The Iranian Avenger (2-Door)

[PaykanHunter]

18 hours ago, Tadhg Tiogar said:

Not really a concern if you were part of, or had connections to, the Revolutionary Guard, as you could more or less bring in any car you wanted, which the average long-suffering Iranian motorist simply wouldn't be able to afford. 

This will require a lengthy discussion on the topic of car manufacturing in Iran, the biggest producer of cars in the Middle east.

By the time of 1979 Iran was building everything, from Citroen Dyane to Cadillac Seville (the only place outside the US to manufacture Cadillacs at that time). Also Iran was producing Jeeps, Ramblers, Renaults, Land Rovers, Buses, Minibuses and...   last but not least the Paykan . 

Basically the Shah's government divided the market into 3 different manufacturers. High-end cars: Cadillac, Chevrolet were done by Pars-Khodro, Middle sector was for Irannational and Paykan and the cheap stuff was for SAIPA (Société Anonyme Iranienne de Poduction des Automobiles)  to produce Citroens and Renaults. Nicely managed with decent assembly quality and  an eye on future model replacements and some developments inside Iran with Iranians engineers. Hence they put a really heavy tariffs on imported cars, specially cars above 1.8L. 

After the 1979 revolution all the above manufactures were in one way or another confiscated by the new regime. Very ill-qualified people were put in charge and the entire industry has been crumbling down ever since. I personally think that Peugeot has done a lot of damage here as well. They are just looking to make a profit from Iran, which they have done and they don't give a fuck about quality or product development. Of-course It takes two to tango, the regime and the amount of corruption inside Iranian manufacturing is beyond belief. 

So what happened was that they produce the Paykan till 2005 (the pickup till 2015). SAIPA produced the Kia Pride till just 2-3 weeks ago, The 405 was being made again till last months, and the 205 is still in production! If you open the door to a brand new 205 the quality is just appalling, right new from the lot it comes with ton of mechanical and electrical issues. 

So to get to your point about revolutionary guards importing thing... importing cars to Iran is under heavy tariffs, you pay as much as 3 to 4 times more here for a BMW or a Mercedes numbers that you guys won't believe. Tarrifs made sense before revolution because you could buy any car you desired from Citroen to Cadillac, and if you really wanted a foreign car then yes you had to pay for it.

But now we got absolute crap cars made here (now mostly unheard of Chinese brands too) and still nobody except super wealthy people can afford a decent imported car. Sorry for me blowing steam here, I just really think that before Revolution we had a really good thing going in Iran and it got totally ruined by the regime. 

[PaykanHunter]

17 hours ago, NorfolkNWeigh said:

From what I’ve read today the 2 door survived the 1976 move from Ryton to Linwood and the facelift in 1977( as can be seen by @Braddon81picture)

Also;
 

What they didn’t survive was the Talbot rebranding in 1979, there were never any 2 door Talbot Avengers.

I for one have never seen a 2 door with twin headlights, or for that matter a full length vinyl roof. When the GT was relaunched as a 2 door in 73(74?) losing the twin lights and sporty* hubcaps was part of the economising- at least it kept front discs, the smaller 2 doors went back to drums on the front.

That Iranian 2 door looks great, but seems pretty low spec inside, you can see the bare painted metal below the back window.

 

 

Yes the Iranian 2-door avenger looks really special doesn't it? They were trying to make it more like the Paykan Javanan (GT). The avenger overall had a really low-spec interior didn't it? 

[PaykanHunter]

17 hours ago, NorfolkNWeigh said:

Further to me saying I’ve never seen a 4 eyed 2 door...

Just looking through the 1974 Chrysler all model ( from Imp and Simca 1000to Vaiant and Charger) and lo andbehold;

By the way, absolutely no expenditure was spent on this brochure, Brighton in the street was as exotic as it got. My favourite “ A Hunter deLuxe photographed in a lush green Warwickshire lane” !!!
 

Also it seems they were thinking of dropping the Humber name as the Sceptre page doesn’t mention Humber at all, even calls it the Chrysler Sceptre at one point. The fact the Humber Sceptre lasted another 2 or 3 years even getting an estate version , meant this was a bit premature.

