This past week I spent with friends outside Port Elizabeth in South Africa’s Eastern Cape Province. My teenage years happened there and I miss the smell of the red dust roads and citrus orchards. This year I flew and hired a car instead of driving the 750 kms, as done the last two years. The idea was to hire a VW Polo and visit the factory where they are assembled in Uitenhage, 35kms north of Port Elizabeth, and do the factory tour. Neither of these ideas panned out; but the trip did yield a number of automotive finds along the way.
When I arrived at P.E. Airport all the rental Polo’s were out and I was given the option of a Toyota Etios, or the Grand i10, the Hyundai appealed the most. It has a 4 cylinder 1.25 litre engine putting out 64Kw and 120 Nm of torque. Doesn’t sound like much power, but over the week it covered most bases, only needing careful gear selection on the steep hills of Port Elizabeth, and when crossing busy intersections. At 120 kms per hour at 3500 rpm it would travel silently with good cabin sound insulation.
Both the original i10 and Grand i10 are currently sold in South Africa. Europe’s i10 looks like the Grand i10, and is sourced from Turkey, the difference being our Grand i10 is sourced from India and the wheelbase is stretched 100mm. Confusing I know! Keeping the previous generation product on sale is big business for many manufacturers here; the VW Polo Vivo, a slightly repackaged previous generation Polo, see below, remains a top seller alongside the current Polo.
VW assembled their 500 000th Polo in Uitenhage in 2015.
The Polo Vivo and the below picture were snapped in Humansdorp, an agricultural town to the west of P.E. The rain was welcome, the whole country has been in the grip of a drought. In Cape Town we are on level 3 water restrictions, and are making desperate plans how we are going to get through till April when the winter rains arrive.
Still in Humansdorp, I saw a 2000-5 Toyota Condor converted into a hearse. All sorts of vehicles are used as hearses here, the Toyota Cressida station wagon was a popular option.
In Port Elizabeth I captured this beautiful Volvo in the somewhat gritty light industrial North End area, as well as the below Buick Riviera.
The Riv has Northern Cape plates. Plates from faraway places always set me daydreaming. The section of the R355 from Ceres in the Western Cape to Calvinia in the Northern Cape at 255kms is the longest dirt road in South Africa without a town or petrol station in between. This is the road from Cape Town to AfrikaBurn which takes place anually in the Tankwa Karoo, an arid semi-desert part of the Northern Cape.
I was standing wondering how to make a picture out of the God’s Time Car Wash, when this Nissan GTR handily came along.
I’ve mentioned the Nissan Sani before, I heard this one coming long before I saw it, that delicious 6 cylinder wail carving through the traffic on its way to a call, no siren needed..
Down by the beach in the Summerstrand area a Kombi punting horse rides.
Opposite the Opera House part of a sculpture tribute to the Toyota Hi Ace and the Taxi industry. The Hi Ace underpins the huge minibus taxi industry which is a significant source of employment in a country struggling to create jobs.
Port Elizabeth has great architecture and is becoming a sought after destination to stay. Renault’s Clio is a popular purchase here.
The Addo Elephant Park, 72 kms outside Port Elizabeth, was created in 1931 to save 11 elephants in the area on the brink of extinction, and is now home to 350, plus many other species, in an area covering 120 000 hectares. We went for the day and got really close on a couple of occasions. On one occasion I had to fling the car into reverse and get out quickly, no one wins a stand off with an irritated elephant.
A striped Tiger seen far from home in the park, a Danish registered Kombi, Synchro I guess. At the park restaurant English is not necessarily the predominant language! Tourists from around the world flock here to absorb the African bush.
The next day I travelled to Uitenhage, the home of the VW assembly plant. Volkswagen’s have been made here since 1951. Before that, from 1946, Studebakers were assembled in the same plant for a time, as well as Austins.
The above VW beach buggy itteration was very popular in the 70’s, especially with fishermen, they don’t rust, travel well on the sand, and are lockable. I have just one question, how did they get in and out? People really were thinner then..
