Iraqi taxis

[the_yellow_dart]

I've never heard of this before, but here's an excerpt from the Chevy Malibu article on Wikipedia...

In 1981, General Motors of Canada in Oshawa produced a special order of 12,000 4-door Malibu sedans for Saddam Hussein's Iraqi government. The deal was worth 100-million dollars to GM. These special order Malibus carried the unusual combination of GM's lowest-power V6, the 110hp 229ci (3.8 l) engine mated to a unique 3-on-the-floor stick shifter. All of the cars were equipped with air conditioning, heavy duty cooling systems, tough upholstery and 14-inch (360 mm) stamped steel wheels with trim rings and "baby moon" center caps. They were the ultimate Iraqi Taxis. In 1982 with 7,000 Malibus sitting on a dock in Halifax ready to ship and 5,000 more waiting for the train in Oshawa, where they were built, the Iraqis cancelled the order. Excuses reportedly included "quality concerns" or the supposed inability of the local drivers to shift a manual transmission. GM President-at-the-time Donald Hackworth said GM would still try to sell the Halifax cars overseas. Of course the real reason the Iraqis backed out was their escalating hostilities with Iran which required diversion of funds to support the ramping Iraqi war effort. In the end, the orphaned Iraqi Taxi Malibus were sold to the Canadian public at the greatly reduced price of about C$6,800 and over the years have acquired a low-key 'celebrity' status.

[toesuf94]

$8,333.00 each...I wonder if that included destination and delivery . Ever see one around? I have never seen one advertised. Be interesting to see what is out there!

[vonVeezelsnider]

[Oracle of Delphi]

In April 1993 a Chinese delegation approached GM with an order of vehicles it wanted to purchase. The Chinese toured both the Wilmington & Terrytown Assembly plants. Then they placed their order, the Chinese order included 3,600 Chevrolet Corsica sedans and 1,000 Chevrolet Lumina APV mini-vans. The Chinese insisted at that time that the radios and air conditioners needed to be deleted and the engine had to be one that could use leaded gasoline.

I have a friend that works at Shanghai GM, and he repoets to me everytime he sees one of the rare old Chevy Corsicas. Yep some are still on the road there.

LINK: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html...757C0A965958260

[Robert Hall]

In April 1993 a Chinese delegation approached GM with an order of vehicles it wanted to purchase. The Chinese toured both the Wilmington & Terrytown Assembly plants. Then they placed their order, the Chinese order included 3,600 Chevrolet Corsica sedans and 1,000 Chevrolet Lumina APV mini-vans. The Chinese insisted at that time that the radios and air conditioners needed to be deleted and the engine had to be one that could use leaded gasoline.

I have a friend that works at Shanghai GM, and he repoets to me everytime he sees one of the rare old Chevy Corsicas. Yep some are still on the road there.

LINK: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html...757C0A965958260

Interesting..never heard that one.... by the way, didn't the modern Buick-in-China begin with a government purchase of Regal sedans?

[vonVeezelsnider]

Dustbuster FTW!!!

[CMG]

Never heard of them before...?

I've owned them. My buddy just took one apart last year for the pedals and tunnel for a Malibu wagon of his. He didn't use the tranny, he tossed in a 4 speed.

There used to be quite a few of them in the papers for sale, one of my friends owned one 10 years ago too.

[loki]

that's interesting.

[ponchoman49]

Never heard of this before now. Those 4 door Malibus of that time period were very nice driving cars and had a trunk that would put the current Malibu to shame. I never cared for the 229 V6 Chevy engine though. They were underpowered like the Buick 231 and seldom ever ran very well when the miles started accumulating. I did drive a really clean 1981 maroon Classic 4 door sedan with the 267 2BBL V8 and that ran much smoother and stronger than the 229. Would be interesting to see how the 4 speed stick drove with the 229.

[Sixty8panther]

Cool. Never heard of this.

Extra heavy duty AC in Canada... splendid. LOL

[Guest JMB]

I lived in Canada at the time and we had one of these. We paid $6500

Car had 3 speed and sounded like a tractor. The A/C had the biggest compressor GM made

and was the coldest A/C we ever had. We nick named it Abdul