When it comes to cars, each country tends to develop its own unique tuner culture. Americans love their muscle cars and lifted trucks, Australians specialize in rorty V8 sedans, and Japan pioneered the turbocharged sports car. Over in Iran, though? There’s a bit of a movement centered around the wonderful Peugeot 405 and, in particular, with a style that’s not common almost anywhere else.
We first explored the Iranian connection with the tasteful French sedan a couple of years ago. Having first entered production in France in 1987, an Iranian factory was established in 1992. Fast forward to 2023, and the Peugeot 405 was still effectively in production as the Peugeot PARS. Produced by Middle Eastern automaker Iran Khodro, it was effectively the same old car with updated engines and a front end of the later Peugeot 406. The model line finally came to an end in the middle of last year amidst increased competition from more modern Chinese vehicles.
As you might imagine, there are a great many Peugeot 405s in Iran after 32 long years in production. With the model so ubiquitous in the Middle Eastern nation, it’s become a rich part of the local car culture, tuners and modders included.
It is nearly impossible to find high-resolution footage of the car scene in Iran, particularly outside of short clips of vertical video. This video gives us a great look at what’s going on over there—particularly where Peugeots are concerned.
Local Context
This past week, I spoke to Shayan. He happened across our previous coverage, and as an Iranian local, reached out to give me the scoop from the ground. “To be honest, we in Iran really like the Peugeot 405,” he told me. “Even though it has been 37 years since this car entered Iran, all young and middle-aged people are interested in this car.” He was then kind enough to provide me with a sampling of car content from his side of the world.
As with any Western car, certain trims and models are more prized than others. With the Peugeot 405, it’s the GLX that stands out from the crowd. “[It’s] a very beautiful version of the 405 that was produced in Iran with the XU9 and XU7 L3 engines,” Shayan explains. They’re a particularly desired engine for modification, but the GLX is also a nice trim in other regards, too. “This car from 2010 to 2013 has the same normal dashboard but in cream color, which is the most popular in the Iranian market.”
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Is a French sedan Iran’s favorite tuner car?
As a guide, the XU7 L3 is a 1.8-liter inline-four engine with an eight-valve head, capable of delivering 100 hp and 112 pound-feet of torque. It’s not a lot, but like so many car enthusiasts around the world, the Iranian set have learned to work with the hardware on offer. Typical mods include upgraded intake manifolds, pod filters, and exhausts, which net mild but noticeable power gains. More serious tuners go even further with turbos and nitrous oxide kits, with Shayan noting one example running the latter pushing up to 700 horsepower in an extreme state of tune. Overall, though, it’s a scene focused on making more power than stock rather than outright dyno queen numbers.
Beyond the GLX, the later Pars ELX is also popular amongst the enthusiast set. It boasts the later 8-valve, 1.9-liter XUM engine, also from Peugeot. It offered 105 horsepower and 114 pound-feet of torque, and has proven similarly tunable with aftermarket parts. It’s a popular engine swap, too, featuring regularly in Instagram posts from Iran regarding the 405.
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Stock, you might expect an Iranian Peugeot 405 or Pars to hit 118 mph (190 km/h) at full tilt. That was the official specification before the last models went out of production, but a lot more is possible. “Mother Iran, we have reached a speed of 260 km/h (161 mph) with this car!” Shayan told me with pride.
Indeed, top speed runs seem to be popular amongst Iran’s Peugeot fans. Head over to the right section of Instagram, and you’ll find endless videos of tuned 405s crossing the double metric ton (200 km/h, 124 mph).
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Top speed runs are commonly posted to Instagram by accounts that chronicle the scene. Many reference the 405 GLX and the Pars ELX, which featured the most desirable engines.
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Iran’s Peugeot enthusiasts get up to all the usual tuner stuff—cone intakes, engine swaps, and flashy head units abound in cars of the street racing set. The only thing largely missing is paint and panel work— most examples appear to get around looking fairly standard from the outside. The visual juxtaposition is strange, almost like a fleet of taxis went ham.
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You don’t see a lot of Peugeot 405s at American drag strips.
What intrigued me most, though, were photos of various Peugeot 405s with the rear end jacked way up high. Its customary across the West and Japan to lower a modified car, but things are a little different in the Islamic Republic. “In Iran, on the contrary, instead of making a car sporty with low height, they make them sporty with high height, which is also a long story,” Shayan explained.
As it turns out, the look has its roots in smuggling. “In fact, smugglers choose this car because of its high speed, and to prevent the rear of the car from hitting the ground… they raise the rear so that it is at a normal height when loaded,” Shayan explains. But, as much as it had a functional purpose, it also just became a visual trend among the enthusiast set. “In this sense, people also do this for looks.” You might think that jacking up the back of the car is a detriment to handling, and to an extent, that would be the case. Still, I was able to view one video I can’t repost here of a smuggler hitting 200 km/h (124 mph) in such a car—though it was riding pretty flat with 1.5 tons of payload in the back.
