My car and my sister Yasmine

I've read in the newspaper, that the Opel Vectra (imported as used cars from Europe) is so popular for suicide-bombers, that the soldiers were getting suspicious, when they see one.

Terrorist-groups are preferring Opel Omega's.

A BMP-1, a number of them were refurbished and sent back into service with the army. Not exactly the best vehicle to use when your opponents have lots of anti tank weapons.

Some more photos of Iraqi police vehicles from last week:

Dzik-3, captured by the Mahdi Army after they attacked the Al-Arabiya TV building and later set on fire.


A destroyed Dodge Ram

A Mahdi Army Humvee- Not quite sure whether this was captured by them, or given to them by the police.

It's always great to see a classic '59 Bel Air or a '60 Impala, but not in a state like that! possibly the owner still drives it and might keep it for restoration one day. Then again, maybe they'd sell it.

You can use Imageshack to host images.

So those were Passat's! My mistake :(. I do have several images, if anyone would like to host them, I could email them to the willing party.
One is a newly imported European car of some sort. Another is a large traffic intersection that includes a military convoy, and to the right one of the step-side pickups the Iraqi people seemed to love. A third shows a MB W126 and a late 80s BMW 5 or 7 series. The fourth image is one of several I took of a massively _useless_ freeway stack-type interchange north of Mosul.
Also here is the link again to the 59 Chevrolet I saw on a base in Mosul:
http://forum.imcdb.org/forum_topic-2674-Iraqi_59_Chevy_former_taxi_2_pics.html

If this thread ever branches out to include trucks of any kind, I will add that I saw many MB cab-over and Scania tractor trucks. The MB's displayed large gaudy MB emblems (sometimes 3 with 2 smaller ones flanking a larger one). Another popular ornament was similar to the Packard cormorant. Did Scania also use this kind of mascot?

One last observation, is that South Korea must be a major trading partner in that region, not only in automobiles, but also in electronics with the presence of Samsung and LG equipment and retailers that could be seen when I was stationed there.

In the 1980's, the Iraqi government ordered several Chevrolet Malibus from GM Canada, however, the order was cancelled, and the cars were auctioned off to the Canadian public. My grandfather bought one, they were different than US Spec Malibus. They had a heavy duty cooling system, steel rims, no defroster, and a manual transmission.
I assume most of the new US cars came from Dubai, as it is a Free port.
On GMs website for the Middle East, it states that there are currently 3 dealers selling new Chevrolet cars in Iraq.

I noticed that too. It was shame to see almost brand new armoured troop carriers burning down. I counted at least three Dzik-3 trucks and one tank destroyed.

Tank (what type?)


Dzik-3

It is pretty interesting to chart the history of Iraqi police vehicles before the war and after. Before the invasion, most Iraqi police had a mixture of Hyundai Accents, Nissan Cefiros and Toyota Land Cruisers; Nissan pickups were also very popular among the security forces. Most of these were destroyed or damaged during the first two years of the insurgency, and were gradually replaced by primarily American vehicles, such as the Chevrolet Trailblazer, Silverado, Dodge Ram, Dodge Stratus, and Ford F-250. They seem to be either painted in the standard white and blue scheme, or in green.

BTW, if anyone was watching the news over the past few days, there were a lot of videos showing burned out Dodge Rams and Polish Dzik-3 armored trucks in Basra.

It seems that the US bought new UAZs for the Iraqi army. They were assembled in Ukraine, I suppose so that the Americans could pretend that they weren't buying Russian vehicles.