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A classic car enthusiast's untouched paradise - 140 vintage and classic vehicles belonging to the former Shah of Iran - sits undisturbed in a warehouse outside Teheran.
Little work has been done to restore them to their former glory because the foundation in charge of their upkeep is struggling to raise money.
Among the star pieces, blanketed by a thick layer of dust, is a bulletproof 1953 Rolls-Royce Phantom IV which was used by the Shah to parade the newborn Crown Prince Reza Shah from hospital to his palace.
A Mercedes 500K coupe, the only one left in the world out of six made, is rumoured to have transported Hitler to review his troops shortly before the Second World War. "A private collector offered us $3 million [£1.7 million] for the 500K last month," said Mr Jaffari. But the Foundation of the Deprived and Martyrs, which confiscated the cars after the 1979 Islamic revolution, will not sell any of the irreplaceable vehicles. They believe that as they were bought by the car-obsessed monarch with the public's oil money, they should be displayed to the public and not allowed out of the country.
The Imperial Pahlavi family ruled Iran for most of the 20th century before being overthrown amid intense public distaste for their profligacy. Older people talk of nights when the Shah raced against his twin sister with their Lamborghinis and Ferraris into the early hours on newly built Tehran highways.
A 1974 Lamborghini Countach displayed in the public museum section of the warehouse was given to the Crown Prince by his aunt for passing his driving test. "We rely heavily on museum ticket sales for our restoration budget, and we have started to loan the cars as advertisement tools to production companies," said Mr Jaffari.
(Above: Mercedes-Benz 500K inside the museum)
After the Iranian Revolution of 1979, the Shah of Iran fled the country and leaving behind most of his possessions. He was famous for his love of sports cars, and he was known for taking out one of his many cars late at night and racing through the highways of Tehran. After he fled the country, many of his cars were put into hiding: either stored in garages, hidden underground, or even pushed into water. Following the revolution, these cars have been recovered, restored, and put into the museum. On rare occasions, these cars are actually driven.
The C12 S used a 7.0 L (7010 cc) AMG tuned version of the engine producing 550 PS (404 kW/543 hp). It can accelerate to 60 mph (97 km/h) in 3.7 s, to 100 mph in 9.5 s and complete the quarter mile in 11.9 s. Lateral acceleration on the skidpad is 0.98 g (9.6 m/s2). The car is 10 kg (22 lb) lighter than the normal Zonda C12. Top speed is 220 mph (354 km/h) for the coupe and 215 mph (346 km/h) for the roadster. The car's price tag was US$350,000.
Zonda interior is an engaging mix of high tech and natural materials. Every inch of the car was passionately designed, even if a few details are over the top.
The Aston Martin DB9 is a sports car with GT levels of comfort and refinement. Its design philosophy is uncompromising and brings together everything that makes a sports car great with that unique Aston Martin character. It has a fully equipped cabin trimmed in the finest quality materials; DB9’s 6.0-litre V12 and shift-by-wire fully automatic transmission.
The DB9 comes in two variants; coupé and "Volante" convertible, each with a 6.0 L 450 brake horsepower (335 kW) V12 engine taken from its sister car the V12 Vanquish. The Vanquish engine produces 10 bhp (7 kW) more. In fact, this V12 engine is why Aston Martin did not call the car the DB8, which could suggest that it has only eight cylinders. One report states that Aston Martin believed that this car was such a huge leap from the Jaguar XJ-S based DB7 that it named it DB9 instead of DB8, which they thought would indicate a gradual evolution. As of 2004 production is expected be up to five thousand units a year which is roughly the same as its rivals, in particular the Ferrari F430 and Porsche 911 Turbo. This car was designed to ensure Aston Martin's continued survival into 21st century in light of its past financial troubles. Traditionally being a maker of more exclusive automobiles, CEO Dr. Ulrich Bez assures Aston loyalists that production numbers of the new DB9 will be slightly higher than previous models; however, the Aston will still retain only a small statistical percentage of the high-end sports car market.
The car has an artificial neural network implemented at the hardware level to detect engine misfires. The car has been adapted for sports car racing by Prodrive. The DBR9, as it is called, first saw competition at the 12 Hours of Sebring in 2005 and won the LMGT1 category, but was beaten by arch-rivals Corvette Racing in the Le Mans GT1 class.
The Carrera GT's development can be traced back to a Porsche successor to the 911 GT1-98 and LMP1-98 racing cars that had ended after the 1998, partially due to FIA and ACO rule changes. Porsche at the time had planned on a new Le Mans prototype for 1999. The car was initially intended to use a turbocharged flat-6, but was later redesigned to use a new V10 engine, pushing the project back to planned competition in 2000. The V10 was a unit secretly built by Porsche for the Footwork Formula One team in 1992, but later shelved. The engine was resurrected for the Le Mans prototype and increased in size to 5.5 litres. Unfortunately the project was cancelled shortly before the first car could be completed in the middle of 1999, mostly due to Porsche's wish to build the Cayenne SUV with involvement from Volkswagen and Audi, thus requiring engineering expertise to be pulled from the motorsports division. It was also speculated that VW-Audi chairman Ferdinand Piëch wanted Audi's new Le mans Prototype, the Audi R8 not to face competition from Porsche in 2000.
Originally a production run of 1,500 cars was planned. But Porsche announced in August, 2005 that it would not continue production of the Carrera GT through 2006. Porsche announced that this discontinuation was due to changing airbag regulations in the US. However, diminishing sales volumes, relatively high dealer inventory levels, and dealer discounts below MSRP were reported by the automotive press to be the true factors driving an early end to the production run[citation needed]. Despite the early end to production, worldwide sales of the Carrera GT surpassed the combined totals of the Enzo Ferrari, the Mclaren F1, and the Pagani Zonda.
Many of the initial customers were dissatisfied not only with the modifications to the original specification but the significant increase in delivery price from the original £361,000 to £403,000 ($650,000 USD). Further complicating the issue was Tom Walkinshaw's offer of the faster (by acceleration, not top speed), more expensive and more exclusive XJR-15 which was based on the Le Mans champion XJR-9. Some customers reportedly either sued Jaguar or threatened to sue—in any case, Jaguar gave the customers the option to buy themselves out of the delivery contract.
Mercedes Benz McLaren SLR Specifications:
McLaren F1 Specifications:
Chief engineer Gordon Murray's design concept was a common one among designers of high-performance cars: low weight and high power. This was achieved through use of high-tech and expensive materials like carbon fiber, titanium, gold and magnesium. The F1 was one of the first production cars to use a carbon-fiber monocoque chassis.
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