InTouch Magazine Articles Archive

Issue 14, January 2008

Do you love the Classics?

By Gina Coleman.

The first self-powered vehicle to ply the roads of Cyprus was a steam-driven carriage that was brought to the island by Nicolaos Jeremias in 1892 to use as a taxi. Nobody could drive it properly and Nicolaos’ dreams went up in the ugly black smoke it belched everywhere! The first real car didn’t grace these shores until fifteen years later; the first trip was from Larnaca to Limassol.

It was the start of rather a hesitant introduction to motoring on the island. Locals were suspicious of the ‘iron horses’ (or should we say ‘iron donkeys’?!) at that stage and used to bless them with holy water before each trip. A car was introduced for the diplomatic postal run between Larnaca and Nicosia in 1912, but bad roads made the service unreliable, so horse and carriages were used again until 1915. And by the end of the Second World War, there were still only about 200 cars on the island.
Cars are now everywhere in Cyprus; often parked on the pavement … but we find it difficult living without them. And exactly one hundred years to the day after that very first trip, on December 8th 1907, Classic Car owners in Cyprus marked the event by driving in convoy from Larnaca to Limassol, in a re-enactment of the journey made by 29-year old Cypriot doctor Ioannis Pieris, and his red 2-seater Peugeot.

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