When we think of countries like Albania, we imagine old post-Soviet buildings, crumbling roads, and old, decrepit cars. The real picture of Albania is slightly different however.
The roads are packed with more Mercedes, BMWs and Range Rovers than what you’d see in an average European city, let alone Tirana – a capital city of 420,000 inhabitants. The city itself is no big surprise, and has all the markings of a struggling post-Soviet economy. But how do you explain the booming luxury vehicle market in Albania?
We got the first hint at an explanation to this seemingly inexplicable phenomenon, when we found out that most of those vehicles were not only luxury class cars.
They were armored luxury class vehicles.
As this bit of information sank in, we realized that there had to be more than a few reasons to Albania’s luxury car park, and decided to seek out a source that would give us inside information. And we’ve found one. Ditmir (alias), a local businessman who requested to remain anonymous, sat down with us to discuss the consumer side of things and gave us a few insights we’d be hard-pressed gaining otherwise.
Here is the summary of the four main reasons there is a booming luxury car market in Albania.
1. Yes, the first consideration is safety. “You see, the country is not in a very good state. The economy is struggling and there is lots of bands operating in the cities”, he says. “You have to stay safe when you make a deal or travel to or from the bank. Shootings are not too uncommon and an armored car can get you out of a tight spot.”
2. “Besides, it’s good for business”, Ditmir adds with a grin. “When you work with other businessmen here in Tirana, or say Elbasan, there is the aspect of respect. You deal with people on your level, not below. If you don’t show your level, you don’t get to work on it, because you are not recognized.”
3. Here Ditmir also mentions that the partners want to know that they have sustainable business relationship they can count on. This, plainly put, means that they want to be sure you will be in business tomorrow. “Staying alive helps that, of course.” Yes, having an armored car definitely makes sense in that respect.
4. But there is more to it, since we see many more luxury cars on the road, obviously not driven by businessmen. When we asked him how he explains this, he laughed, “No, not everybody is in business. But look at things this way: when you have a job and earn some money, where do you keep that money? Not in the bank, of course – when the bank goes down, your money goes with it. We’ve seen it happen too often before. So people invest in something that they will be able to hold on to”. To our question about why not buy a house or an apartment, he laughed again, “No, no. Real estate is too expensive. People can’t afford it, so they buy cars. Besides, when the house prices drop because of more trouble in the region, the Range Rover will be just fine, and you can take it with you if you have to move.” This is also logic we can definitely understand.
In the end, Ditmir adds, “Of course I want everyone in Albania to be able to afford nice cars. I help the community as best I can, too. The country is going up and we hope it will keep going. At some point we will all drive armored cars or luxury cars in Albania not for protection but because they are so comfortable!”