Re: [Amc-list] Remember when? cars in Budapest

[Tom Jennings <tomj@xxxxxxx>]

The Polski Fiats are a crack up! The wheelbase is *under 72
inches* -- my arm span. I mean it's TINY.

The front hood escutcheon says


 	Polski
 	FIAT

I assume this is a Poland market built car. Man it's the smallest
car I've ever seen on a road. It appears to be thew same size
as the 1970 Subaru Star I saw at an auto show once.

I saw three Fords and three Chevys, two of which were a pair
of orange Camaros or something (I'm not big on those late 70's
plastic-coated boats) zooming through Moscova ter on Friday night
(probably couldn't afford much more than that :-)

I saw one Nissan Titan V8 parked in a stall that would fit 3 -
4 Polskis, an example of which was parked across the street. I
didn't have my camera!

The driver was an American Tourist and his friend. It was a bit
embarrassing, to see this monster beast toy, clearly never hauled
more than a few people. Talk about conspicuous consumption.


Gas was typically 270 Forints/litre. A forint is 188 to the
dollar, which makes it $5.49/gallon.

While we pay "only" $3/gallon, they pay $5.50/gallon and get an
amazing public transportation system. The first electric subway
in the world (we rode on it). The LONGEST we ever waited for
a train was 5 minutes. There's a count-down timer until the
next train.

$13 (3600 Ft) bought us a 7-day pass, good for unlimited use on
all of the intra-urban transit system, subway, surface trams,
busses. We use the hell out of it.

I think owning a car there is expensive, typical for Europe in
general.  The allowable blood alcohol level is 0.00%, eg. 0.01%
you get busted.  Ouch!


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