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Originally Posted by chevelleven
Cool car!
Just curious: Why there are many american cars in Sweden?
Best regards from Venezuela!  |
American cars have always been popular over here. After WWI they sold T-fords, Chevrolets, Dodge and many others. One of the very first GM assembly plats outside of the US was opened in Stockholm.
During 1870-1915 about 25% of our population went to the US to create a better living. Many came back later or visited and brought cars with them. Thanks to the large Scandinavian population in the US we have got a lot of influence from USA, not only in cars but in a general way of life. Some even call Sweden the 51st state.
The sales of new sold American cars have always been in large numbers compared to other European countries an still is.
So since we have a large fleet of American cars both old and new the interest has always been there. Dragracing, Hot Rodding, Choppers have been introduced in Sweden before any other European country. Some Englishmen might oppose here but we were faster and had more and prettier cars than they had.
Then after the first oilcrisis in 1973 everybody having a musclecar in the USA sold them and we bought them. The exchange rate were in favour for us and we were used to higher gas prices anyway. During the years 1973-1977 there were probably 20-30000 american used cars imported to Sweden, some were really special, like a '70 Challenger 'vert with Hemi, Manual trans and Dana60, one of only 7 built. That one was bought back to the US by a collector in the late 80's for a large sum of dollars.
The last five years have had many imports too, about 4-5000 used cars every year and it is everything from '69 Z/28's to '49 Mercuries.
Major events can draw between 5-10000 cars with spectatornumbers in 30-50000 for just a one-day event.
We enjoy our (your) cars and have fun.
Jan
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