@victorsoares6941
Those vehicles didn't work out in the desert, so VW from Brazil sold thousands of Passats with minimal alterations to Iraq. Saddam paid with petroleum which went straight to Petrobras (Brazilian petroleum company owned by government) that paid VW.
@mohammedtariq6047
I am Iraqi and we previously owned two of thes cars.. and even some says that Saddam executed some of the people responsible for this deal.
@murrayhill4016
We called them Iraqi taxis. The standard 3 speed manual transmissions and bell housings had the same bolt patterns as the small block V8s. With body on frame, rear wheel drive configuration, they made great hobby class stock cars in the 90s. I built one. Several buddies did the same.
@kevinbarry71
Only General Motors could screw up a manual transmission
@gordturnbull4835
I owned one for a year, bought in 82 for $6120.00 This was the 1st new car I bought and was pissed when I found out there was a $700.00 tax from the feds on the A/C [never have seen better A/C]. Put on 20,000 Km or so and hated the 3 speed. If you shift slowly it works fine. If you pushed the car in anyway it was annoying; the gearing of the 3 speed and the power band of the V6 made for a very pokey car. Sold it after a year for $6100.00. Best deal on a car ever!
@Interests1
I’m Iraqi. The front bumper of this vehicle is a legend back home. It’s so spacious as well.
@hughjass1044
I never owned any but some friends did. Amazing how quickly many of them seemed to morph into 5.7L 4 speeds.
@lylehart3744
GM sold lemons to almost everyone who has bought a vehicle from them. Not just Saddam
@jwltiger3357
If this happened today, and a manufacturer sold a car for 16k, every dealer in the country would mark it up to 45k and ruin any hype associated with “value” and it wouldn’t have sold out or become a cult favorite. First politician who runs on removing laws set up to protect dealers wins my vote! May have to wait another 37 years though, if ever haha
@kennymay9036
l knew one of the GM mechanics who went to lraq for a year to help keep these cars running.The biggest issue was sand clogging air filters,Unfortunately,the lraqis would pull clogged filters out,dropped to the ground,and off they drove with no filters.So sand ruined the cyl bores in days.They also pulled off the bellhousing dust covers,ruining clutch discs.
@ragdolltrucking
I worked at the shipping port in Nova Scotia there's so many stories there that would suit this channel, just about every major automotive event in North America went through that port, vw dieselgate the lesser known Mercedes dieselgate (at one point there were so many sprinter vans they just gave up on shipping them and had them crushed) a ship filled with 800 Audi and VW's once hit rough sea's and totalled every car onboard, when Lada went out of business hundreds of cars got left in limbo at the port, they weren't allowed to be scrapped so the port just buried them and paved over it 😂
@molives7
Ford and GM need some modern version of this affordable, stick, reliable. But I’m dreaming
@NewfieOn2Wheels
I live in Halifax, I've seen one or two of them still clinging to life
@jb2445
we bought one new. 3 speed manual. only option was a/c. was amazing reliable car and lasted forever. zero issues
@DSishere
The nickname in Canada was actually ‘Iraqi Pace Cars’. My neighbour in Toronto was one of the GM engineers sent over to see what the hell was going on with these cars. What he found was zero maintenance and stupid driving. There was no concept of understanding you require oil changes - plus they tried to drive these 3 speeds as if they were Russian army trucks. It wasn’t the throw out bearing at fault - it was riding the clutch pedal mainly. He told me they ran out of pressure plates at one point and most of the flywheels they pulled out were glazed over and had friction damage. If you’ve ever seen videos of their driving in that era you’ll understand why they even broke Russian T-54 tanks! Most of these cars that were removed from Halifax went on to years of good service in Canada and were hell of a good grocery getter or 2nd car. Many had the 3 speed replaced with a 4 and later 5 speed gearbox. Drivability really improved with the better gearbox. The only reason GM put the 3 speed in was the theory of fewer shifts would be less wear. Wrong! The traffic jams were legendary in Baghdad so the lack of torque from the engine and stop and go traffic (and sand) just wore them out three times as fast. In hindsight they should have gone with a 3 speed auto. The idea that Saddam ran out of funds is probably correct as he ended up spending over $600B on the eight year war with Iran from 1980 to 1988. The deal for these 25000 cars was negotiated just as the war started and he had anticipated a quick win over Iran. Then lunch bag let down - the war is lasting too long. I know, let’s screw the Canadian’s. It ended up ok, GM sold the remaining cars at a slight profit. 🤷♂️
@oldhillbillybuckkowalski
