All Cars, All the Time

Ford, Saddam Hussein, Toyota and a Chevrolet Malibu Walk Into a Bar...




With Ford and Toyota sitting down for long, candlelit discussions, Saddam getting ready to leave this mortal coil and a new Malibu about to debut in Detroit I have to think back to the last time fate put all of these characters in the same room. It was 1980 and Toyota was the biggest car seller in Iraq. Toyota then begin negotiating with Ford to setup a joint venture. At the time, Ford had an assembly plant in Israel. As you can imagine, this didn't sit well with Saddam. Iraq began its search for another supplier. In March 1981 an agreement was reached to buy 10,000 Chevrolet Malibus from GM of Canada. A month later another 3,500 Malibus were ordered and finally another 12,000.

When the first two orders arrived, defects were found with the clutches and air filters. GM sent crews to try and correct the problems, but Iraq came up with more complaints about quality and service and refused the final order of 12,000. Interestingly enough it was around that time that Ford and Toyota disbanded talks of a joint venture. Iraq went back to its first love, Toyota and GM Canada was stuck with 12,000 homeless Malibus. These Malibus were special in that they had blackwall tires, small hubcaps, cloth bench seats, one small chrome strip down each side, no emissions controls to speak of and three speed floor mounted manuals. GM thought fast and decided the quickest way to get these orphans out the door was to modify them to meet Canadian regulations and slash the price--to almost half that of a regular Malibu. The Iraqi Malibus flew off the shelves as hungry Canadians showed their affinity for bargain wheels.

Above, a slightly ;-) customized 1981 Iraqi Malibu is shown.

sources: wikipedia, kengerberick.com, collectible automobile