Bolivia is awash with contraband cars from Japan

Bolivia isn't entirely 4000 meters up in the Andes, and two thirds of it aren't in the Andes at all; the eastern lowlands are as low as 70 meters above sea level. They have a navigable river to the Pacific (the río Paraguay); you could ship in barges full of iron ore to Puerto Suárez. It would be a longer trip than crossing the Great Lakes to River Rouge, but it wouldn't involve any costly overland shipping at all. Moreover, it has very substantial domestic ore resources, though those do require overland shipping if not smelted at the mine*, and they are partly in the Andes.

I don't know much about Bolivia, but as I understand it, Bolivia's lack of domestic industry isn't due to its population or its lack of natural resources; it's caused by political factors such as profound social division, a resulting nonstop social struggle (including a socialist revolution in 01952), foreign subversion by agents like Che Guevara and the US CIA and DEA, a history of poverty rooted in Spanish colonialism and apartheid, counterproductive economic policies like the auto import tariff (directed toward the comprehensively failed experiment of import-substitution industrialization), and insufficient capitalism in general. Historically it also suffered from widespread illiteracy, but that is no longer a problem. Like, for example, Montana, it almost totally lacks research universities.

Normally I hesitate to attribute poverty and oppression to conspiracy theories like "CIA subversion", but in the case of Bolivia, the evidence seems indisputable that the CIA were key supporters of the ultra-right-wing military dictatorship in the 01960s and the 01971 coup, as well as operating their own military operations independently inside Bolivia.

The economic situation improved significantly during the Morales years.

Hopefully lccarrasco or someone can correct me if I got this wrong.

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* As far as I know, they aren't currently smelting at the mines, but then again, they aren't currently mining iron either.

I'd always wondered about this but never thought to ask!

pretty much every modern car was designed with both versions in mind. many cheaper cars have agnostic dashboards that don't take much to convert. and any globally distributed model is going to at least have a secondhand market where the parts for conversion are readily available. for some popular models where OEM dashes are hard to come by, there are full dashboard kits produced by third parties.

Countries like bolivia, and other countries that slap very large (>50%) import duties on foreign-made cars, have a very funny side-effect.

Every 4 years it seems there is a model or brand that is cool, and that every elite seems to be driving. Is that the cool new car? The "in" brand. No. The cause is simple. Its 101 economics:

Import duties are usually managed on a country-by-country basis. Politicians will manage capital flight ("trade imbalance") by seeking higher levies on heavy industrial goods that are popular, like cars. Those levies lead to a situation where everyone seems to be driving the exact same brand new cars (and usually 1 particular make). However, its not that the brand is particularly popular, its only that the car maker offers the best value net of import duties, plus, importers are very wary of bringing cars with huge import fees.

So, the newer cars are always a few specific never-seen brands or makes. Then there are others driving slightly-older Y brand cars, far more generic. The oldest cars seem to have a lot of diversity and would resemble your average US used car sales lot.

The evolution of the duties can then be described as follows: 1) free market: very low cost to import any car 2) Some tough -but not insane- duties (particularly on US new cars). 3) Restriction / heavy levies on used car imports. 3) Very heavy import duties on most western new cars (vs Indian or Chinese makes).

Nation Geographic's Trafficked has a fascinating episode on the stolen car market. The episode follows cars that are shipped out of the port of New Jersey to Ghana and documents just how organized the operations are.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/tv/shows/trafficked-with-...