The Mazda That's a Kia That Looks Like a Renault

"Jonee" (Jonee) 09/13/2014 at 14:03 • Filed to: None

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That looks like a Renault, right? Well, it isn't. It's an Iranian P.K. made by !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! who took over manufacturing Iranian Renault 5's from !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in the 90's. In 2000 the car really needed an update. So, they put the Renault bodies on Kia Prides, which was and maybe still is the best selling car in Iran. The Kia Pride was originally designed by Mazda. We knew it as the Ford Festiva, but it was also sold as the Mazda 121 in some places.

So, there you have it. A Kia that's a Mazda that looks like a Renault. Nutty.

jkm7680 > Jonee 09/13/2014 at 14:14

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Jobjoris > Jonee 08/29/2015 at 13:43

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What on earth is this? AND WHY AM I CONFRONTED WITH THIS ALMOST A YEAR AFTER IT’S PUBLISHED?

Jonee > Jobjoris 08/29/2015 at 15:19

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Yeah, how did you miss this one and how did you just suddenly stumble across it? Crazy story, right? Someone posted that bottom picture to Facebook and I was like, what the hell is going on? The 5 was so popular there, apparently, that they figured out a way to keep manufacturing them, sort of. It’s insane. I want one.

Jobjoris > Jonee 08/30/2015 at 06:16

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I don’t know, it was on the left suddenly! Kinja moves in mysterious ways...

We had both the Pride and that 121 over here. The first 121 we got had “beared” wheels. What’s that you ask?

Yep. Those are bears...

Jonee > Jobjoris 08/31/2015 at 00:32

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Those were the standard wheels? I’ve seen pictures of those, but I never would have guessed they were factory. Ridiculous.

I actually saw an Iranian car in the flesh yesterday. One of the local Armenians had it.

It’s a Peykan, a Humber Sceptre assembled in Iran.

Jobjoris > Jonee 08/31/2015 at 05:41

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Well, there’s a difference between “Factory” and “Importer”. You could buy a 121 with those wheels standard from the dealer. But that could be a package the importer provided the dealers with (and were advertised with). These are Ronal-wheels so aftermarket actually.

Huh, a Peykan? What’s an Armenian doing with an Iranian car???? You went to some sort of car-show yesterday? Is that a Toronado on the right?

Jonee > Jobjoris 09/01/2015 at 01:25

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Ah, that makes sense. Pretty funny dealer option. I can’t think of anything similar. Over here dealer options were usually pinstripes or a fancier radio. I guess sometimes snazzy wheels, but never with teddy bears on them.

There are a lot of Armenians living in Iran, so many of the ones here came from there. Strangely, that car had been imported back in the 70’s and the current owner found it on Ebay. They have a car show in my town every summer. There were like 200 cars, but only a handful of really interesting ones. It’s a fun event, though. I brought my Mazda R360 to it once and people really got a kick out of it. That is a blue Toronado. America’s first FWD car. I’ve always liked the way they looked. Pretty out there for Oldsmobile.

Jobjoris > Jonee 09/01/2015 at 03:50

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The brother of a sailing-mate of my used to work for the Mazda importer back then, “Auto de Binckhorst” in The Hague. That was prior to Mazda taking over import themselves. He has nice stories. In the early days of the Internet, you could only claim your .NL domain if the domain-name was your company-name or at least part of it. As “Auto de Binckhorst” has no “Mazda” in it www.mazda.nl couldn’t be obtained. So therefor they had to ask some Mazda-dealer-organization to do this for them...

Nice piece on that car show. Porsche Fest is again in a few weeks so I’ll probably come up with some as well.

Jonee > Jobjoris 09/02/2015 at 01:48

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Wow, Porsche Fest looks awesome. We definitely need a post on that. Even if almost every car looks the same. Have you ever brought your car to Porsche Fest?

Jobjoris > Jonee 09/02/2015 at 03:29

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Last year I took the 911 there: yes. Josje came along in the passenger-seat with a child’s seat on it. Somehow she’s an amazing wing-woman when it comes to those exhibitions, she came with me to Torino as well (my wife didn’t).

This year I’ll probably take the Volvo. Somewhat too busy to get the 911 back home and I don’t want to bother Martin on a Sunday (the 911 is at his company-site at the moment). Better for parts as well ( last year I got yellow lenses for the 911 ).

Jonee > Jobjoris 09/02/2015 at 15:10

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I see your raising her well. Good job. I can imagine she loves accompanying dad especially when she gets to star in her own one woman dance performance. Great photo. Where are the rest of the pictures from that place? Looks like a terrific museum.

