Myanmar 2014 Photo Reports: The cars of Yangon

Yangon street scene – December 2014

Over the past week I was lucky enough to be able to visit Myanmar (aka Burma), exploring its biggest city Yangon as well as the Bagan valley, home of over 3000 temples. This is the first in a series of 5 Photo Reports that will detail the car landscape in these two parts of the country, the all-new car showrooms popping up in Yangon, the Chinese models that have made it to Myanmar and finally the best-selling nameplates in the country. First we go through the cars of Yangon. Called Rangoon until 1989, Yangon is not the capital of Myanmar anymore, this honour goes to Naypyidaw since 2005. It is however and by very far the biggest city in the country with 6 million souls calling it home, Myanmar as a while counting 51 million inhabitants.Yangon also houses around 90% of all 300.000 cars in circulation in the country, as evidenced by the constant traffic jams plaguing the city’s roads at all times of the day. Myanmar counts 2.3 million vehicles, including 2 million motorbikes that rule the countryside but these are banned in Yangon.

Toyota Probox

Toyota Probox and Succeed

The first striking impression in Yangon is the fact that 2 years of relative openness of the country that followed almost 5 decades of military dictatorship have led to an invasion of used Japanese models, with the steering wheel on the ‘wrong’ side of the car. Sounds familiar? That’s exactly what I had observed during my Trans-Siberian trip last year. In fact, the most popular Japanese import in Yangon was also #1 along the shores of Lake Baikal: the Toyota Probox, along with its slightly more upmarket variant the Succeed. Detailed observation of the Yangon traffic shows that the Probox is so successful here that it represents around 20% of all vehicles in circulation in town! 95% of them are taxis, but there are also a few private ones. They are mainly white and grey as these the colours Japanese consumers prefer. Seeing 4 Probox in a row in traffic is a common occurrence: it happened four times in my last two hours in town.

Toyota Probox x 3

Why such popularity of the Probox? The variants spotted in Yangon were mainly the bare-bones base version, a simple but very-well engineered and reliable station wagon that can accommodate 5 passengers comfortably as well as 300kg-worth of cargo if need be. The Probox goes under the radar in Japan sales charts simply because it is mainly sold as a Commercial Vehicles and LCV models rankings are traditionally unavailable there. The most common models in Yangon date back from 2006 to 2010 and can be bought locally between US$6.500 and US$10.000. Once a used imported model gets really popular in a developing country, it tends to breed more popularity, exponentially resulting in an overwhelming presence, due to mechanics knowing the model literally by heart. The same phenomenon is currently happening in most of Africa.

Nissan AD

In second place in Yangon traffic is the Nissan AD, the bare bones variant of the Nissan Wingroad, here too a very functional station wagon mainly used as taxi. Other popular taxis in Yangon are the Toyota Caldina station wagon (sold as Carina outside of Japan), 2001 Toyota Fielder, Honda Partner (the commercial variant of the Honda Airwave), Mazda Familia Van (a clone of the Nissan AD) and 1993 Toyota Corolla but the latter was much rarer than on the 2010 YouTube videos of Yangon streets I published earlier on BSCB.

A very happy Chery QQ taxi driver indeed

Among other Yangon taxis, two models are proof of the new commercial links the country is establishing with the outside world. As evidenced in my article Myanmar 2012: Chery QQ3 the new favourite, the Chery QQ can be seen very frequently here, exclusively as taxis. Flying in the face of the atrocious quality reputation Chinese manufacturer Chery is carrtying along, most QQ taxi drivers will tell you they are very happy with their diminutive car: low fuel consumption, enough room for passengers and no maintenance needed. Interesting.

Tata Nano

The second one was a surprise as I was unaware of it having crossed the Indian border into Myanmar: the Tata Nano can be seen in sprinkles around Yangon, here too almost exclusively as taxi. Despite all my best efforts I didn’t manage to get into one for a ride: the drivers were asking way too much compared to other taxis or they weren’t even interested in taking us. Afraid we wouldn’t fit?

