Iran stops registration of beloved Nissan Junior pickup truck

Iran’s ministry of industry (MIMT) says it will not allow the production of Nissan Junior pickup truck to continue in the country because of major safety risks associated with the beloved old model.

A senior official of the MIMT said on Tuesday that the ministry had decided to suspend the license given to Nissan Junior, known in Iran as Blue Nissan, based on the results of its safety tests.

Mehdi Angouraj said the decision means the police will no longer be able to issue registration plates for the pickup truck model.

“The production of this car started 70 years ago and no improvement has been made in the fields of safety and quality of this model except for its engine which has been turned into an 8-valve engine with high fuel consumption,” said Angouraj.

He said that drivers and passengers using Blue Nissan have been involved in major accidents with high injury and mortality rates because of its unibody structure.

The official said that seats, brakes and lights of the truck model have failed various safety tests.

The Blue Nissan, produced by Zamyad in Iran under the name of Z24, is responsible for a significant part of inner-city and road freight transport in Iran. Zamyad have resisted several calls for discontinuing the model mainly because of concerns about job losses in its plants.

Many Iranians feel nostalgic about Blue Nissan as films and songs have been produced about it in recent years.

Angouraj said Zamyad managers had ignored repeated calls for correcting safety flaws in the pickup truck, adding that models that use compressed natural gas as alternative fuel have been involved in numerous explosions in recent years.

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