Cars of Iran

I thought I would write a special post about this as it is unusual and I think interesting
Approved cars to be sold here for private use must be white, grey or black in colour
By far, probably 95% are white, maybe 4% grey and a few black ones.
There is the odd coloured car but they are rare and privately imported at huge cost apparently.

Taxis are yellow

Airport taxis are pale yellow

Tradies get to drive utes, all the same brand (Zamyad) and all the same bright blue

Colspec have a branch here

So does Lews Creative Flooring. 

There are not too many motorcycles but the Honda 125 is the dominant one

There are police bikes, they look like they might be 250 or so. This might explain why we aren’t allowed to ride ours!

Most of the trucks are old and look Russian with the occasional old Mack as well. Mercedes trucks are well represented but all are old.

There are small vans that look like the Russian Trabant

By far the most common cars are white, Chinese compact cars of various unknown (to me) brands. SAIPA.and SABA.

Next most popular is the Hillman Hunter or whatever they are here. They are everywhere, some have been chopped into utes. Mostly quite scruffy now due to age.

Next are various Peugeots up to the 405 size, these I suspect will overtake the Hunters as time passes. These cars are made here.

Other brands include Renault, Kia and Hyundai have a presence here.
I have seen one Mercedes and a handful of BMW and an occasional Range Rover.

I have been taking photos out of the window of the van and I looked at a matt grey SUV which looked unusual, I was about to raise the phone (camera) when I noticed through the tinted window a man with a BF gun!  I kidded to Hossein to speed up and catch them so I could take  a picture,, he didn’t think that was funny and pointed to the red number plate of the "special’ government car. Enough said.

CNG is massive here with many of the cars and utes converted . CNG stations aplenty.

The driving here is crazy and the overtaking sometimes borders on the suicidal. In dual carriageways it is not too bad. Where you really need to be alert is on the normal two way roads like most of ours, you need to be ready to take evasive action at ALL times. It is very aggressive but not in a nasty way, more like a racetrack way. Everyone wants to get where they’re going as quickly as possible. If you cut someone off you might get a toot or a wave but no one is going to get dragged out of their car and beaten up. It is way too fast and too dangerous especially in these cars.

I cringe when I see unrestrained kids standing up or sitting on their mothers knee. Does this system work? Of course not, their road toll is horrific.