"My father had a Beetle when I was a kid," said Yared, who recalls being ferried to school and family parties in the car. "Whenever I drive mine, I have these memories. I love it."
Beetles arrived in Ethiopia during the reign of Haile Selassie. When the emperor was deposed by communist soldiers in 1974, he was bundled into a Beetle on the steps of his palace and driven away to imprisonment.
Today, Beetles are still a common sight in Addis Ababa, the capital, where they can be spotted negotiating cobbled residential streets or parked in rush-hour traffic.
Their enduring popularity is a quirk of Ethiopia's distorted car market, where import duties of up to 200% mean secondhand vehicles are wildly expensive. A 25-year-old Toyota can fetch 1.3m Ethiopian birr ($11,600) for example. By contrast, Beetles cost about 250,000 birr.
This story is from the September 06, 2024 edition of The Guardian Weekly.
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This story is from the September 06, 2024 edition of The Guardian Weekly.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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