Boy, 911’s really do look perfect with those lenses. I wish they were legal here. It would give me a reason to buy a 911.

Jobjoris > Jonee 09/02/2015 at 17:39

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Yeah, she loves to dance. This was just a iron curtain setup, the light was supposed to look like a moving searchlight near checkpoint Charly. And I instantly knew what was going to happen so I took the camera and started to set things on for a moving shot but was too late... So it’s a bit blurry. I didn’t post the pictures on Oppo as most of the cars probably wouldn’t be that interesting to the regular crowd. Still have that dropbox? I can dump ‘m in there.

With that 25-year rule I would suspect yellow lenses to be no problem as long as your car is old?

Jonee > Jobjoris 09/03/2015 at 01:56

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That’s cute. I see that’s a guardhouse now. I do have the dropbox, yeah. Send ‘em over.

Maybe you’re right about the old cars. I’ll have to check it out. It might only be legal for cars that have been imported.

Jobjoris > Jonee 09/03/2015 at 04:43

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I just dropped them in our “De Rovin” share. You’ll love to see what they did with an Isetta! There’s some small cars in it like a Lloyd as well, feel free to use ‘m in a future post.

I thought we had too many rulings over here but those rules about importing of cars and old cars over there seem truly terrible. And do those coppers really uphold those laws?

Jonee > Jobjoris 09/03/2015 at 19:01

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Wow, really great photos, Joep. This photographer really lives up to his legendary status. What camera does he use? That lovely museum lighting helps a lot. I love that giant Dinky box with the Isetta. Brilliant. And the Fiat Turbina must be epic in person. I am most amused by this, of course.

Did you take that just for me? Hilarious. That’s a really good looking Isetta, too. Those early ones with that “z” moulding are pretty rare. That E-Type display with what looks like a pornographic movie playing is also amazing. I have to visit this museum. A heck of a collection. And your daughter is absolutely adorable. I see why you bring her everywhere.

It’s really kind of random how they deal with the importing laws. The first time I imported a car from Japan, the Subaru R2, I just took it to the DMV, they looked it over, made sure I had the right paperwork, and handed me the registration. No problems. Then, for the Mazda R360, I they made me take it to a police station where they looked at it and made me get a letter from Mazda stating that it was actually a Mazda. Fortunately, I knew a guy at Mazda, and he got me the letter. So then I went back to the DMV and they couldn’t figure out how to input everything into the computer, so when I got the title it said “1982” instead of “1962” which was unacceptable to me for a variety of reasons which meant going back to the DMV for more issues which were eventually worked out by a nice lady who couldn’t believe everything I went through. On the road, I’ve never been pulled over, or anything, so I’d think cops have better things to worry about. But, with something like yellow headlights, getting pulled over would be a matter of time.

Jobjoris > Jonee 09/04/2015 at 07:13

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Haha, thanks, I wasn’t truly satisfied though. Had to keep an eye on precious all the time of course so I couldn’t really set the camera on fully manual. For these kinds of shoots I use a Sony-NEX5: Small but exchangable lenses. I just had my table-tripod with me, that’s why many shots are “from below”.

The Turbina was awesome, did you see the Turbina on LaLD yesterday? And yes: I took the pictures of the Isetta on screen (the one you just used) a bit with you in mind ;-) Thanks for complimenting precious , she really is a great wing-woman. We can laugh about so many stuff together as well. God I love her.

I’ve imported 3 now. The Dino (Italy) was a bit hard, I had to mount seatbelts which just were not there. So just a two-way belt directly on it’s chassis. But that one was old so not many other rulings, it passed it’s smog-test with back-then-values. Just.

The Z4 (Germany) was not hard when it comes to the mechanicals. But due to the import-laws/taxes we talked about earlier we had to negotiate what I’d have to pay for those taxes as the Z4 as I bought wasn’t exactly the specs BMW Netherlands sold them in. And you get an extra discount on a car depending on it’s state. The Z4 was really pristine so I tricked it into looking more used. I mounted the winter-wheels that came with it (with curb-side damage) with almost torn-up tires I borrowed from a friend. As it was winter I didn’t clean it after the trip from Germany. The passengerside was filled with old roadmaps, magazines and empty food-packaging. Then the 100-month (8 years/4 months) downgrade goes down even more rapidly.

