We’ve seen a number of Roshake 77’s finds of American cars in Hungary, but not all of them yet. Here’s a gen1 Intrepid hauling a ladder. It’s not exactly the most ideal car for that, but you use what you got. And someone’s got themselves a car that’s becoming rather rare hereabouts.
I don’t have a lot to say about these on this hot summer night, but we do have a full CC on them here.
And there’s a cute little Fiat 126 in the background to add a bit of color to this scene.
I find this fascinating. These are just ordinary, everyday American cars that keep showing up. Nothing super exotic and fancy.
How do they end up in Hungary? The shipping from North America is probably more than the car is worth!
Shipping isn’t that bad really, assuming it’s been in Hungary since it was actually worth something.
The question is why bother when you could pick up an equivalent car cheaply in Germany or wherever.
I was always surprised when I would see something like a Taurus on UK plates, or worse a US spec LHD Japanese car, presumably brought over by an American who was unaware that the UK is a mecca of cheap used cars. If it was an F250 I could understand.
Another possibility is the US military personnel based in Germany and other NATO member countries selling their vehicles to the Europeans on the cheap when they approach the “expiry date” mechanically or have passed it.
Oliver, take a close look at that last pic. Do you see what I think I might see?
Niagara Falls, but maybe not some tourist sticker but maybe a parking one for a job? The nearby military site would have been Fort Niagara, not Niagara Falls.
Anyone ID the other two? Not enough resolution to actually read them.
I’m not talking about stickers.
Lights. Surely it’s lights. A hint of amber on the left?
That’s what I think I see on the left and on the right outboard taillight compartment. I can’t be quite a hundred per cent sure, but when I zoom in and really peer at it…I think that’s what I’m seeing. Would’ve been relatively easy, too, on this Intrepid with its inner (red) and outer (smoked) 2-lens lamp construction.
I’m not an Oliver, but that’s one of the first things I noticed too!
I did a quick eBay search for 1993-97 Intrepid tail lamps, and did notice that some of the ones pictured had “ghost-y” images in one compartment or another, making their color appear amber-ish.
I also remember this generation Intrepid having lenses that lit up with a pinkish tinge when brakes were applied
Here’s another with a side marker appearing to glow.
I see the reflection “glow” you mean, but this one doesn’t look amber to me, either—just looks like the relatively light red Chrysler and their supplier chose for these lamps.
Yahbut, this what I think I see in the pic of the car in Hungary strikes me as different to those ghosty off-angle reflections you’re talking about. The pic you’ve posted here in your comment, for example, doesn’t look amber (or amber-ish) to me. I still think there’s been some jiggery-pokery behind the outer lenses on the Hungarian car’s tail lights. Could be a very-low-volume, very-poorly-catalogued factory part; that’s a thing I’ve seen on Chrysler and Ford products. Could also be clever craftsmanship by someone not affiliated with the maker—seen that, too.
You’re right that the early Intrepids’ brake lights were a somewhat less saturated red than many other brake lights. The effect wasn’t so discernible in tail light mode, but yeah, those brake lights were sort of light red (I hesitate to say “pink”, which might suggest an amount of blue in the light that wasn’t there). There was either a service bulletin or a nugget of wisdom suggesting the use of amber bulbs for owners who objected to the pink/light red appearance, and that swap did nudge the appearance closer to a normal-at-the-time red colour. It also reduced the intensity by 25 per cent.
@Daniel Stern
Looking closer, and I am seeing what you’re seeing. Notably, I’m *not* seeing the thin black? lines that are present in the known red section… especially on the left side. That lends credence to the theory that they have been modified.
Seeing the work of that guy in Australia is making me want to commission amber turn signals for my one car that has multi-compartment lamps, though it’s probably out of the budget for the beater that the car is. I think there are still NOS amber reverse lenses available for Australian versions of my Lark. My truck is the only one that there’s probably not a viable option for… Single compartment lamps and reverse lights with very reverse-y optics. #daydreaming
Lead pic of this article shows the nonexistent amber ’71-’73 Dart lenses he made for me. Tell me that doesn’t look like OE!
