Ex-Syrian President Assad Had A Pretty Mid Car Collection For A Dictator

The last few days have seen rapid changes in Syria, as the government’s hold on the country collapsed in the face of rebel advances. The weekend saw the rebels take Damascus, storming the palace of Syria’s evil and despotic ruler Bashar Al-Assad—revealing a cache of desirable cars lurking within.

Ruling a country generally comes with a fat paycheck, whether you do it by votes or with extreme cruelty. Bashar Al-Assad was undeniably wealthy by virtue of serving as the President of Syria, a role he held from 2000 up until the last day or so. As rebels made rapid gains across the country, Assad fled Syria for Moscow. In doing so, his regime ended, and he left his personal car collection behind.

A short video of the stash was shot in the dictator’s former compound, revealing a surprisingly mid car collection. The footage has since been shared across social media, and can be seen below.

Assads Lamborghini and other luxury cars in the hands of the Syrian rebels pic.twitter.com/xShJUaG3lK

— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) December 8, 2024

A Curious Collection

The video begins with a series of off-road vehicles. Three Toyota FJ Cruisers seem like an affordable way for a ruler to get around. The same could be said for the late second-generation Toyota Tundra, or the Lexus LX570.

The Lamborghini LM-002 we see in the collection is perhaps more befitting the aura Assad tended to project during his tenure. Indeed, US troops famously destroyed an LM-002 belonging to Uday Hussein in the wake of the Second Gulf War. One wonders whether Assad’s Lamborghini will see a similar fate.

There are a bunch more practical vehicles, too, including a Chevy van and a series of indistinct, darkly-colored SUVs. A later shot reveals them better, and I think we’re looking at a Cadillac Escalade, another Lexus LX-570, and maybe a Ford Expedition.

Let’s be honest, though. Short of Assad being a die-hard fan of the Ford Tempo (he’s not), I suspect you’re here to read about the exotics. Don’t worry—we’ll get to the good stuff.

There’s an S-Class, of course, which is almost the default car of fellows in Assad’s line of work. Interestingly, it’s an older model of the W221 generation, built from 2004 to 2013. Benzheads in the audience may be able to pin down the model more specifically. The terrible Syrian Civil War began in 2011 during the Arab Spring and, from there, Assad’s attention turned to buying chemical weapons to use on his own population and away from car collecting.

My suspicion is that Assad would have stumped up for V8 power at the very least, if not the beefier V12. Unsurprisingly, the Merc does appear to be losing fluids based on the marks on the ground. There’s also an Aston Martin, which I suspect to be a late-model DB9 based on the daytime running lights and the vents on the bonnet.

So far, it’s all pretty generic luxury fare. Syria’s not the most prosperous country in the world, but you still expect the president to have a better collection than your local Midwestern businessman who runs a chain of tire shops across three states.

Don’t worry, though. Assad did have some real gems, too. The Ferrari F50 is the most instantly recognizable—one of just 349 built.

That Ferrari did raise an interesting question, as below:

Can you be a mass murdering dictator without having at least one Ferrari F50 out of the 349 made? Trick question.

— Máté Petrány (@petrany) December 8, 2024

I can answer this question quite definitively—yes. There were plenty of murderous dictators around in the years before Ferrari delivered F50 to market in 1995. By definition, they couldn’t have owned the model during their reign. Pol Pot comes to mind, as do so many others.

But perhaps I can answer a similar question, asked by our own Matt Hardigree—how many Ferrari F50s were owned by autocratic rulers? I can’t easily account for all 349 examples, but we do know a few ended up in such hands. The Sultan of Brunei had a couple, including a custom model called the Bolide. The King of Jordan also had the pleasure of owning one as well.

Current FIA President Mohammed Bin Sulayem also owned one back in the 1990s. The Cambridge dictionary defines an autocrat as “a ruler with unlimited power, or someone who demands that people completely obey them.” I’d argue that more than justifies his inclusion on this list. Moving on. [Ed note: Oh boy, Lewin getting spicy! – MH]

Mohammed Ben Sulayem on Jeremy Clarkson's show aired on 1998, showcasing his F40, F50, Porsche 959 and Xj220
byu/320GT informuladank

More Cars

In any case, the F50 is parked next to a less-impressive Ferrari F430—the commodity model from the Prancing Horse in the late 2000s.  It actually has similar power and performance to the F50, just none of the prestige. There’s also a Lamborghini Diablo—presumably a real one at that.

The video shows a few more cars in the background, including a couple of Land Rovers we only see from the rear. The rest of the collection is too hard to easily make out from this video.

Bashar al Assad’s personal car collection as his people starved and 90% lived below the poverty line
byu/Dolphinfucker5000 insyriancivilwar

However, a second video gives us an additional look, shot from the perspective of someone driving into the warehouse. We also get to see an Audi R8, and a Mercedes-AMG SLS with its gullwing doors proudly popped open. Assad’s collection also hosts a bunch of motorcycles and ATVs, a few BMWs and Audis, RVs, an armored truck, and a Rolls-Royce in the most stereotypical silver.

I also think I spotted a Mercedes-Benz 600 somewhere in there, Also known as the Grosser Mercedes, it was crowned as the dictator car by Jeremy Clarkson once upon a time. I may have missed some other gems; feel free to point them out in the comments.

We don’t know if this is Assad’s full collection, and its future at this stage is unclear. The videos available just show one large garage filled with vehicles. It’s not the most opulent storage facility, either—more akin to a working garage than a museum or anything like that.

Compared to the collection of the former Sultan of Brunei… it’s positively pedestrian. You could be a mid-level executive at Wendy’s, and with some smart real-estate moves, you could probably put together a collection like this. There are more than a few YouTubers that have done the same. Why bother with politics, violence, and oppression when you can achieve the same automotive goals with more vanilla means?

Assad’s garage honestly feels dated. This feels like the car collection of someone that was big into golden era Top Gear, before the Three Amigos fled to Amazon after they were ousted from the BBC in the wake of violent clashes. A journey that now must feel altogether familiar to Assad himself. How the turn tables.

Image credits: via X screenshot, via Reddit screenshot, US Army