Years before the first Gulf War, GM accidentally found a great way to mess with Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein: selling him a bunch of defective 1981 Chevy Malibus.
[READ THE STORY HERE: https://www.thedrive.com/news/35121/we-got-him-that-time-gm-sold-12500-terrible-chevy-malibus-to-saddam-hussein]
In the early 1980s, Iraq needed cars to serve as taxis and government vehicles. GM needed money, and figured out it could get around US sanctions by selling Saddam a fleet of G-Body Malibus through GM Canada with the backing of the Canadian government.
GM custom built 25,000 Malibus with upgraded cooling, heavy duty suspension, and an anemic carbureted V6. It proudly shipped the first batch to Iraq… only for Saddam’s regime to cancel the rest of the order because the cars immediately broke down. Also because it was about to go to war with Iran and maybe couldn’t afford to pay for the rest. It’s kinda murky.
Anyway, stuck with over 12,000 desert-spec cars, GM eventually decided to sell them to Canadians at rock bottom prices. And thus a cult automotive icon was born: the Chevy Iraqibu.
0:00 GM vs Saddam
0:58 Let’s Make a Deal
2:29 Iraqi Taxi Specs
3:28 Reliability Problems
4:32 Canada Gets Creative
5:45 Icon Status
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I remember the adds in the Edmonton journal when he sent them back. I think they were 6995.00
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Great history lesson. Loved it.
WOW another GM bashing Video very Boomer. This Idiot is a Boomers Son. Trust me GM made far better cars than Toyota. We had both back then and our Toyota Rusted out and our GM was far safer . The Toyota was built like a tin can. This author is a nightmare. He knows nothing about cars.
why am I Googling Saddam spec malibus forsale now
Only Saddam Hussein? Pretty certain they been selling busted cars to everyone who bought the damn things.. Company should have been allowed to go bust.
I wanted to see where Saddam parked his cars inside his Man Cave™️
I thought there was a deal like that on Caprice Classics too!??
There were also 1990 1991 Toyota Corolla XLs which were produced for Iraq but could not be shipped because of the war. Those cars were eventually sold in Turkey. They were amazing cars with additional radiators for oil cooling, lower spec radios, without rpm gauges but with ac units, an awe for that period. There were only two colors available, red and white. The weight was only 950kgs and the engine was 85hp, nevertheless the car was really agile and fast. There are many remaining ones still on the roads in Turkey and the present price tag is around usd5k.
What about the other 200,000+ highly problematic (pile of junk) cars they sold on the US market??? The “issues” involving the Iraq/Saddam deal were probably not intentional. 😂
Hard to drop the clutch wearing a dress and sandals should have sent the three on the tree models or some boots with the crap bucket car
We had one of these in Iraq, when I was deployed there. It kinda ran. We used the hood for sledding down airplane hangars on christmas day, and one of the marines got it running and tried speeding it off a jump he built, Dukes of Hazzard style. Nobody tried to stop him, because marines. It was rad.
There are alot of msitakes in this video I dont know where to start
I know of a American real estate company that built model homes for Saddam Hussein.
Great story dude. I love simple machines or objects that just do the job, nothing fancy.
GM sold their best quality vehicles to Saddam.
At the time I could've bought one ,cash!!!! Didn't know they were available . I did know a family that owned one . But at the time it was just a car
GM was the best in the 50's – 60's
0:27 – 0:29, Why are you showing Australian 78/79 Ford Falcons?
Having lived through that era, I can attest to the horrible craftsmanship or lack there of that Chevy put out in the 80’s.