.
I see the odd Defender here in Australia. But yesterday our GPS led us down a dusty country road way off the beaten track, and I saw a LWB dual cab pickup Defender parked in a farmyard. Didn’t know they came like that.
Google is telling me that what you saw is a “130” model, but I don’t know if its a custom job or some sort of rare factory option.
Quite common round here Defenders always were popular all configurations present the one you saw isnt unusual, Many in Hervet bay QLD best retal for Fraser island apparently my brother worked for then bought a Landrover service centre up there, the handle beaches better than anything else.
I was in Israel in the early 1980’s and had to give up hope of finding any cars of interest, let alone big American iron . Imagine my surprise walking through the streets of Jerusalem one day and there was a dark blue Suburban just like my car at home. (Maybe it had something to do with being across the street from the U.S. Consulate, ya think?)
I’m surprised as back then US-made cars were still fairly popular, but if you mean older (40s-60s) cars, a lot was scrapped after being driven to the ground, which nowadays is bitterly lamented by Israeli old car enthusiasts (at least you can import the same models from the US if they’re more than 30 years old). Cavaliers were popular for a while in Israel as nothing was as cheap in its class. Camaros and Firebird were a different story but always regularly imported.
YOHAI71,
I am very curious about about Israeli regulations on vehicles, namely grey imports as well as official imports. Does Israel require the vehicles sold there through official channels to meet ECE regulations?
Is it similar to what we have here in Germany and Switzerland where people can import and sell any vehicles without safety modifications to meet ECE regulations? The quirkiness here is that the vehicles imported by the manufacturers must meet ECE regulations.
The Americans cannot just import their vehicles to the US and register them for drive on public road if their vehicles are less than twenty-five years old and not manufactured or modified to meet US regulations in the first place.
I have seen lot of service vehicles, namely Ford Econoline and Chevrolet Safari, with amber turn signals in the taillamps and ECE headlamps. When Yitzhak Rabin was president, his state car was a D-Body Cadillac Fleetwood that had side turn signal repeaters, export taillamps, etc.
Well, grey imports indeed must comply wtih ECE regulations, but mostly ECEs not the problem- the MOT denies any import of a vehicle not sold in Israel by an official importer, because it recons that the imported vehicle must be cared for throughout its life in Israel. If you imported a vehicle that (presumably) has no service knowledge, than no one would be able to service it (I won’t get into the “why do they care, it’s my own car, not their business” debate, this is another matter).
Of course, this is just the theory and as we all know, there’s a difference between an imported Bugatti Veyron which is a complex machine, and an Acura which carries Honda internals (so presumably Honda service centers will be able to cope with it). That’s precisely why such concessions are made to accept cars which are not imported to Israel, but are very similar to vehicles which have an official importer- that Acura is a good example.But only if the official importer signs a document in which he vouches for its service capability of this grey import.
The paragraphs above address new and up-to two years old vehicles. Imported classics are an entirely different matter. Those can be imported regardless of manufacturer but must be over thirty years old, must not have right had steering wheels, and are entered only on the basis that they be registered as “Classic Vehicle”, and so on.
See many of T.Turtle’s comments in my recent post for mor info:
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/in-motion-classic/in-motion-classic-fast-as-a-comet-on-the-way-to-work/
Thanks, Yohai, for the explanation.
Second paragraph is very similar to Canadian vehicles personally imported to the US for use on public road. The manufacturers are obliged to provide the letters, denoting how much of said Canadian vehicle meets the FMVSS and EPA. Despite the similarity (not identical) between CMVSS and FMVSS, US Customs goes over the documentation with fine-toothed comb, and US DOT demands whatever modifications to be carried out by the registered importers.
The problem is incredulous liability laws in the US. The official US importers aren’t willing to do so because they would be liable if anything happened to the personally imported vehicles.