I had been to the VW Pavillion static display next to the factory the year before, and was hoping to do the factory tour. VW were offering the tour on Radio Algoa as a holiday activity, so I was bit miffed when I phoned to hear the tours were only starting the following week.
the ubiqitous Nissan 1400 Champ in Uitenhage.
This Nissan Exa looks like it leads a tough life but is in great shape, same for the Skyline.
Down at the bottom end of town in the scrapyards I captured this Bedford. Commercial vehicles never used to interest me, but it’s changing..
The Hyundai has a smart attractive interior. It’s standout feature is how spacious it is. I am 6’2 and fairly broad, and after approx 1200 kms I can say it was really comfortable.
A final picture of the Grand i10 covered in Addo dust, with a suitably grand entrance, and a cruise ship in Port Elizabeth harbour in the distance. Hyundai got all the important bits right on this car, I know a lot of people I will be telling to try it out!
Nice pics!
You should have captured a VW citi Golf. That is, a MK1 Golf/Rabbit sold until 2009. By that time it had a Skoda Fabia dash slapped inside!
Going to South Africa next week. Looking forward to the animals and now the cars as well. Thanks for this entry!
Very amazing scenery! Thanks for sharing!
Lovely pictures.
Isn’t the Eastern Cape, and specifically the P.E. area, the center for South Africa’s motor vehicle industry in general, not just for VW?
Yeah, I heard then GM used to have a plant in PE.
I spotted that clip in Afrikaans with English subtitles who talk of a car museum in the area, it begins at 0:55.
I wonder if that 80’s turquoise Nissan Skyline behind the red Nissan EXA was locally manufactured in South Africa. Seems like Skylines were pretty common in South Africa.
Nice pictures, and great cars, many of which are unfamiliar. That Nissan Exa was the Pulsar NX over here, it’s been many moons since I’ve seen one but they used to be somewhat popular.
The little i10 looks good too, Polo-sized isn’t all that small when you look at the measurements, we used to have tons of cars that size on the roads here.
Great road trip! Your Riviera picture and the description of the Ceres-Calvinia road got me daydreaming too — and sent me looking up these locales on a map.
Though I think these are two different daydreams for me. Driving down a backcountry dirt road for over 100 mi. without service stations sounds wonderful — but for a road trip in a 50+ year old Riviera, I’d stick to main roads.
I’m curious about the hearse — not as much the vehicle (though it’s interesting), but the color. Are white hearses common? Here in the US, the vast majority are black, with an occasional silver or gray hearse, but I’ve never seen white. Also, I find it interesting that the Toyota is sporting a landau bar — the only external clue that it’s a hearse. How those bars came to symbolize hearses worldwide is a mystery to me.
The teenaged me would have really liked that beach buggy wagon. Ah, who am I kidding, I like it now. Very cool and stands out in a non-ostentatious way.
I do really like the articles from outside North America. Thanks!
Hi All
Thanks for the upbeat comments!!
Swedishbrick, I will post a pic on the Cohort of the VW TenaCiti in PE now, a little fuzzy I know!!
silverkris and Yoshi, besides VW the Eastern Cape has had a GM assembly plant since 1926, and a Mercedes plant in East London since 1954. If you are driving a right hand drive C Class anywhere in the world chances are it was produced there.
Further North, Nissan Skylines were indeed assembled at the Rosslyn, Pretoria plant, from ’87 to ’92, and Nissan assembles here still. BMW has had an assembly plant at Rosslyn sinnce 1968, and Ford a plant at Silverton.
Toyota has a huge plant at Prospecton in Durban.
Eric703, as I was writing I realised the Riv would have taken other tarred routes to the N Cape. this is the only Riv of this year I have ever seen, so a rare bird here!!
Your hearse question set me thinking, here economic considerations will make just about any mildly suitable vehicle eligible. White is perfectly acceptable and common. Metallic grey, silver, white and black would be sufficiently formal for hearse use. White is the predominant colour here because of the heat and servicibility. Note all the Taxi’s in the sculpture are white, no coincidence. 90% of minibus Taxi’s here are white. Colours like red would be not ok.
