Georgia. The country, not the American state. Yes, the one living under the shadow of Vlad the Putin. I visited it recently on holiday and was affected by the anarchy and the weirdness of Georgia’s automotive culture to write about it here. In the ten days I lived in the Caucasian country, I crisscrossed it from east to west and went from the Russian border in the north to close to the Turkish border in the west. I drove over major highways, main roads, mountain sections, city roads, and more. The road quality is brilliant in some places, and, in others, I felt right at home – because they looked as if the maintenance was outsourced to the Mumbai municipal corporation.
Georgia is uniquely located as it borders Russia, Turkey, Armenia and Azerbaijan. This places it right at the crossroads connecting all these countries. You get lumbering truck traffic on the international highways, transporting oil from Russia and machinery from Turkey. If you have a truck fetish, this is the place to be. You can salivate over giant DAF, Volvo, Mercedes-Benz, Renault, Ford, Scania and MAN heavies of all colours and vintages. You would also see Sinotruk Howo trucks, helping the Chinese companies and Chinese labourers build Georgia’s road infrastructure. Of course, as Georgia was part of the Soviet Union, there are the purposeful Kamaz trucks which are new, nasty-looking GAZ trucks of the Cold War era and handsome ZILs of an earlier vintage. In fact, in some houses in the countryside, these ancient ZILs are parked as if it’s the family runabout you’d take to go into town to buy provisions.
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The car scene is bizarre. The country’s biggest export commodity is used cars – a business worth nearly a billion dollars a year – and its neighbouring countries and the ‘Stans take in a lot of these cars. Oh, and the locals too prefer driving these used cars as it is a lot cheaper than buying new ones. How does that manifest on the roads? Crazy. Georgia is an LHD country, but it picks up used RHD cars from Japan or Australia. So it can get a bit mental on the roads as many locals drive RHD cars in an LHD country.
Georgia takes in an enormous number of used cars from Europe, the US and Japan and has an army of mechanics and garages who work on these cars and re-export to Kyrgyzstan or Kazakhstan at a neat premium. Many of the cars are absorbed by the locals who take their own time to repair them. So they drive around in cars without bumpers, with fenders missing or wearing huge gashes. Virtually every other car looks like it has emerged from a recent crash, especially when you are near a port. The variety of cars is therefore bewildering – ranging from dusty Lada Nivas to muscular Camaros, and tight Subaru Foresters to bulky Toyota pick-ups. And then there are the Mercs. I thought Azerbaijan was the W124 capital of the world, till I came to Georgia. Virtually the entire production of W124s and W123s have all landed up here and still being used. Also many were gathering dust in parking lots; W124 restorers back home would weep in bucketloads if they saw these. To curb emissions, the Georgian government has banned the import of pre-2013 vehicles for local use – which has led to an upward spiral in prices. Compounding the problem is that the newer cars don’t run too well on their low-quality Russian and Azerbaijani petrol. The Georgians in the car trade are pretty mad at their Government.
With such a mind-boggling variety of machines on Georgia’s roads, I expected to see Mahindra and Tata SUVs here but didn’t spot one. I am sure there is a decent market for it in the Caucasian region. The one Indian OEM you would spot here is TVS, especially in the capital Tbilisi. You can see the occasional Apache, but it is the Ntorq, which is everywhere – with the Wolt delivery riders enjoying the full potential of this sporty scooter. And I suspect some of the Hondas here too are made in India.
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Have you heard of the Mitsubishi Delica 4x4? These are vans (passenger or cargo) with proper four-wheel drive running gear. And Georgia is the place you come to see the third or fourth lives of these quirky vans, many of them from the 1990s. Some parts of Georgia have steep mountain roads, usually in a state of disrepair. These Delicas have found new purpose by becoming the lifeline for these locals to go up and down these rough roads. I am sure the Delica is part of the local lore or folk songs here.
Most Georgians drive like we do, which is not exactly a compliment. If you ever plan to go there, do hire a car and drive around, RHD LHD same difference. I promise you, it will be fun.
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