Iraqi Booty: Uday Hussein’s Luxury Vehicles Are Discovered
BAGHDAD, Iraq — In an intriguing automotive footnote to the war in Iraq, police here have found a fleet of expensive luxury vehicles that once belonged to Uday Hussein, son of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
Video of the vehicles is making the rounds on the BBC and CNN.com. Police say the fleet was found on a farm in southern Baghdad and was apparently on its way out of the country. Thieves had intended to smuggle the cars out of the country and then sell the vehicles on the international market. A report on CNN said that Iraqi officials plan to move the vehicles to an unnamed museum for rare and vintage vehicles.
The vehicles appear to be more fit for the junkyard than a museum at this point. Police showed them off in the videos, pointing out the torn upholstery and engine compartments covered in dust. They are not drivable at this point.
Uday Hussein, Saddam’s oldest son, has a long and checkered automotive history that sounds like it belongs in the plot of a James Bond movie. He was struck by eight bullets while driving a Porsche during a failed assassination attempt in 1996, according to Wikipedia. Uday Hussein was also said to have been enraged when U.S. military forces hot-wired his Lamborghini. He later died in a gunfight with those forces. According to CNN, Uday rarely bought a vehicle. Instead, he confiscated appealing vehicles from the Iraqi citizenry whenever he saw one that he liked.
Dictators and their vehicles are the seamy underbelly of the automotive world’s rich subculture. North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il is said to be one of the world’s biggest consumers of Mercedes-Benz vehicles, with an estimated personal fleet numbered at around 2,000. South Korean sources tell Inside Line that the North Korean dictator is fond of handing out Mercedes-Benz vehicles as rewards to his underlings for good behavior. Kim Jong-il was born in February 1942, and his birth was marked by a double rainbow and a bright star in the sky, according to a BBC profile. No word on whether that was a three-pointed star with German roots.
What this means to you: You get a inside look at what dictators and their kin like to drive, courtesy of the unearthing of Uday Hussein’s fleet. — Anita Lienert, Correspondent