A 'delala's' market

Nearly a quarter of all the vehicles in Africa are found on South African roads and that country is also the largest new car market on the continent. Ethiopia on the other hand, with its ‘token’ 125,000 vehicles (almost all at least 15 years old), is not exactly the most attractive market that could draw manufacturers’ interest.
When you hear at the ‘draft-bet’ that an acquaintance has bought ‘men-yemeselech mekina’ (a great ‘new’car) chances are more than high that it’s a used, ex-Gulf, Toyota Corrolla ‘Weyane’ Color? Why, ‘Ayetema’, (rat colored) of course! (Sorry, I forgot you don’t speak ‘delalegna’- the linqua-france of Addis brokers). Very few Ethiopians perhaps a couple of thousand, can afford to actually buy a new car from a proper dealership. Not surprising as new cars are costing obscene prices one normally quotes for sumptous villas in fashionable Bole.
The Ethiopian vehicular market is a used car bazaar where anything goes as long as the delala are satisfied. These brokers, fixers and itinerant dealers engaged in the used car business are surprisingly powerful influences on the market and in their quicky, largely ignorant ways, determine real car values.
As only a relative handful can afford to buy a new car, the majority of aspiring vehicle owners are at the mercy of the delala who, by the way, have particular favorite hangouts. So it is not to Orbis or Moenco that a prospective buyer goes to but more likely, places such as the Anbessa Bar and Restaurant and the general area of the Ethiopia Hotel parking lot, Tele- bar (behind the Commercial College) and opposite Say Pastry on Bole road.
Addis car brokers (at pains not to confuse them with regular showroom owning dealers) have a strange, but upon reflection, utterly logical ‘system’ of determining how much a vehicle is worth. This disparate and often arbitrary price assessment by brokers extends to details such as preferred colors – Ayetema (gun-metal gray) for most Toyota sedans, red for hatchbatchs and silver for SUVs.
Apart from the blatant untruths brokers expound on wary, prospective buyers is the totally uninformed approach to determining the best kind of engine technology – for example, they wouldn’t tell you what an aspirated (standard) carburetor or electronic fuel injection mean in technical terms but boy, do they keep up with the times. Up to about three years ago, Addis brokers would have sworn that fuel injected engines were pure folly- and you know what – cars featuring such carbs became almost impossible to sell. Nowadays, brokers scoff at aspirated carburetors, calling them inefficient.

To be continued …