Did you know that Iran produces about a million cars a year? They have a big automobile industry, that's been mass producing modern cars in Iran for decades now. I remember reading somewhere that it accounts for four percent of their GNP, and if that's true it's probably greater than the American automobile industry's fraction of the U.S. GNP. (statistics, anybody?)(meanwhile those of my co-workers who listen to talk-radio believe Iranians live in tents and ride camels.)
They got the tooling for an old English Hillman which they relabeled as the "Khodro Paysan" and they produced for over thirty years, but recently Khodro moved to a more modern model based on a Peugeot design - I think the newer Khodro cars use the same engine Peugeot makes for BMW for the Mini, as up-to-date a drive-train as any car in the world except the Prius.
Yours WDK - WKiernan at ij.net