I do recall seeing some export Studebaker rear lenses from time to time on eBay; they pop up in my export taillight –
porn– saved-search.Single-compartment lamps that might lend themselves to the adaptive install of this (grommet mount) or this (flange mount)?
Ooh! Ooh! I’ve actually eyeballed that 1971 Dart a number of times in my own lighting porn quests. Those lenses look spot on! I think the best Studebaker Lark type setup was the non-wagons in 1964-65, where you could replace the US/Canadian market reverse lamps with amber lenses, then install white reverse lamps from the 1966 model. They morked up those possibilities by turning the 1964-5 tail lamps into air extractor vents for ’66.
My truck is a 1986 Chevy Silverado with a Fleetside box. I probably shoulda clarified by saying “single tail/stop/turn compartment”. The lamps you linked look like they would’ve been able to be adapted easily and effectively to my old 1976 Stepside, though.
I do have a set of the ubiquitous rear lenses for the truck, made by TMC Glo-Brite in all amber, that I scored off a wrecked motorhome… mostly just to have them as a conversation piece. The thought of knocking the amber reverse section out and installing it a red lens only briefly crossed my mind in my early 20’s, but even my subjective knowledge said it was a bad idea, as said reverse lamps produce a very wide beam of light that probably doesn’t place enough of it up high where all the semi and bus drivers sit? Plus, my driving tendencies often see me backing up long distances at night, so I’m partial to reasonably bright white light for those duties.
I was gonna mention those motorhome Glo-Brite items, but sounds like you’re already ahead of me on that. No good anyway; there’s only room for one of those lamps on each side of the truck box, and those conversions that put ~Corvette stop/tail lights in the rear bumper are…kinda schlock. So yeah, I think you’re stuck with whatchya got on the truck. If it were two years newer, these in the attached pic would suit. They’re made in Brazil by Arteb; close-up here.
T. A. Cowan: “Looking closer, and I am seeing what you’re seeing. Notably, I’m *not* seeing the thin black? lines that are present in the known red section… especially on the left side. That lends credence to the theory that they have been modified.”
Not all Intrepids had that thin black line on the bottom of the red tail light lens. Some had a red line. It apparently depended on the body color, which was on the lower part of the tail light assembly. The LH car parts manual lists different part numbers for tail lights on different paint-code cars.
The Hungarian car does have a red line.
He and I aren’t talking about the single black or red line on the outside of the outer lens, we’re talking about the multiple black lines on the inner lens.
At first, I thought we were talking about the stickers, but I had a real close look at the taillamps. The outer ones appear to have amber turn signal indicators. The difference in colour is pronounced here, and I don’t think it’s the trick of light or photograph. The retro-reflective markers sometimes give off different colour under certain condition.
I can’t say whether they are OEM export taillamps or modified by the owner or grey import car specialist. I’ve seen some modifications done like on the American cars when I visited Australia and Czechia. That usually involves cutting out the certain parts and inlaying in the amber-coloured lens.
I know for certain that Eagle Vision was only LH-platform variation beside Chrysler LHS that was officially exported to Europe and rebranded as Chrysler Vision.
It certainly wasn’t imported recently because someone in Hungary wanted an old Intrepid like someone might import a 1969 Charger or such.
There are folks all over Europe who do have a thing for American cars, and not just the classics. It’s just a way to be different.
Plate initial letter H indicates registration in Hungary in 2000 or so.
You mean 126.
I most certainly did. Fixed now. Thanks.
I actually deleted my comment within the timeframe but it never seems to work now.
And a PT Cruiser, perhaps more common in Europe, in the background of the second picture.