The Ducati (Germany) was laughable as with your R2. Took it to the RDW (our DMV), the technician looked at it’s VIN, looked at me, looked at the papers and walked back into the office again. To get a registration for me. While the Ducati didn’t exactly meet all requirements (blinkers need to have at least x-many cms between them, exhaust noise).

Jonee > Jobjoris 09/04/2015 at 16:46

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That Sony is a nice little camera. I should look for one. I just have a little point and shoot for digital now. I used to use my Rollei, but that’s film. The low angle shots really work well. It’s a good thing you only brought that tripod.

That’s a really nice Turbina diecast. A funny coincidence he posted that the other day. Such a cool looking car.

I love that Z4 story. Over here it wouldn’t matter the condition the car is in. The taxes would be the same. I really can’t keep up with our rules any more. Especially being in California. Everything older than 1976 doesn’t need emissions testing, but cars newer than 1968 need some safety stuff that I’m not even sure of. So, it’s easiest to just import cars older than that. The R2 was a ‘72, but I brought it over before they made new rules, so I’m not sure if I did it now if I would have as easy a time. It’s pretty silly since they’re obviously collector cars and not daily drivers.

Jobjoris > Jonee 09/04/2015 at 17:13

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That’s the great thing about the NEX5, just mount your pancake-lens and it’s not much more than a point-and-shoot. Just those E-mount lenses are not widely available, getting a Macro lens for it was kinda hard.

As I said earlier: There’s no such thing as coincidence! I’m getting that 1/43 Turbina. Don’t worry.

Every newly elected parliament over here promises to make life easier and easing up on all those rulings. But every newly elected parliament fails doing that ending up in creating all kinds of monstrosities their own governmental organizations (like the tax-inning ones) can’t keep up with. It’s pathetic. Over here they changed the old rule of no-motorway-tax-for-25-year-old cars because a little group of people just bought 25 year old cars, especially old Mercedes-Benz W123 diesels, and therefor saved money for those taxes. Now that limit is set on 40 years.

Jonee > Jobjoris 09/05/2015 at 01:29

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I kind of want one of those Turbinas also.

In California, it used to be that 30 year old cars were exempt from emissions testing, but then they halted it at 1976. I guess there aren’t enough old car owners to complain and it makes it look like they’re doing something environmentally friendly, so they can keep avoiding regulating commercial vehicles. I don’t know why they’re so difficult with importing personal cars. It’s such a small number of people that do it.

Jobjoris > Jonee 09/05/2015 at 09:36

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So, next to that Le Car Van, I need to resource a Turbina as well? No problemo.

I don’t get it either. Well, actually I do get it, over here it’s just that the goverment thinks they’re losing money if there’s too much use of certain rules like these. But people will always look for ways to live cheaper and as driving a car in the Netherlands is simply one of the most expensive of whole Europe you can’t blame those people.

It’s a public secret that from all the taxes earned due to roadtaxes just a very small part (not even 20%) is used for roads and stuff, our budget simply depends on it. And then I don’t even take into account all other luxury taxes on cars.

Jonee > Jobjoris 09/06/2015 at 15:32

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That’s interesting. I didn’t realize that about the Netherlands. How did it get so expensive? California is the most expensive state for driving in the U.S. But, it’s really big, so I guess it needs the revenue to keep all its roads in at least a drivable state. Over here, they’re not allowed to use road related taxes for anything else. There might be ways around it, but they’re pretty strict that way. And the roads in L.A. are still shit. Every time you drive anywhere, you’ll run into some kind of road construction, but there are so many roads, they can’t keep up.

Jobjoris > Jonee 09/06/2015 at 16:45

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I’ve already told you about that luxury tax of almost 40%. Then we have fuel tax that makes our fuel the almost most EXPENSIVE FUEL in Europe. Diesel ain’t that bad but when it comes to normal fuel it’s just Italy that exceeds us.

We’ve got decent road though. Not as nice as in Germany but not nearly as bad as Belgium, France and Italy!

Jonee > Jobjoris 09/07/2015 at 01:54

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That is a little like California. Not with the luxury tax, although our sales tax is quite high. We have the highest gas taxes in America, I’m pretty sure. Our gas is always a dollar more than average.

No wonder you buy diesels. Italy looks pretty high, too. What do they do with all that money?

Jobjoris > Jonee 09/07/2015 at 07:55

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What happens to all that Italian money? You know this guy right?

Okay, that was in his own leisure time. But in his staff he had personnel like Nicole Minetti:

God I love Italy...

Jonee > Jobjoris 09/08/2015 at 01:10

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Wonderful country. Wonderful people.