The ubiquitous Mk 2 Volkswagen Golf - built between 1983 and 1991.
And also presumably the last good thing to happen to the former Yugoslavia before it exploded into civil war in the early nineties, because they are EVERYWHERE here - I can only imagine there was some amazing BOGOF deal going down back then, because I don’t know how else you explain it.
Basically over the last week I’ve been chewing through the miles big time, after it suddenly hit me that I only actually have 10 weeks to get to western China.
By that time I need to have squared away all I want to see in the Caucasus and Central Asian countries.
Now that’s a fair chunk of work to be done, and I’m not sure if my heiny is up to it all. There is a VERY good chance I could be walking like John Wayne for a good few weeks after the trip is finished.
The last week has been a corker for sights as I've ridden from France, across Italy and into Slovenia and the former Yugoslavia.
The bright blue, crystal-clear rivers and lakes, huge mountains, thick forests and the feel of what Europe ‘used’ to be like before it got all modern meant that Slovenia, Croatian, Serbian, Bosnia, Montenegro and Macedonia blew me away when I first made it this far in 2012 and 2013.
For me, breaking away from the familiarity of Western Europe was always going to be a key point of this trip.
This year, I unintentionally timed my visit with the 20 year anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre, which took place around 75 miles to the north-east of where I am now.
Before 2012, like most people my age, the former Yugoslav countries were known to me for all the wrong reasons.
The conflict still looms large now - as soon as you enter Croatia from Slovenia in the north, away from the tourist-packed Dalmatian coast, there are ruined buildings. And that doesn’t stop - it continues all the way to here, on Bosnia’s southern border.
Every town has buildings that are now just shells, pot-marked and peppered with bullet and shrapnel holes. You don’t have to stray far form the main roads to find signs with maps showing where the land-mines still are.
Bosnian TV plays raw, shaky, amateur video footage from 1995 of men with the heads bowed and hands tied behind their backs, being shot by men in uniform with machine guns. It doesn’t don’t hold back, unlike the BBC.
The campsite I’m staying at, as I write now, has only just re-opened. But even then, the conflict still has an impact - a load of Dutch visitors cancelled this morning because of worries about being attacked by the locals because of the Dutch role in Srebrenica.
As someone who’s studied military history from a young age (and holds a Masters in War Studies), these countries will always hold a fascination for me for that reason - not because of any desire to glorify what happened here, or conflict in general, but more because of the pathos of it and the fact that in the UK we are lucky to live in society that, despite it’s own foreign adventures, is so far removed from the horrific impact that war has on everyday life.
When you speak to the locals, it’s hard to know what to ask, what’s appropriate to talk about.
When you first see a building that’s obviously been shelled, you realise that you’re standing where a person could well have been killed. It’s not a comfortable feeling.
And when you see the tattoos of military insignia on men’s arms, you realise that everyone here has their history.
So just being here and just seeing it, perhaps helps you to begin to understand on a level which no textbook, no lecture theatre, no war film or no news report can come close to.