Trying to identify it by year and bearing in mind possible detail variations between USA and export:
It is a base Intrepid due to lack of the plastic body cladding found on the ES. First-gen Intrepids could have either engine regardless of trim level. The 3.5 SOHC would have an emblem on the front fenders, so this is a 3.3 OHV. The confusion arises with the other emblems. There is a Pentastar on the right front fender. On USA cars, that was dropped in early MY1995. But there is no Dodge Ram emblem on the trunk lid and no gap to the left of “DODGE” where it might have fallen off. That emblem was on the 1993-1994 cars and not 1995-1997, though there was hardly any pause for model year changeovers at the time. I’d put this by model year as a very late 1994 or very early 1995 car.
Chrysler PT Cruisers were popular in Europe, and were even built in Graz, Austria in 2002. Most probably have a Mercedes common rail diesel engine. In Hungary there are still active PT Cruiser clubs to this day, with annual car shows. Last year, a member got married and others showed up from across Hungary with their PT Cruisers…dozens of them.
I think this is probably not an officially-exported car; the official export version of the first-generation LH car was the Chrysler Vision (Eagle Vision with different lights, mirrors, and other such equipment). That said, there might have been lower-volume, lesser-known export Chrysler cars in that timeframe, sent to countries less stringently adherent to the U.N. regs. The headlamps on this Intrepid are the ’93-’94 version of the US-spec items (no other-than-US headlamps were made for this car), but the more I look at the taillights, the more I suspect they are not quite US-spec; possibly modified after manufacture. I’ll put it on the list with this one discussed in more detail here
Well spotted on the headlights. On my phone, I can make out with difficulty the horizontal lines on the lens on the awful 1993-94 headlights. The 1995-97 lacked them and were only slightly less awful (they had some small optical refractor so built into them). So this is probably a late 1994 car.
The headlights on the Chrysler Cirrus, Dodge Stratus and Plymouth Breeze were even worse.
The tail lights on the Gen 1 Intrepid had clear, uncolored outer lenses with red sub-lenses behind. Someone could have modified this one with a separate amber bulb and a hole in the red sub-lens, to provide amber turn signals, but the photo does not have any evidence of that and such a modification would be rather poor, without a reflector. This car also lacks side mounted repeaters for the turn signals.
I researched E-code headlights for my 1995 Dodge Intrepid but the Chrysler LH parts catalog only lists them for the Chrysler Concorde and Eagle Vision.
Those headlamps on the 1st-generation LH cars, were much too small for the job. They were also much too cheap for their size; it takes much higher technology than was used to get adequate zoot out of lamps that small. So their performance was barely above the legal minimum, which had not changed since 1978 (and still hasn’t). The LHS/New Yorker lamps were big enough that they could have been adequate if their size hadn’t been overridden by their cheap-and-nastiness.
The export Chrysler Vision headlamps (which also fit on the Concorde) were optically more sophisticated, with separate low and high beam bulbs and the separate bulbs meant each bulb had a reflector half of a too-small size, but the lens optics in addition to the complex reflector optics helped a lot, and with thoughtfully-selected bulbs these were a whole lot nicer to drive with at night.
The export Chrysler LHS/New Yorker headlamps were differently but equally technically primitive, so gave differently but equally pathetic performance.
The cloud cars’ headlamps were, yes, even worse, because they used the same too-cheap technology and were even smaller than the LH-car items. The export cloud headlamps were yet still even more worse; legal only because the European headlamp standard allows much lesser low beam performance than the US standard. Chrysler didn’t start spending money on decent lights until Fiat bought them, and even then only on some lights for some models, sometimes.
Back to the car in Hungary: the lack of repeaters is not dispositive; not every country in Europe requires them (and they’re easy to add when importing a car to a country that does). the Stratus I saw there didn’t have them, either. As to the potential taillight modifications on this Intrepid: I agree we don’t see hackwork here, but that doesn’t necessarily mean we don’t see aftermarket craftsmanship here. I don’t suggest the owner or importer went to extravagant lengths, but this guy in Australia is an absolute wizard, and his prices have both feet on the ground. He’s a one-man shop, so it can be done. Especially with stuff like this and this on the internet.