When I was deployed to Saudi Arabia in August of 90 for Operation Desert Shield, later becoming Operation Desert Storm which I participated in by invading Southern Iraq with the 1st Brigade, 24th Infantry Division, Mechanized (Heavy) I saw something that surprised me. There were basically 3 motor vehicles that were literally everywhere you looked and almost without exception they were the only ones we saw in everyday use, the Toyota Hilux 4wd pickup for people who had a need for off road capability, Chevrolet 1/2 ton two wheel drive pickup trucks for on road hauling, and Chevrolet Caprice/Caprice Classic 4 door sedans. In the 2 days I spent in Damam (the port city where our military equipment and vehicles were unloaded off ships) there was a bit more variety but even there these were the most common by far. Out of those 3 the Caprice (late 70s to mid 80s models) was by far the most common. There were so many of them that when I got a chance to speak to a Saudi national I asked him why they were so common. His answer, "They are comfortable to drive at whatever speed you want to go, even 120 KPH all day long, the air conditioning works great, they will run with little care or maintenance for over 150k Kilometers, they can carry a couple wives and children, and they are cheap enough that when they do finally quit you just walk away and go buy another." Later on I noticed the same vehicle preferences seemed to be common in Iraq. Years after coming home when reading some books about the Italian Mafia I learned another detail about these cars in the middle east. Many of them, if not most of them were stolen from cities all up and down the east coast. It was a huge ring of car thieves, many stolen by Mafia crews, many more sold to the Mafia guys (Roy Demeo was a big part of this racket) and the Italians were selling multiple shipping containers at a time filled with Caprices to brokers in a number of middle eastern nations. Also, a side note, when I was in Iraq, (Feb 91) they had a lot of really nice roads and some nice modern hiways, at least until we wrre finished with them.
@TheStreethack
My family owned one of these in the early 80's to 90's. Didn't need a new car for a few years, so it was garage stored until another car headed off to the wreckers. My frugal Accountant Dad regretted not having bought two at the time, hindsight being 20/20. I learned to drive using it, as well as manual transmission. It took PLENTY of abuse from the two teenage drivers in the family in the latter '80s. It towed trailers for long distances with hobby tree-farm stuff on a regular basis. I don't think the clutch was ever replaced. As far as my memory goes - that car was mechanically/reliability trouble free - it was deer-wrecked x2, rebuilt x2, and sold off with high miles. My Dad was overweight, and as such the HD suspension came in handy. It got replaced by my Grandpa's hand-me-down Chevy Caprice of the same year. Performance was relative in the late '70's to late '80s.. we didn't really know much better, at the time. We also owned a mid '80s Camaro powered by the same engine. Anemic today, was normal yesterday. Iraq's loss, was our family's 1980's gain. This stuff makes me feel old.
@TWX1138
A car with an engine physically smaller than what the chassis was designed to accommodate is almost always easy to maintain compared to cars that received the biggest engines they were designed for. I was helping a friend revive a 3rd gen F-body Camaro with the 5.7 EFI engine, it was an '87 equippes with a smog pump and those aspirator tubes into each individual exhaust runner. It was clear that the F-body was designed for nothing larger than a small block, it was so tight that we did not even bother with plugs. In contrast, my '95 Impala's basic chassis goes all of the way back to 1977, and the platform makes extensive use of the parts-bin on the former mid-sized cars (1970s Chevelle, mid-70s Camaro) along with outer dimensions similar to those older mid-size cars, which were designed to hold big-blocks. There's so much more room to work in the Impala's engine bay compared to that 3rd gen Camaro. The small V6 (comparatively speaking) and simple drivetrain in these Iraqi Malibus made them a lot easier to service regardless of training, so something that was beneficial to export to a country without a dealer network to fall back on for service also made them beneficial to consumers that might normally not be able to afford new cars and likely couldn't afford to pay for repairs after the laughably short warranties expired. Sure they were underpowered compared to even the mainstream vehicles of the late malaise era, but for buyers that just wanted something to get around in that wasn't already rusting away or expensive to repair this might not have been that big of a deal.
@JimmyJamesJ
I'm from Canada and I owned one in the late 90's. It still is one of my favourite cars I ever owned. It was built like a tank. Of course I threw out that crappy V6 and swapped that for a 305 very early on.
@markk3453