I bet you didn’t know this! One of the world’s largest car manufacturer is probably the least least famous as well. Iran Khodro (IKCO) is a government-owned car maker in Iran which has facilities that can make up to 1 million cars per year. And when every single car maker is affected by global financial crisis they post constant rise in sales!

That is not because IKCO makes great cars. They are still producing the old Peugeot 405 under license, which says a lot. But they have a monopoly and a market almost entirely devoid of any sort of competition.

Now IKCO planing to conquer the European market by sending their first national car there, which seems like a long shot. Samand is the first and as far as we know the only car that is actually designed and made in Iran. That said, it brings to mind the old Audi A4 and a bit of Scoda Fabia, so the originality of this design is somewhat questionable. The car apparently has three variants, Samand, Sarir and Soren, where Sarir is the most luxurious version with most of the gadgets. The engine in the Samands is based on the 405 engine which is about 20 years old and is available with either 100 or 120 hp. Crikey!

via : AutoBild