1971 Hillman Hunter
No, the root of the problem is the Hillman Hunter. Why? Because without the Hunter the Shah would still be in power, there would have been no Ayatollah Khomeini, and the Iran - Iraq war would never have happened.
I ask you, how can a country be expected to act responsibly when virtually the only car available for the masses was a Hillman Hunter?!
Only a year after the Hunter was introduced in the UK in 1966, they were sending assembly kits to Iran and Australia.
For all sorts of reasons involving unions, Lord Rootes and the Chrysler Motor Corporation, the Hunter was only produced in the UK until 1979, and assembly in Australia stopped seven years earlier, in 1972.
But in Iran, under the name 'Paykan', it became the "Volkscar" of the people and was still being sold, virtually unchanged, in 2004. By some estimates, 90% of all cars on the roads in Tehran are still Hillman Hunters for God's sake.
On the bright side, until a couple of years ago, you could buy a brand new Paykan for around $7,000 and petrol over there only costs 8 cents a litre. Sort of a good news/bad news story, really.
But to be fair, in its day the Hillman Hunter was really quite a nice thing. It may have lacked some of the sporty edge of the Cortina, but crikey, it won the 1968 London - Sydney Marathon, so it certainly wasn't a supermarket trolley.
One and three quarter litre engine, strut suspension, decent gearbox options and a not-bad-looking body. By all accounts, it was quite reliable by the standards of the day, and even if it did break down, a fix would be easy and inexpensive.
The car pictured here is unrestored, but has had only two owners, the last for 35 years, so it must have hit the right buttons for him.
In spite of its age, our feature car is still quite tight and everything seems to work in the stop and go departments. This one comes with an auto transmission that seems to last forever. The car also comes with a premium 12 month warranty, which is always a plus with an unrestored car of this vintage.
So, while the Hunter was no rock star in its day, it has aged well and begs the question of how well the Hillman brand could have developed if it had survived the Seventies.
As it was, Chrysler sold Hillman to Peugeot for, allegedly, one dollar in 1978. Peugeot flogged off the Hillman tooling to Iran and that was the end of Hillman in the Western World. The Iranians briefly considered adding a new and vibrant colour range to appeal to women drivers but then remembered that there aren't any women drivers in Iran. Actually that's not quite true. An SBS programme the other week said that there are now six women taking a taxi driver course in Tehran. If we hear how many make it onto the road, we'll let you know.
There is also a rumour that Iran are considering selling the tooling for the Hunter to the Sudanese Government, as there is apparently a great desire there to establish their own motor industry. So put your name down for a 2009 model but failing that, give the one at Futura Motors a look over.
