North Korea has the world's lowest rate of car ownership and nothing is as it seems about the cars that are there

It may not come as a surprise to learn that North Korea has the world’s lowest rate of car ownership, with a strange history including fake Mercedes and the biggest car heist in the world.

North Korea is possibly the world’s most mysterious country, and that extends to the cars, with stories that go beyond what you might expect.

There are tons of stories out of the country, about fake cars, the biggest car heist in the world, and smugglers getting cars into North Korea.

YouTube channel Donut has explored some of these stories, revealing just how crazy the car industry is there.

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The lowest rate of car ownership in the world

While information is difficult to get out of the country, it is widely believed that there are just 30,000 cars in North Korea.

That’s just one car for every 800 people.

It perhaps then isn’t a surprise to see how empty the roads are of any type of car.

And it’s because private car ownership has been forbidden for decades.

Much of this is down to the state policy of Juche, which means self-reliance.

That basically means nothing from the outside world is allowed in, so any car in the country has to be 100 percent North Korean.

Many of the cars in North Korea use items and technology borrowed from Russia.

The country copied one of its neighbors’ trucks by creating the Sungri-58.

This copy became one of the first cars ever made in the country.

Yet the stories would become even wilder.

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North Korea stole from Sweden

The country realized it needed more cars from somewhere, and Sweden offered it 1,000 Volvos.

For $73 million for the whole deal, it seemed like a big win.

Yet after the cars were delivered, Volvo and Sweden never received the money.

In 2026, the deal had still not been paid for, and thanks to inflation and interest, the amount owed now totals $330 million.

Sweden likes to send the bill to the country now and again, just to remind them they’ve not forgotten.

This essentially became the biggest car heist in the world, and ironically, many of the Volvos are still in use in the country.

After that heist, black market Mercedes became the next big thing, with many of the cars secretly smuggled into the country.

So it came as no surprise when North Korea began to copy the German cars, specifically the Mercedes 190E.

These would be called a Kaengsaeng, which also means self-reliance, and they were just as bad as you’d expect.

The country also managed to procure a few armored Maybach 600s via a deal with a logistics firm in China.

So, as we can see, the history of cars in North Korea is one of the most intriguing in the world.

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