And Chrysler LHS, too. They were sold by special order only and in a very small number. No idea how many were sold by Chrysler in Europe.
Oh, y’know…probably like 9 in Netherlands and 17 in Switzerland!
Was the LHS just a less/more plush version of the New Yorker?
The New Yorker was offered here from February 1995 to December 1997 (source Autoweek.nl, pictures below ditto).
….
What is that little black thing at the inboard edge of the reversing lamp on each side? Looks like it has a wire running to it.
You’re correct about the LHS being renamed as New Yorker for European market. It slipped my mind—I ought to have a big cup of strong coffee first thing in the morning before typing in the comment section. Thanks.
I was pretty sure that LHS name was retained for the UK market so I wanted to look up a specific article published in the British car magazine. The search engines couldn’t go much further back in time. Wayback Machine is hit-and-miss proposition…
I am pretty sure there were no RHD big LHs, only the Chrysler Vision (offered in Japan, LOL).
…But it was special for sure and they sold in very small numbers indeed. The New Yorker isn’t even mentioned on our post-1982 Chrysler sales charts. Look, they do mention 6 Aspens, so Daniel’s estimation might be too optimistic.
https://www.autoweek.nl/verkoopcijfers/chrysler/
As for the New Yorker’s little black thingies: this is the first time I see such items. The lenses of an optional/aftermarket reversing camera system?
Those are usually monocular, though.
No RHD version of LH ever built so British drivers had to make do with steering wheels on the “wrong” side. Its subsequent successors, LX and LD, have been built in both LHD and RHD ever since. The RHD 300C is still selling in Australia, including 300 SRT with bigger 6.4-litre V8 engine.
https://www.chrysler.com.au/300srt.html
That red Fiat in the photo looks to be a Polski Fiat 126. quite common in Hungary in the ’90s. Was looking to buy an 80’s red Volga back then, as I had contemplated staying, my girl cousin advised to to buy one of these Polski Fiats instead. “No way,” I said to myself. At least with the Volga, I figured I could have adapted parts I was more familiar with. https://www.motor1.com/news/62725/soviet-bloc-cars-were-weird-polski-fiat-126p/
Would I be out of line to ask what the blue-green wagon is, in Roshake 77’s second photo ?
S
I was surprised nobody asked that! It caught my attention besides the Dodge, and it appears to be a variant of the 5-door Geo Metro we got in the US until around 1994 but IIRC continued for longer in overseas regions; I’m assuming this one is a post-‘95.
It’s been quite awhile since I’ve driven in Hungary, but in ’93 we saw Hummers courtesy of the US military, since it was during the time of war in the Balkans. We didn’t venture that way since we were on our way to visit my Mother’s relatives in Slovakia, but Hungary isn’t that far from action at that time. Her parents were immigrants, so most of her family is still over there rather than in the US, though we’ve had several relatives come to the US for a visit (one staying most of a summer).
None of her relatives had anything like an American car, one really wanted a Mitsubishi, but most of their cars were Skodas and Ladas. Saw a few Trabants, but mostly in Czech Republic (they’d just split that year; none of the coins we had worked in the phones so we quickly learned to go to the post office to make calls (cell phones still weren’t too common). Even saw some Tatra (cars, rather than trucks) but as luxury vehicle not too common. Most of my relatives were more proud of their tractors, but not being into farming myself I didn’t make note of the make.
I got stopped for speeding twice (and I’m not much of a leadfoot) in Hungary, and after that got called back to the Slovak/Hungarian border so they could get a better look at us (they pulled us over with a flag and indicated we needed to follow them back, fortunately Slovak is my mother’s first language). Probably had something to do with our rental car, a Ford Scorpio wagon with Swiss plates, we triggered some profile more than likely.