Guinea Bissau 2013: Toyota Prado could lead sales charts

Streets of capital Bissau are filled with 1980 Mercedes taxis. Picture by Jon Baker, all rights reserved.

Last time I covered Guinea Bissau there was too little recent video footage available to draw any conclusions about the best-selling models in this African country. This has now changed, thanks to a 14 minute video of the streets of capital city Bissau taken in 2012. Based on this footage and the little amount of new cars in circulation, the Toyota Prado should lead the sales charts in Guinea Bissau, followed by the Toyota Hilux.

European Mercedes 190 finishing its life in Guinea Bissau. Picture by Hugo Vaz Pedro, all rights reserved.

Other successful models include the Dacia Logan, Ford Ranger, Mitsubishi L200, Toyota Hiace, Nissan Frontier, Toyota Hilux SW4 and Iran Khodro Samand. There is also a bit of Chinese (Chery Tiggo) and Indian (Tata Xenon) flavour in the streets of Bissau. In terms of used cars, the streets of Bissau are literally filled with Mercedes 190 taxis imported all the way from Europe and painted in blue, finishing their life here as in many other African countries like Mali or Mauritania for example.

Toyota Prado (left) in Bissau, Guinea Bissau 2012 

Other frequent sightings in the streets of Bissau include the 1993 Peugeot 306, 1998 Renault Laguna, 1996 Renault Scenic and a few Peugeot 307 and 308. 1970 Mercedes vans are also used for public transport, painted in bright yellow and blue.

Check out a 14 min street video of capital city Bissau and more pictures below.