Suzuki Carry

As far as used ‘workhorse’ vehicles are concerned, used Kei pickup and vans rule, notably the Suzuki Carry and Daihatsu Hijet. The Suzuki Super Carry is also extremely frequent but sold as new and assembled here in Myanmar, so its popularity will be covered in the ‘best-sellers’ article. Other successful Kei pickups in Yangon include the Honda Acty, Nissan Clipper (pickup) and Clipper Rio (van), Mitsubishi Minicab and Subaru Sambar. One size larger, the Toyota Town Ace and Liteace of all generations (and their other Japanese brands’ clones like the Mazda Bongo) are an absolute Yangon staple. The 1982 Toyota Town/Lite Ace looks like it was the only pickup circulating in the country for many decades and a very strong heritage of it can still be seen nowadays. These two nameplates may soon be replaced by the Hilux if import taxes get relaxed as we will see in the ‘best-sellers’ article: I spotted a lot of current generation Hilux imported directly from Thailand either as used (most probably) or new.

Daihatsu Hijet

Nissan Clipper

If a good 70% of all traffic in Yangon are taxis, commercial pickups or buses, there are still a significant amount of private cars, of which 95-97% are used imports, mainly from Japan but also from Thailand or China. A specific section is dedicated to the Chinese cars I spotted in the country and another one to the best-selling new cars in Myanmar, so we’ll study the used car market in Yangon for now. Why such a high ratio of used cars? Simply because the Burmese government imposes a 165% tax on all imported cars and apart from a few rare exception we’ll study further on, the only cars that can lower down their price to around US$12.000 even after tax while still remaining in almost mint condition and not requiring too much maintenance are the ones bought in Japan 4-5 years ago or more. It is well documented that Japanese consumers have an issue with buying a used car, so Myanmar has become, like many other developing Asian countries (Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam…), Central Asia, Russia and almost all of Africa, the dumping ground for used, unwanted Japanese fare.

Toyota bB in Yangon, Myanmar – December 2014

Suzuki Swift

What do Yangon private car buyers favour? Essentially anything small enough to be cheap but recent enough to be reliable. The most common private car in Yangon is the Suzuki Swift and this was confirmed to me by the Suzuki salesman I interviewed, the 2011 model (current generation) is particularly popular. Also very successful are the Toyota Belta, Honda Fit, Nissan March, Mazda Demio, Toyota Vitz, Ist, Passo, Ractis, Bb, Wish and Caldina. What I had not seen before in other countries enamoured with used Japanese cars are kei cars, and they are aplenty in Yangon, among them the Suzuki Alto, Wagon R, Daihatsu Mira and Nissan Otti from one or two generations ago the most popular.

Range Rover Evoque

The luxury choice in Yangon is the Toyota Mark X, with the Toyota Crown from all generations also very present. I also welcomed back the Toyota Verossa that had left me perplexed back in Russia last year. Also worthwhile to note are a handful of current gen Japanese Toyota Corolla, Allion and Premio and Nissan Latio (aka Versa). Older, smaller SUVs are also very successful here: the 2nd gen Toyota RAV4, first gen Honda CR-V and Toyota Hilux Surf are favourites, as well as all generations of Toyota Prado and the more recent Mitsubishi RVR (aka ASX).

Toyota Hiace

Favourite MPVs are the Toyota Hiace and Alphard. A few oddities: one Vauxhall Astra station wagon, one Renault Duster, one Range Rover Evoque (Jaguar Land Rover did open a dealership in Myanmar in May), one Cadillac CTS and one ATS, as well as two Hummers.

Honda Insight

If in Mongolia a lack of import tax on hybrid cars resulted in a flood of Toyota Prius, here in Yangon the title of most surprising popular model goes to the Honda Insight, extremely frequent in the streets of the biggest city in the country – and I did not spot one single Prius!

Mazda Pathfinder

A few of you asked about Myanmar-specific cars that used to be the norm for the decades when the country had closed borders. I have some sad news here: as expected, the opening of the car market to competition has resulted in the all-but disappearance of these gems. During the entire trip I did spot 6 Mazda Pathfinder Jeeps in various degrees of disrepair (either dark blue or green as these were originally military vehicles), as well as a dozen Myanmar-specific Jeeps including a handful of Shan Star Jeeps, but it’s fair to say that unless someone launches a full-scale restoration service, these precious vehicles will be wiped off the surface of Myanmar within a few years.

This concludes the exploration of the (used) car landscape of Yangon. Next stop is Bagan in the centre of the country.

The Yangon Photo Report continues below with 32 additional pictures.