One of the things I like best about the automotive world are stories about how, against all odds, some legendary cars manage to have lifespans far beyond what any reasonable, rational person would expect. Some cars manage to sneak into whole second lives, after their original run is over, usually by escaping to some other country and re-establishing itself there.
The original VW Beetle was sort of like this, thriving in Mexico and Brazil long after it began disappearing from American and European streets. The Citroën 2CV getting renewed as the IES Super America in Argentina, the old Willys Station Wagon becoming the Ford Rural and so on. The one I learned about today is especially exciting, I think, because it’s a strange Frankenstein of two quite different cars, joined in unholy but kind of amazing union in, of all places, Iran.
The main car involved here is the Renault 5, the first generation. The R5 was, of course, an iconic piece of automotive design, pioneering some design details we take for granted on modern cars to this day. It was one of the first true superminis, and went through a number of generations and variations.
The other car involved is the Kia Pride, which we got here in America as the Ford Festiva.
So, what’s the connection between these two cars, and what does it have to do with Iran? Well, back in 1976, Renault and an Iranian company called SAIPA made an agreement so that SAIPA could build the Renault 5 under license, called the Sepand. The Sepand, like the R5, sold very well, but, like all of us, it aged, and Renault did not update the licensing agreements to permit SAIPA to produce the later generations of the R5, meaning that the Sepand was a 1972 car being built well into the 1990s.
Then, in 1993, SAIPA got the rights to build the Kia Pride (also known as the Mazda 121, and, as we mentioned, the Ford Festiva), so they replaced the aging R5 with this significantly more modern car. Feeling confident, the company sold the old R5 tooling to their competitor, the other Iranian carmaker, Pars Khodro, who kept on cranking out the old R5/Sepand.
Okay, fast-forward to the magical year 2000: for a variety of geopolitical reasons, Renault cut ties with Pars Khodro, so the engines and other drivetrain and suspension parts that were coming from France were no longer available, and then, right as all that was happening SAIPA took over Pars Khodro, so the two companies were now together again.
So, what is Pars Khodro going to do? They had the body tooling for the R5, but none of the needed underpinnings. But now that they’re part of SAIPA, they have access to the Kia Pride drivetrain and platform. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?
That’s right! It’s time to make a Frankenstein car with a Kia Pride platform and drivetrain, but with a Renault 5 body! There are plenty of differences between the two cars to make this exciting: the original R5 was front-wheel drive, but with a longitudinal engine; the more modern Kia used a transverse engine and FWD layout like most modern small cars. Plus, the Kia platform had a front track about four inches wider than the Renault and the rear was six inches wider, which meant that the resulting car, which was called the Pars Khodro Sepand PK (maybe for Pride, Kia?) had these kind of fantastic-looking plastic wheel arch extensions to compensate.
I mean, look at it:
The Mazda-derived engine made about 62 horsepower, but even more importantly, the new drivetrain allowed for air-conditioning, which is a big deal in a country like Iran.
I think the widened black plastic fender flares and wide-track stance give the PK a sporty, aggressive look, almost reminiscent of the legendary R5 Turbo. Of course, that was absolutely not the intent, making these perhaps the only wheel arch extensions to be designed because of geopolitical reasons.
I really like this strange version of the Renault 5, and, incredibly, this version of the car, with some updates to things like the taillights and other bits of trim, continued to be built until 2008! That means the first-generation Renault 5 body managed to be built for a remarkable 36 years!
The strange products of ingenuity and desperation and socio-political-religious factors really can end up making some fascinating cars.
Pars Khodros also built the first-generation Cadillac Seville (under the brand name, “Cadillac Iran“) in Iran from 1978 to 1987.
I asked my wife about these and she said her dad had one, it was blue. That’s all I’ve managed to get out of her and now she’s asleep.
They also had a locally-built 2CV in the 90s that the whole family of five used to take on long trips. I believe she described these trips as “noisy”.
When I visited Iran in the late 2010s it was fascinating to see the unusual array of cars – a significant number based on French models from 2, 3 or more generations prior but still in production. Things like the Peugeot 405 (called the Peugeot Pars, very commonly seen as taxis), or the 206 (which is my wife’s family’s current car).
The Saipa Saba/Nasim was also extremely common and I rode in a few when using Snapp (Iran’s version of Uber). My wife would often refer to them as “Pride”, referring to its Kia Pride origins, though interestingly it doesn’t appear to have ever been marketed as a Pride in Iran, so perhaps it was a nickname? Again my wife is asleep next to me so I’m unable to confirm this. My main recollection of these cars is how incredibly thin the doors were.
