Paykan
Iranian car manufacturer
The Paykan (Persian: پيکان, romanized: Peykān meaning Arrow) is the first Iranian-made car produced by Iran Khodro, between 1967 and 2005. The car, formerly called "Iran National", is a licensed version of the British Rootes Arrow (Hillman Hunter) and was very popular in Iran from its introduction until its discontinuation.
The Paykan spawned some locally developed variants, most notably a coupé utility named Bardo and having a different body shell from other the one sold elsewhere.
History
The design was introduced to Iran by Mahmoud Khayami, co-founder and, by then, owner of the Iran Khodro (formerly called "Iran National") company and factory, who accurately predicted that Iran was in need of a simple "no-frills" motorcar within the price range of ordinary people.
The car itself originated in 1966 as the "Arrow" series of vehicles (the most prolific version of which was badged as the Hillman Hunter); designed and manufactured by the Rootes Group, which was the British wing of Chrysler Europe. In 1967, Rootes began exporting Hillman Hunters to Iran Khodro in "complete knock down" (CKD) kit form, for assembly in Iran. By the mid-1970s, full-scale manufacturing of the car (minus the engine) had started in Iran.
In 1977, Roy Axe designed a new Paykan facelift model using many interior and exterior parts from the Chrysler Alpine.
In 1978, PSA Peugeot Citroën purchased the ailing Chrysler Europe after Chrysler exited the European market; and with it acquired the rights to the Hillman Hunter/Arrow design. A year later, Peugeot ended Hillman Hunter production in Ireland.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q731832. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1967, 2005, 1966 and 1977.
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This entry incorporates text from “Paykan” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.