Thank you for that quad light avenger photo, no vinyl roof though. Close but no Cigar! ?  Interesting observation about the Sceptre, it was chaotic times at Chrysler-Europe wasn't it? 

[PaykanHunter]

16 hours ago, holbeck said:

Apologies for the tangent,  but if you were visiting Linwood, Chrysler would book you in here

https://thenormandyhotel.co.uk

How do you know that fun fact? ?

[PaykanHunter]

16 hours ago, DSdriver said:

Welcome back PaykanHunter, your posts are always a fascinating insight into the motorists excellent choice of transport in Iran

Thank you for your welcome back message, it is always a pleasure to be Autoshitting with you guys here. ?  I have been very busy last year with releasing my film inside Iran. Hopefully not in a distant future I can share my award winning documentary with everyone outside Iran too. 

[PaykanHunter]

2 hours ago, martc said:

Slightly, only slightly, off topic the Avenger was sold as a Sunbeam in some countries. I remember seeing one outside Innsbruck Railway Station in the mid 80's and being very confused.

Here's one with what looks like a current Russian number plate, but with a faded Belgian 'B' nationality oval - it must have led/still leads? an interesting life.

And this Sunbeam has a Montenegro number plate

More Sunbeams here - and tonnes more interesting stuff - http://platesmania.com/gallery.php?markaavto=443&model=6415

Thanks for these photos. The actual "Sunbeam" badge was used on the Arrow range too. Was there anyone out there cheaper than Chrysler man? ?

[PaykanHunter]

17 hours ago, big_al_granvia said:

from linwood to iran, this really is fascinating stuff... if you want photos of what remains of the old linwood site just say as i am not far from it..... a load of kilmarnock built trains made it to iran too, talk about scotland supplying weapons of mass disruption

Oh please do!!! I would love to see what is left of Linwood! Cheers! ?

[PaykanHunter]

16 hours ago, Richard_FM said:

Thanks for letting me know, the Paykan is quite an interesting story.

Well my friend the story of Paykan is a fascinating one! Such a compelling story spanning more than 50 years. I have spend the last few years in Iran making and promoting my documentary. Paykan changed this country forever the impact this car had on Iranians and Iran is so deep that one documentary really can't the whole story, but we tried.   Who knew that the mighty Arrow could be a "Nation Builder". Still today many Iranians use Paykans as daily drivers and not to mention the amazing story of the Paykan pick-up in production for 45 years! We cover it all in the film. 

You can watch the teaser of my film here: 

https://vimeo.com/241236959/7b74e87be0

[holbeck]

14 minutes ago, PaykanHunter said:

How do you know that fun fact? ?

Can't find it now, but it was mentioned on one of the Talbot facebook groups recently.

[big_al_granvia]

some info on linwood https://www.imps4ever.info/linwood/linwood.html

https://www.aronline.co.uk/cars/hillman/avenger/

next time i am up linwoodd way i will take photos, not sure when that will be

[Braddon81]

3 hours ago, PaykanHunter said:

 

Hang on a minute, those wheels are not Rostyle?? ? I understand that these were not the typical Rostyle with the half-spoke bits in the middle, but I thought these were also Rostyle. Can you prove image of the Dunlop wheels? 

Here are the two styles of Rostyles fitted to Chrysler group cars in the 70s. On the left is the Standard Rostyle - On the right the Dunlop Dunstyle which was fitted to later 1974 onwards Avenger GLS and Gt, Sunbeam Rapier H120s and Hunters. 

As an interesting footnote - the original 1979 Brochure Car for the last of the line    Chrysler UK 2 door Avenger Specials still exists - as can be seen here and resides down near Plymouth.... I think a set of Rostyles would set it off quite nicely too! 

[chaseracer]

Are those not Lotus-Sunbeam wheels on the red 2-door?

[martc]

4 hours ago, PaykanHunter said:

 Was there anyone out there cheaper than Chrysler man? ?

BMC/BL where very good at the old badge engineering/indiscriminate swapping of marques game. Austin's sold as Morris's etc.

