Földvári Books

Ironic Cartoon About Car Buying Experiences in Socialism

[Szabó, N.]; [Mally, O.]

Egy kocsivásárlás története 9 képen. Főszereplők (föszereplök): Cserni Ferenc, Trabant-Limousine, és még sokan mások. [A Story of a Car-Buy in Nine Acts. Starring: Ferenc Cserni, Trabant-Limousine, and Others.]

Dated in 1961. Drawn, hand-coloured portfolio with 12 images. In original wrappers. With handwritten note on front cover, “received as a gift from my colleagues at the department on 10. 02. 1961.”. In fine condition.

An ironic cartoon about “buying” new car, a Trabant in the Socialist Hungary.

Beside the casual jokes about buying a new car like problems of parking, unaccustomed measures, or the addiction to the new car, it gives an ironic insight to the car buying experiences in planned economy of a Socialist country.

In the Eastern Block only those cars were available for the people that were produced within the Block for the domestic market, like the East German car, the Trabant.

A person who wanted to buy a car had to submit an application for the vehicle by post (image 3), and than wait, most cases ages, until the car was allocated by a committee, and the person received the “car-buying permission”.

In this story the application turned back (image 4), but for some unknown reason – which was also common phenomena of the system – the buyer receives a call from the distribution-site, that they are expecting him to show up for his “allocation” (image 5). In such cases the buyer had to bring cash and passes to get the car (image 6), and he had no possibility to choose the type or the colour (image 7).

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Price: €600.00