For more than a decade the traditional car manufacturing hubs in Italy, Germany, Japan, and the United States have been challenged by a host of developing countries who are changing the business with their lower production costs and geographic proximity to burgeoning markets in Africa and Asia. Global demand for more affordable cars, coupled with Western investment, has shifted the automobile manufacturing epicenters east. For many, India holds the future of the auto production process, denoted recently by the Tata Group’s purchase of Jaguar and Range Rover. Within the MENA region, however, it is Iran that is making the car industry headlines, as it is set to establish its own presence in Asia and abroad with its car giant Khodro, branching into new markets and demanding attention for its forays into Europe, Africa, and Asia. Since Iran’s auto industry inception in the 1960s with the Peykan — modeled after the