The trick is that some owners achieve this stance with the aid of air suspension. This allows the car to be jacked up at the rear for looks, while set at a regular level ride for driving around. It’s just like what the stance kids are doing, but with a different end goal in mind. Indeed, you’ll spot some of these owners swapping between the jacked-up Iranian look and a more traditional slammed stance on the regular.
You can fit a lot in a 405 if you have a singular goal.
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One innovative owner has apparently fitted their 405 with a system for dispensing caltrops to delay anyone tailing the vehicle.
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You can go to a car meet in Iran and expect to see a ton of noisy 405s.
The 405s of Iran are as varied and unique as their owners, though some trends do prevail. The strip of teal-blue trim around the body is particularly popular amongst the scene, as is the characteristic tail-up look. Other trends are similar to what you’d see in other worldwide scenes—pod filters, flashy stereos, and louder exhausts. There’s also a unique name for these vehicles, too. “Inside Iran, we call these [modified] vehicles fighter jets,” Shayan tells me.
Shayan was also kind enough to show me his own car. It’s a tastefully modified 405 GLX. It looks sharp in silver, it’s got the nice lighter interior, and it’s jacked at the back as all the best are. He’s also swapped out the manifold and headers to give the car a little more thrust. Aside from the stance, though, it keeps a largely stock look on the exterior—relatively common amongst modified 405 builds in Iran.
It looks largely stock from the exterior, as is common in the Iranian scene. Credit: Shayan, supplied
What truly amazed me was the wealth and depth of Iran’s tuner culture. It’s out there on the Internet, except it’s hidden from the mainstream Western view. It’s obscured by the fact that few of us can read Arabic hashtags or think to type ‘Peugeot 405 Iran’ into a search box on a regular basis. Had Shayan not brought this scene to my attention, I might not have known it existed.
Of course, political realities mean that you’re not going to see Western journalists and YouTubers covering the Iranian scene any time soon. We have to go without with cliche epic drone shots and superlative yelling as sliding 405s streak past the cameras in 4K. But that’s not entirely a bad thing. It means we learn about the culture from the people immersed in it—people like Shayan, who are going to the meets and documenting what it’s really like to be a part of it.
It’s no surprise the Peugeot 405 became a tuner darling in the Middle East. The simple fact is that it was a hugely relevant and important car in that country. It’s easy to think of Iran as some far-off country outside of the regular car scene, but it’s a burgeoning nation of 90 million people. A great many Iranians consider themselves car enthusiasts, and they’ve fallen in love with the hundreds of thousands of Peugeot 405s and Pars that were sold in their country over the years. These things racked up sales in the five and even six figures, year after year—so it’s no surprise they’re a cornerstone of the Iranian motoring culture.
Wherever there are people and cars, there will eventually be car enthusiasts. It doesn’t matter what you give them—be it Minis, Civics, or, indeed, Peugeots—and they’ll tweak them, mod them, and push them to the limits. The Iranian car scene is, of course, inaccessible and difficult to parse for most of us. There’s a huge language barrier, a few oceans in the way, and limited cultural exchange between our countries and theirs. And yet, it’s so obvious that the Iranian car scene is not so dissimilar from our own—appreciating all the joys that gasoline and rubber have to offer. It’s a beautiful thing.
Image credits: Shayan (supplied), Under Night Club via YouTube screenshot
Great report! The 405 was a great car.
Small correction: those aren’t Arabic hashtags, they’re Farsi (aka Persian) hashtags. Farsi, the language of Iran, is not a Semitic language like Arabic, and Iranians aren’t Arabs. Farsi does the Arabic alphabet, but that’s it–speaking Arabic won’t help you understand Farsi or vice versa any more than speaking English will help you understand Hindi.
The lifted rear for smuggling made me think of my grandparents. They used to smuggle booze from Canada into the States during prohibition.
I know they’re not modern, high-tech laden cars, but 405s aren’t bad looking at all for what they are. And that cream colored dash is pretty nice looking too in Shayan’s car. 🙂
First time I heard the word ‘caltrops’ was on an episode of Archer, and I had to look it up. Thanks for using it conversationally Lewin! 🙂
Yeah, big fan of the 405 look myself. One of the nicest basic “car” designs of its era, IMO.
Shayan’s 405 looks awesome. The stance isn’t too agressive and that front fascia is especially good looking (I don’t love later facelifts, although I love it that they kept being done, extending the life of the platform itself).
I wish this happened a lot more – tooling for discontinued platforms being reused in other markets where they’re still useful. It’s such a no-brainer way to build affordable cars. A few weeks ago I learned that the second gen Ford Transit (a design introduced in 1986) is still in production in a roundabout way: Jiangling Motors started building them in China back in 1997, and never stopped selling same basic body under various designations, and with some facelifts, and here they are, building the JMC Teshun EV in 2025 – an electric 80s Ford Transit. It’s ugly as fuck, sure, but I can’t not love it.
