Security gains jump-start sales of American SUVs in Iraq
BAGHDAD -- Here's a bailout idea for the American auto industry: Send all those unwanted SUVs to Iraq.
Just as General Motors is halting production of the Hummer, and other sport-utility vehicles fall out of favor with cost-conscious and eco-friendly Americans, the gas-guzzling behemoths are experiencing a rebirth among young and wealthy Iraqis.
"Eighteen-year-olds, they buy the Hummer," says Hidar al-Dalfiy, who opened a dealership called Hummer Cars in eastern Baghdad five months ago. "It's showing off."
Most Iraqis avoided driving flashy cars during the worst years of the war, fearing it would make them a target for kidnapping or worse.
Now that security has improved, Hummers — the slimmed-down, civilian versions of the U.S. military Humvees that have patrolled Baghdad for six years — have earned a reputation as a sturdy car that can stand up to Iraq's crumbling streets.
"The Iraqis are very rich," said Shwan Burhan, a car dealer in the Zaiuna district of Baghdad. "As soon as the security improved, they started buying cars."
Lower-priced Korean and German cars are still the best sellers in Iraq, according to al-Dalfiy and other dealers. While there are no nationwide data on sales of American cars in Iraq, Burhan says he has sold 150 of them in the past two years — compared with none before that. Other dealers also said sales were up.
Hazam Bakir, a Baghdad businessman, says his regular drives from Baghdad to the southern city of Basra now look like caravans of American SUVs.
The high costs of the American cars — a lightly used Hummer H3 typically goes for a little more than $30,000 — are somewhat offset by Iraq's low gas prices of about $1.65 a gallon. The nation sits on the third-largest oil reserves in the world, so prices rarely rise too much.
Dealers said that high-ranking government and security officials favor large GMC Yukons, while families looking for cheap but reliable American SUVs tend to opt for the Jeep Grand Cherokee.
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