North Korean and Iranian Shite / Shameless self plug

[UglyAmerican]

I penned two articles on cars from North Korea and Iran, and thought you blokes might enjoy having a look through. Plenty o' shite.

 

http://www.caranddriver.com/features/10 ... ea-feature

 

http://www.caranddriver.com/features/10 ... an-feature

[Timewaster]

Good stuff. For an insight into life in North Korea I can recommend http://www.amazon.co.uk/Nothing-Envy-Lives-North-Korea/dp/1847080146

I read it a cople of months ago. Quite an eyeopener.

[Parky]

+1 on Nothing to Envy, totally compelling book. I also got a book of North Korean Posters, thats fantastic. Full of wonderfully drawn posters with catchy slogans like "Lets breed more high yielding fish such as Catfish!".

 

I always assumed the NK got their vehicles from China so very interested to see that they'd had a go themselves (with predictable results). Great articles though, thanks for posting them!

[Cavcraft]

Fantastic reading, very enjoyable cheers for sharing. I especially liked 'the Paykan was like most iconic cars that put their countries on wheels: slow, noisy, dirty, and generally crappy.'

[PaykanHunter]

I penned two articles on cars from North Korea and Iran, and thought you blokes might enjoy having a look through. Plenty o' shite.

Thanks for our articles, but I need to make couple of corrections to the Paykan section.

 

Although that the Rootes Arrow Series, is being referred to by the name of its most prolific model, the "Hillman Hunter". But Rootes Group launched the series in 1966-67 with 4 Brands (Hillman, Singer, Humber & Sunbeam). Starting from the entry models like the Hillman Minx & Singer Gazelle, then moving up-market to the Hillman Hunter & Singer Vogue, and then finally to the posh Humber Sceptre MKIII. Then they re-badge all of the above as Sunbeams for the export market, like the Sunbeam Arrow for even the US market, which was sold at the Chrysler dealerships.

 

…and then toward the later production years the Hillman Hunter was renamed as Chrysler Hunter (I know that your head is spinning by now but I’m almost done here bear with me...), so then you add Paykan and the Dodge Husky pickup (sold in South Africa only) to the list, the total comes to 7 different Brands! Now that is one remarkable Badge-Engineering achievement, isn’t it? for pictures visit this link: http://www.paykanhunter.com/2011/05/elegant-arrows.html

 

There was never any french connection with Rootes, when in 1967 IranNational signed the contract with them to assemble the Arrow Series inside Iran under the name of PAYKAN(means Arrow in Farsi). In 1978-79 Peugeot bought the entire Chrysler Europe, I have read in few places that they actually paid 1$ for it, and subsequently took over all Rootes operations also.

 

Hope I didn't bore you, believe me that it has taken me years to get these facts straights. But for more goodies you can visit my Blog: http://www.PaykanHunter.com