While there I also noted a large number of Chinese cars (many made locally under licence, as is very common in Iran), which are probably becoming even more prevalent in the years since my visit as the country becomes more isolated.
That is so cool. How do you find this kind of rabbit hole to follow?
The R5 and especially the Turbo 2 are classic designs.
I want one! The quirkiness of a LeCar and the cockroach never die tendencies of a Ford Festiva. Sign me up! Torch, you have me reconsidering cancelling my sub. I was pissed that David has yet to live out of the Aztec for a week as was promised months ago. Also, I really don’t need to read about Mercedes showering naked out in nature.
“Feed my Frankenstein!”
Alice Cooper?
Yup! Great song. Recently I watched Wayne’s World again and that part is hilarious
“What the hell are we doing?! We got backstage passes to Alice Cooper!”
I’m just shocked that the Renault 5 was narrower than the Kia Pride.
The R5 is a very small car. Even by 1970s standards it was small.
Happy to see it.. I’d buy a new Renault 5 😉
my first car was a 1972 Hillman Vogue, South African version. That meant instead of the Rootes-Arrow engine, it had a Peugeot 404 engine.. which luckily was a terrific engine, the rest of the car kinda fell apart but the engine never ever faltered.
They went on being made in Iran for another 30 years or so as the Paykan.
Pride is a sin. I can’t believe this got past the censors and mullahs.
No worries, the head gasket just got removed on the public square and made an example out of ….
Iran when it parked.
The rear part of that rocker is so trippy, even in the original Iranian R5. They removed the exhaust tip from the side but left the gap. So it looks like the car comes with a dented rocker from factory.
Also, what an odd change (moving the tailpipe) for a car that was supposed to be just a rebadging. Who knew that Iran had such stringent regulations on tailpipe placement…
The tailpipe was never at the side, always at the back.
I believe the shaping of the rocker was designed around the suspension system, with the hole to access the fastener for the torsion bar for the suspension of the opposite rear wheel.
I assume by swapping to Pride underpinnings, the rear suspension changed from Renault’s torsion bars to Kia’s coil springs, and so the revised car had the same wheelbase at both sides, unlike the original Renault which had the rear wheels offset from each other to package the two transverse torsion bars one behind the other.
in Spring 2004 my first car a 1991 Ford Festiva GL. It was mint, 1 owner, with about 90k miles. Looking back my dad never should have given me that car, not because it was a bad car, but because it was a time capsule. Then I did what teenagers do, and beat the shit out of it. We cleaned out every junkyard in the county of their Festiva headlights. Too bad.
The thing was great. 5 speed manual. Fuel injected, 1.3L, 4 Cylinder with 73 hp. I hit 85 in that thing regularly. No matter how I drove, it returned 30 mpg. I remember being pissed when I had to drop more than $20 to fill it up. Ahh the good old days.
Used Sepand PK for sale. Iran when parked.
How late were you for your appointment, and how far away did you park?
Oh wow, one of my favourite obscure cars just got Torched!
Two Torch articles in the same morning: are you thinking what I’m thinking?
American Marketing
1968 Chevy II “maximum functionalism with thrift”
Iranian Marketing
2000 Sepand PK “A compact car with the powerful engine”
Just proves that wherever you hang your hat in this world Marketers just gotta Market it.
This blew my mind. Also Jason, it’s even more frankenstein: it has the windshield, roofline and upper sides of the front and rear doors of a Renault 12 / Dacia 1300 which were widely exported to Iran from Romania. It’s a 3-car mashup!
but the 1300/12 were quite a bit wider than the 5. It seemed that at the time renault used the same window frames on all their cars.
True! Good point. Looks like tooling for lots of subcomponents was shared giving them similar looks.
My first car was a Festiva, and I’ve had two R5s, so a PK would be ideal for me. I have a few Iranian colleagues and they loved my R5 even though they all drive BMWs here.
It wouldn’t be a classic Torch post without a mention of tail lights. This is exactly what I’ve been craving.
Ngl, the PK actually looks pretty nice!
I had no idea the R5 was narrower than a Festiva, by 4 to 6 inches no less, not just fractionally. The rounded body design looks bigger to the eye.
I remember someone dropped a 510 body on a Miata chassis, and I was shocked by how much they had to widen the 510 body to fit.
Necessity is the mother of all invention as they say. Designs that have taken on second or third lives that were never intended originally.
Some other car factory also re-bodied the FWD transverse layout Peugeot 405 onto a much older longitudinal layout RWD platform they had the tooling for.
I guess they had similar reasons for doing so.
They should have made the whole thing wider- I had one of the early series and it was tight for two large guys in the front, shoulder to shoulder I think it was narrower than a UR Mini