[camryv6]

I thought the GT had wheel trims ?

[NorfolkNWeigh]

24 minutes ago, camryv6 said:

I thought the GT had wheel trims ?

The original 1500 GT did, tastefull* aluminium dustbin lid things, then the GT was replaced in the lineup by the Holbay tweaked GLS with Rostyles. 
For 1974 the Gt was reintroduced as a 2 door with either 1300 or 1600 ( not Holbay twin carb) these had standard wheels with the hubcaps removed and painted black. They had a small centre cap and chrome wheel nuts ( or covers) and trim rings.

 

[PaykanHunter]

4 hours ago, Braddon81 said:

Here are the two styles of Rostyles fitted to Chrysler group cars in the 70s. On the left is the Standard Rostyle - On the right the Dunlop Dunstyle which was fitted to later 1974 onwards Avenger GLS and Gt, Sunbeam Rapier H120s and Hunters. 

As an interesting footnote - the original 1979 Brochure Car for the last of the line    Chrysler UK 2 door Avenger Specials still exists - as can be seen here and resides down near Plymouth.... I think a set of Rostyles would set it off quite nicely too! 

Thank you for the pictures. The original Rostyle wheels are getting really hard to find in Iran as well, they were fitted on the early model Paykan Javanan (GT). 

[PaykanHunter]

2 hours ago, martc said:

BMC/BL where very good at the old badge engineering/indiscriminate swapping of marques game. Austin's sold as Morris's etc.

Nobody can come close to Rootes when it comes to badge engineering my mate! Nobody! Arrows were sold under 7 different marques. Hillman, Singer, Sunbeam, Humber, Chrysler, Dodge & Paykan.

[PaykanHunter]

How much is the Avenger 2-Door lighter than the 4-door? anyone knows? That GT must have been very quick, no? 

[Richard_FM]

I remember seeing a Sumbeam Avenger on Rhodes in 1994, luckily I had read  just a few weeks before that some Rootes cars used the Sunbeam branding even on their cooking models.

[sierraman]

Isn’t that orange Avenger a Sunseeker? 

[Bradders59]

This brings back memories. My second car was a 1500 Avenger. I did a few mods to the suspension, and for what it was, it was a good handling car that I really enjoyed driving.

[anonymous user]

My brother had a 1500gt, white with black vinyl roof, it had those fake rostyle  dustbin lid wheel trims. 

I remembered seeing an American one recently in an episode of Columbo, sadly the, chain-smoking, owner was killed in it (off-screen) crashing after smoking a spiked cigarette.

Photo courtesy of imcdb 

[AnthonyG]

The Plymouth Cricket. Not a success as Chrysler was already building the Mitsubishi relationship for sourcing their US market small cars in the early 1970s.

Plymouth dealers got the short-lived (‘71-73) Cricket. Quality issues and lack of any ongoing improvements from Chrysler UK led to lack of sales which led to withdrawal of the model before the ‘74 model year. 

Dodge dealers got the Dodge Colt (early Galant) at about the same time - this car was a bit of a minor hit - particularly after the oil crisis of late ‘73 - and spawned an entire range of Dodge branded Mitsubishi’s which lasted well into the 1990s.

Plymouth dealers were not best pleased, but they did get some Mitsu’s by the late 1970s - the Celeste could be had as the ‘Plymouth Arrow’.

[Richard_FM]

I think of that episode of Columbo when I hear about the Plymouth Cricket.

[Tadhg Tiogar]

A little OT, but posted for Iranian taxi driver content:

 

[PaykanHunter]

On 8/21/2020 at 3:12 PM, Tadhg Tiogar said:

A little OT, but posted for Iranian taxi driver content:

 

Lol!.... Yes all taxi drivers here have PHDs in political science, and they all blame you lot (British) for the revolution and blame BBC too. This should have been on the Paykan thread not on the 2-door avenger.   

[somewhatfoolish]

Given his unqualified success as PM if he'd tried to do that he'd have probably precipitated the recreation of the United Arab Republic, only bigger and more bolshy.