These were Malibu cars that were optioned for sale to Iraq. It didn’t turn out as planned. This is G Body history for you.
Iraqi Taxi
- Thread starter JD1964
- Start date
There is a lot documented on our Facebook group and have several guys that have them. I see guys incorrectly refer 78,79 or 80 V6 3 speed Malibu sedans as Iraqui taxis but the truth is the real ones were 1981 only and had specific options that indicated them as such.
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Those cars were manufactured at the Oshawa Ontario, Canada GM assembly plant, and yes, as gnvair has pointed out, they were 1981 models. GM built roughly 25,000 of them, and approximately half of them actually made it to Iraq. Now I don't know exactly what the reason was, that the other half of them weren't shipped there. Some say that Iraq complained about the quality of the cars. GM did send field engineers to Iraq, to try to sort out the issues with the cars. Other people say that Iraq couldn't afford (or maybe didn't want) to pay for the other half of the order to be shipped there. At this point, it doesn't matter much. GM of Canada was stuck with roughly 12,500 rather oddly optioned 1981 Malibu sedans, that they had to get rid of. These cars came with the smallest available engine available that year (the 110HP 229 Chev V6), a 3 speed floor shifted Saginaw manual transmission, power steering, power brakes, AM/FM cassette deck, the sweep style speedo (in kilometers only, reading up to 200km/hr), no rear defroster, and the biggest A/C system that GM could install on the cars (it had the old long style GM 6 cylinder Fridgidaire compressor, as opposed to the radial style compressor that you usually find on most A/G body cars, and trust me, when it was working properly, and using the R12 refrigerant, you could just about hang meat in those cars!), dog dish hubcaps on body colour painted steel wheels, base suspension, and no frills, cloth upholstery on the seating surfaces, with vinyl & rubber floor mats, and that was about it. There were only a few colours available, and they were all kind of wishy washy colours (silver, light blue, cream, etc.). Since these cars were built to go to a desert country, with no emission regulations, there were no emission controls on them. In order to sell the cars that stayed here, GM actually sent them down the assembly line a second time, in order to have Canadian emission controls retrofitted to them. Then they had huge tent sales, and they were sold off cheap. You could buy one of these cars brand new here in Canada for $6,500.00CDN in 1981.
Over the years, I've owned 3 of them. I had one as a daily driver for several years, and for a car that was built for the desert. it was actually a pretty good car here in the great white north. Most of them got driven into the ground and scrapped, but a few still survive here today. There's one for sale in Quebec Canada on Facebook Marketplace now, that looks to be in pretty good condition, but the engine has been removed, and the asking price is $10,000.00CDN
Over the years, I've owned 3 of them. I had one as a daily driver for several years, and for a car that was built for the desert. it was actually a pretty good car here in the great white north. Most of them got driven into the ground and scrapped, but a few still survive here today. There's one for sale in Quebec Canada on Facebook Marketplace now, that looks to be in pretty good condition, but the engine has been removed, and the asking price is $10,000.00CDN
Surprised they didn't have cop springs installed as most taxi packages are similar to police packages. With being designed for a desert environment you would think they have HD cooling for the engine too, which most taxis have anyway.
My time in Tikrit I saw several of them with the taxi orange fenders & quarters. Most of those were still in tazi service it seemed. Was one of the cars I never got a chance to search at check points as those seemed to skirt around us. But there was also several coupes floating around town & surprisingly if good shape for being is a war torn country. Didin't see any wagons or other G's.
In the video I linked it said they were equipped with the heavy duty cooling systems including 4 core radiators.
The ones I got to go head to head with were already in the salvage yards so became a good source for bellhousings and clutch linkage components.
As to why they got manual boxes when the automatics were easier to drive? Well, a few reasons, the Iraquis or Saudis or whoever was supposed to be driving them were long on enthusiasm and short on mechanical knowledge and skills so any maintenance that was supposed to be provided only occurred very sporadically if at all. Plus the operating environment being mostly sand and wind tended to be a auto-box life shortener to a major degree. Finally there was the small matter of rampant male chauvanism that existed over there and which denied women the opportunity to do a lot of things including driving cars for themselves; the manual shift mechanism being the men of the region believing that women could not have or learn the skills needed to properly and correctly operate a stick or tree shift (Doom on them)
As for why only half the of the order ever got delivered, the story that came to me was that the Saudi banking system did not play well with its counterpart here in North America. They did manage to pay for the first half but the method of payment was so circuitous and involved so many intermediaries due to the necessity of having to undertake multiple exchanges of currency that GM and the banks over here weren't happy at all about the extended time it took to get paid.
GM ended up dumping the balance into the North American distribution system and included specific and absolute instructions that none of the dealers could refuse them.
Nick
As to why they got manual boxes when the automatics were easier to drive? Well, a few reasons, the Iraquis or Saudis or whoever was supposed to be driving them were long on enthusiasm and short on mechanical knowledge and skills so any maintenance that was supposed to be provided only occurred very sporadically if at all. Plus the operating environment being mostly sand and wind tended to be a auto-box life shortener to a major degree. Finally there was the small matter of rampant male chauvanism that existed over there and which denied women the opportunity to do a lot of things including driving cars for themselves; the manual shift mechanism being the men of the region believing that women could not have or learn the skills needed to properly and correctly operate a stick or tree shift (Doom on them)
As for why only half the of the order ever got delivered, the story that came to me was that the Saudi banking system did not play well with its counterpart here in North America. They did manage to pay for the first half but the method of payment was so circuitous and involved so many intermediaries due to the necessity of having to undertake multiple exchanges of currency that GM and the banks over here weren't happy at all about the extended time it took to get paid.
GM ended up dumping the balance into the North American distribution system and included specific and absolute instructions that none of the dealers could refuse them.
Nick
