Remember those videos of car dealerships left untouched years after closing up shop? Well, it’s far from a time capsule, even though there are plenty of vehicles in and around the building. Located somewhere in Germany, this showroom originally sold Ladas before moving on to Kias. It was also a multi-brand service shop, hence the Volkswagen Passat V6 diesel wagon and a Nissan Almera sedan.
People at Forgotten buildings on Youtube entered this abandoned concession. Legend has it that it was a family business, but the two brothers had a falling out about fifteen years ago and decided to go their separate ways. The car dealership would have been immediately closed, but the service shop would have continued.
There is a timeline dating back to December 16, 2019, which suggests customers were still repairing their cars long after the showroom closed. This would explain the gap between the dealer-owned 2000s Kia Carnival minivan advertised as new and newer cars such as the Cee’d sedan which only went on sale in 2012.
Even though all the cars were vandalized, these abandoned vehicles were not dismantled. The thieves could have gotten a lot of spare parts to make some quick money, but that didn’t happen. Admittedly, the video looks like an invitation to theft, but the warehouse has been largely emptied since the sequence was filmed. Additionally, the location of the building is not known.
It’s quite surprising that the owners didn’t sell everything and cut their losses. Chances are we’ll never know the whole story behind why the company was left for dead all of a sudden.
The food was still in the fridge while posters hung on the wall, including one of a glorious Kia Elan (Vigato in Japan). This promotional image was taken in 1995 at the earliest, since Lotus sold the rights to the roadster to Kia after production ended that year. The Kia-badged Elan was produced as an almost identical car in South Korea until 1999.
There are also marketing materials for the Kia Clarus, Magentis and Sorento, but also for the immortal Lada Niva, which is rather strange to see under the same roof.