They’re simply balancing out the idiots in Carolina.
HA!
Who knew that Seinfeld episode would also apply to tuner cultures an ocean apart.
(“In the Arms of an Angel” by Sarah McLachlan plays)
“Right now, on the other side of the world, Americans are struggling. The rears of their trucks drag on the ground like the anuses of sick dogs.”
(Cut to a slowed down black and white clip of a truck with a Carolina squat, and then a very sad looking Carolina dog.)
“But for a mere 2.54cm, you can help these poor Americans travel to the hamburger farm and back. Won’t you give a little height from your Peugeot’s rear to help these struggling people?”
Amazing, my 2nd car was a 405 Mi16x4 that came with self raising and levelling oil suspension (that sometimes failed and left me driving around slammed to the ground) and a 16v 1.9 ~160bhp XU9J4 lump that was very capable of getting me into trouble. I’m very happy to find that 405s still live on in one part of the world, pretty much gone from UK roads.
Persian Crown Vic boys. An emphasis on on personalizing, but keeping it functional. A mentality of enough horsepower for cruising is plenty. But I’m willing to bet Philly and Baltimore’s freak weeks have Tehran beat
Lifting the back like old school hot roders and bootleggers possible similar reasons? Black market must be thriving in an authoritarian country. French connection to iran is always amusing yields some strange things.
Yes to the bootleggers. Also I heard of a junkyard who lifted a panel van so they could haul engines and be level
From the Pentagon parking lot no less. They used to call it the biggest part store in the country.
Prayer position
Especially convenient for 5-a-days
my love to 405 Peugeot started with Taxi movie
406
various car cultures and their stories around the world is always a good read!
Thank you!
I never understood why In the US, Peugeots and other non premium European brands were generally snubbed by car buyers and seen as unreliable and not very durable. Meanwhile, in the rest of the world they rack up hundreds of thousands of miles in the harshest conditions.
Well, there is an element of truth in that opinion, and simultaneously the complete counterargument. Allow me to explain: common wisdom (and a joke) around my parts (Belgium) is that French cars break down the first week you buy them new, but you can just ignore that defect and they will continue to run (poorly) for 40 years.
Yes, they are notoriously failure-prone rustbuckets, but at the same time they are designed to stay in use in poor, rural backwoods with little to no access to maintenance. Consider it the Deux Chevaux heritage. I kinda like it.
Unreliable? Hell yes. Not very durable? Far from it, the opposite actually.
I had a Peugeot 206 for a while and I can totally vouch for this. It was a shitbox when I got it, but somehow never left me stranded*, and generally passed it’s MoT test every year, first time. Even managed a 1000 mile trip to France one year, with four adults and all our camping gear (there was not much space left inside). I never loved that car, but it was an absolute trooper.
I do still have one picture of it that reall sums it up: https://i.imgur.com/lSW602N.jpg
*(although there were the times when it tried to overheat during the summer, so I had to drive around with the heater on full blast out of the sun roof to keep it just cool enough to avoid limp mode)
Love that photo Phuzz! Thanks! 😀
So what they say about rolling stones isn’t exactly true.
Part of it was Peugeot just never really tried to take the US market even semi-seriously. They had one parts warehouse to service the entire country and kept minimal inventory in it, so if your car broke down in New Mexico, it might well end up sitting for 3-4 weeks if the distribution center in New Jersey was out of stock and what you needed had to come from France. Their dealer network was also pretty small, vast regions of the country had no presence at all, and they didn’t use a lot of discretion in picking franchisees, some of them were gas stations or used car lots that just hung a sign and parked a couple of new 505s out front, with no real service department
Renault tried to do things right by taking control of American Motors and converting the existing AMC manufacturing infrastructure and dealer network over to their brand, but they kind of moved too slow in introducing new products and had a lot of quality control issues on the Alliance and Encore, then ran into labor trouble at home that made their speculative venture in North America suddenly untenable
Dealers. Most were combos with other US brands. Detroit- I remember Dalgleish Cadillac-Olds-Peugeot on Cass. (can you imagine trying to sell a Peugeot spitting distance from the GM Building?)
The Peugeot dealer where I live was combined with a trailer and outdoor goods store. So you could buy a car hauler, a log splitter, a camper, or a 505. Despite the fact that Peugeot got the hell out of here in 1991 the place kept the sign up through multiple owners all the way until 2022, when a mechanic’s shop franchise moved in, stripped all the character out of the building by quite literally plastering everything flat, and removed all the exterior lights and signs.
I remember seeing various Peugot 505s around when I was a teenager in New York. Some wagons too I think. Even the less fancy trims were handsome, nicely proportioned cars IMO.
considered buying an 80s diesel 505 a couple years back. handsome things…
The 505 is one of Peugeot’s best designs of all time.