And there some interesting oddities, like the Ford Husky who was a rebadged Mitsubishi L300 van in South Africa. https://www.flickr.com/photos/aussiefordadverts/5656243716
A poster named Gerald McNeill posted the following about the history of Ford South African operation in the 1980s and I quote: “The Ford Husky came about when Ford merged interest with SIGMA, the local Mazda/Mitsubishi manufacturer. SIGMA, was formed in 1976 when mining giant Anglo-American bought out Chrysler’s local operation. AA at the time owned Illings, a small firm that produced Mazda and Int’l Harvester, so SIGMA had licenses for both Mazda (through Illings) and Mitsubishi (through Chrysler). SIGMA acquired the local Peugeot-Citroen operation in 1979 and there was a failed merger with Leyland. SIGMA marked primarily the Mazda 323 and the Mitsubishi Colt Galant.
SIGMA merged with Ford to form SAMCOR in late 1985 and Peugeot was discontinued. The new company’s policy was to sell the same product line (or equivalent) under both Mazda and Ford . The Laser/Meteor replaced the Escort, but the Sierra was retained because of its popularity on the market. The Mazda-based Ford Courier replaced the Cortina-based bakkies and Mazda dealers got the Rustler, a rebadge of the small Ford Bantam pickup based on the Ford Escort. Ford had no equivalent of the L300, so it was rebadged as Ford Husky for Ford dealers to sell. SAMCOR later added the bigger Ford Spectron and Mazda Marathon vans based on the Bongo Brawny. Loyal Ford customers hated this arrangement and sales suffered dramatically as the result.”
i’ve never seen a dune buggy quite like that red one but i really want it. thanks for sharing!
Loved my Uitenhage built Polo TDi – great cars
Polo TDI, Saab 9-3X…. God dammit have you ever had a car I didn’t like??
Looking at the picture of the hearse in front of the funeral home – it’s interesting to see the different languages written on the building. I saw English and Afrikaans, and I think Xhosa (I’m guessing because there are many more Xhosa speakers in the Eastern Cape, than native Sotho ones)
You are right about Xhosa being the dominant language in the Eastern Cape.
I rented a Hyundai i10 a few years ago when vacationing in St. Maarten. My wife and I usually just got around in minibuses like the ones used in South Africa, but one day we grabbed an i10 to go to a remote beach. It was left-hand drive, but the driver’s mirror had the “objects in mirror are closed than they appear” label. The car was made in India so apparently they just used the same mirrors as the right-hand drive cars.
Ah yes, the HiAce minibus. I’m not sure if I should laugh or scream in terror. In Zambia, by law, all public minibuses were to be painted blue. At least it made them visible; they were infamous for terrible driving. Hopefully it’s better in South Africa…
Nice one with the elephants. Got close to a herd in 2008 in Zambia. The Land Cruiser we had had a squeaky brake; that was not something the male liked. No trouble, but slightly nerve-wracking. What was it again: trunk raised, still good; trunk down, get out of there?
Hi Matthew, ha ha! the minbus taxi drivers here are… not great. I guess the financial model pushes them to doing crazy things on the road. the drivers have to pay ‘rent’ to the owner, and have to get in as many trips as possible, and with Cape Town’s generally gridlocked traffic its difficult for them. I do have sympathy however, and we all manage to keep smiling most of the time.
South Africa seems like a very ideal auto market. Lots of stuff from Europe, lots from Japan, both often adapted to local market demands (i.e Mazda 323 200i; a 323 with a twin cam 626 engine and the BMW 333i, an E30 with a 3.2 from a 7-series). It’s a wealthy enough market to get the most current models, but has enough low-income residents to need stuff like the Mk1 Golf Citi until recently, for example. And I see that you got the Clio, too.
Hi Perry, your comments about the huge offering mix in our car market are spot on.
I counted 50 marques on sale in SA in the back of Car Magazine, and counted the marques in the USA in the Car and Driver drop down menu, and also 50! weird.. I checked the SA number twice.. I think some brands are here driven more by passion than financial reality, as our market is small and some volume brands sell in minute numbers.