What's up with all the Dashers in Iraq

Dec 11, 2003 6 Replies

Howdy,



Whenever you seen footage of any city in Iraq, there are a lot of VW's. The look to me like Dashers from the '70's. What's up with that?



my theories:



  1. It is a poor country with lots of older cars, but why that one?
  2. They made the dasher longer in the middle east, it is more space for less $ to keep cranking out an old design.

Are they still making them over there?


regards, KL


In poorer countries where people care more about just getting around than having the "pimpest" ride, it seems that old designs last quite a while.

South America is still turning out air cooled's I think. The Old beetle was just stopped being made in Mexico. I think A2s were produced in SA for quite a while. Now why the VW dasher... No idea.

Them early VW's were bullet proof! At least engine wise that is? Sorry couldn't resist it-lol!

VW built the B1 Passat/Dasher in Brazil until 1989. At some point in that run, they changed the headlights to quad square sealed beams. All the Iraqi Dasher's I've seen from the front have the quad headlights, so it looks like they were imported from Brazil.

Robert

They're called "Passats" and most of the ones you see were made in the 1980s. Yes; it's the original shape.

It's not a poor country.

The cars were made in Brazil. Thousands were shipped to Iraq in the late 1980's.

Not sure about the A2s but the A1 still is made there as the CitiGolf and Caddy (pickup). They also extended the A1 Jetta's run for a bit and sold it under the "Fox" badge.

I'd agree...they look a lot like the Brazilian models. Interesting...that car wasn't popular here but overseas it looks like it had a decent following.

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