• Tehranopnik: The Cars And Car Culture Of Iran

    Home to a disputed election, 70 million people and twice as many barrels of cheap oil, Iran has cars aplenty. Meet Paykans, Miniators and Italian exotica—plus the gutsy female drivers of the Islamic Republic.

    Iran is, of course, all over the news these days after last week’s presidental election turned into a nationwide protest, with supporters of defeated opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi claiming that the election was rigged in favor of incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. If you’ve missed out on the news, catch up with pictures of the demonstrations or read Robert Fisk’s report from the streets of Tehran, in defiance of the regime’s crackdown on foreign journalists.

    While cars in Iran these days are mostly used as fuel to burn, it’s a big country with lots of cheap gas and a wealth of domestically produced cars. Presented here are a selection of photos and stories about cars which are either built in Iran or have connections to Iran.


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    Send an email to Peter Orosz, the author of this post, at peter@jalopnik.com.

    By Peter Orosz
    Jun 18, 2009 4:30 PM 18,475
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    Tehranopnik: The Cars And Car Culture Of Iran

    Laleh Seddigh

    Meet Laleh Seddigh, Iran’s most famous racing driver. It’s tough to be a female athlete in Iran with its strict Islamic dress code, but motor racing offers a quick escape: both men and women are generally covered from head to toe.

    She is quick and has earned the respect of men, not an easy thing to do in motor racing anywhere. In an interview with Seddigh in The Observer, a fellow racing driver had this to say: “When she sits behind the wheel she sheds her feminine shell and turns into a man.”

    Rest assured: when she is not racing against men, her feminine shell is very much intact.

    Photo Credit: HENGHAMEH FAHIMI/AFP/Getty Images


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