The IKCO Samand is an Iranian saloon produced by IKCO. The Samand production project began in 1996 and the first car was sold in 2000. The Samand inherits the mantle of Iran's national automobile from the Paykan, which was sold by Iran Khodro from 1967 to 2005.
Engine and components
The Iranian-designed Samand uses the Peugeot 405 platform, equipped with either IKCO-designed EF7 engines or PSAXU7JP/L3 engines, amongst others. IKCO manufactures 80% of Samand's parts domestically, including its Iranian-designed engine. For export markets, IKCO uses the Peugeot TU5JP4 engine. This is because the TU5 is a low consumption and powerful engine and because of the ease of finding its parts all over the Europe, since the TU5 has been used for the Peugeot 206, Peugeot 307 and Peugeot 207. The TU5 version of Samand comes with three new options: driver airbag, pretensioner seat-belts, headlight height adjuster and active antenna. Since early 2009, IKCO has used newly developed Iranian engines such as a dual-fuel national engine for its new models. In mid-2010, IKCO started to install petrol-only EF7 engines on Samand. The engine is not a petrol-based version of EF7 but the compressed natural gas parts of the engine are removed and also the engine control unit programme. However, the petrol-based version of the engine is currently under development.
In 2009, IKCO announced that they will produce Samand with their new engine EFD in 2010; however, due to the required tests for the engine, readying the car for installing the engine on it and also lack of distribution the Euro IVdiesel fuel in the country postponed the production time to 2011. On November 30, 2010 IKCO announced the major changes made in Samand compared to dual-fuel or single fuel Samands for making it compatible for installing the EFD engine on. This main changes are: changing the radiator, installing the intercooler, water and hydraulic hoses, engine housings, exhaust system gearbox and the engine compartment insulations.
Exports
Samand cars are exported to the following countries: Africa
Samand has been also manufactured in Minsk, Belarus, by the Unison firm alongside Lublin vans since September 2006. The Export Development Bank of Iran will finance the implementation of the project with a $36 million budget. By 2010, the plant's annual production capacity will reach 120,000 vehicles. Tehran would then be able to export additional production to Central Asia and European Union member states. Star company assembles Samand sedan in Azerbaijan under the local name AzSamand Aziz. Venirauto company started assembling Samand sedan in Venezuela from 2006. Siamco launched in March 2007 the assembly line of Samand in Syria. Iran Khodro also plans to assemble the Samand in Egypt in joint ventures in the future.
