|
Baghdad: Bilal Hussain gazed lovingly at his 1991 Mustang GT convertible. Sure, it already has a skull in a jester's hat stencilled on the hood, but if the sky were the limit, he would add monster tires, a new stereo "and a set of mufflers that shoot out flames".
And his automotive holy grail? Hydraulics to make his car bounce like the ones he sees on TV.
"If only we had the materials here," said Hussain, a 26-year-old ambulance driver.
Saif Eddin Abdul Nasser, 22, has more modest dreams for his 1993 red Ford Probe with yellow racing stripes and "Fright Night" stencilled on the rear window. "I just want to be able to drive it all over Baghdad," he said.
Abdul Nasser, who works as a security guard for the Baghdad bureau of a Western television news station, feels safe driving only in the fairly quiet, upscale districts of Karada and Jadriya.
"I never go near Palestine Street, Yarmouk, Beirut Square" or other dodgy districts, he said. These are conflicted times for Baghdad's tightknit community of car-heads.
The fall of Saddam Hussain has enabled them to create their dream rides like never before.
Saddam's notorious son Uday and his cronies controlled all car imports into Iraq. Uday was also a car freak known for on-the-spot confiscations of any vehicle that caught his fancy.
The end of the Saddam era opened Iraq's borders to new and used cars, along with exotic parts and Western car magazines.
The MTV show "Pimp My Ride" is now a popular feature on Arabic satellite TV; Bilal Hussain, the Mustang driver who dreams of flaming mufflers, is a big fan.
Now, in addition to the threat from roving gangs of opportunistic carjackers, there are armed extremists, both Sunni and Shiite, who might view an overly showy car as sinfully extravagant.
"We have the Mahdi Army on one side, Al Qaida on the other side, thieves everywhere, and we're caught in the middle," said Hussain, who also sticks to safer streets.
The dangers of the Baghdad streets don't seem to discourage Adnan Gulan, 27, who, along with his 28-year-old brother, Hesham, runs an auto repair shop that's one of the anchors of the city's car culture.
Hussain and Abdul Nasser are regular visitors. Abdul Nasser often brings in pages from one of his favourite car magazines with suggested designs or modifications for his Probe.
The Gulan brothers, ethnic Kurds who lived in Jordan for several years and returned to Iraq after Saddam's fall, have owned a succession of hot rods that they describe in loving detail.
"I want to have a car that makes people turn their heads as I drive by," said Adnan Gulan, who favours sleeveless shirts that show off a collection of tattoos.
Their current pride and joy, a tricked-out white 1987 BMW M3 with front and rear spoilers, broad blue and red stripes, and a red eagle on the door, certainly turns heads.
They bought it from a man who put the car in storage for years after being chased by Uday Hussain's thugs one night. Inside, the detailing is even more over the top - red and yellow leather everywhere, dragons on the floorboards and a set of stereo speakers that take up most of the back seat.
Abu Mustafa, owner of a venerable central Baghdad auto accessories store, has watched the trends with bemusement. In business since the 1980s, he used to deal in such practical needs as seat cushions, brake pedals and mirrors.
After Saddam's ouster, demand increased for stencilled designs on car doors - mostly religious slogans or Iraqi flags. But in the past year, he said, the requests have become more flamboyant.
Customers want stylised lettering, nonsensical slogans in English (for instance, the Gulans have a huge red and yellow banner across the top of their windshield that says "DRAGEN BOL") and the occasional wild animal.
"One guy requested a large dragon," said Abu Mustafa, who has a sign on the wall pleading, "Please ... Please no talking about religion or politics".
Adnan Gulan boasts of getting up to 150mph on the highways but he frowns on urban street-racing as irresponsible.
In the Wild West of modern-day Iraq, even carjackers need to watch their step. Hesham Gulan and Abdul Nasser recently eluded would-be thieves with the same trick of jumping the median and escaping against traffic.
"We went home and got weapons and came back to look for them," Hesham said, "but they were gone."
|
