Driving everything from a ’46 Peugeot 202 to a stunning 300SL Gullwing, the Café Racers celebrate their first anniversary surrounded by restaurants, boutiques and luxury condos on Tehran’s Mirdamad Boulevard.
The Car Guys Who Lunch in Iran normally get together at racetracks or stage a road rally ending at a restaurant in the countryside. For them, getting together translates into exercising their cars. Tehran, like any major city, has lots of vehicle traffic and does not present a welcoming venue for serious car guys.
Celebrating their first anniversary was special so Café Racers’ Manager, Ramin Salehkhou, with help from his Team, arranged for special permits and negotiated with the Traffic Police, to hold their celebration lunch and show in bustling downtown Tehran. They were able to block off public space and allow parking and double parking for what ended up being a traffic-stopping show of vintage American and European cars. In addition to Ramin's Baldwin-Motion 454 Camaro, a '70 Camaro SS LT1, above, joined the group.
The owner of Aryana Restaurant, Masoud Jafarnejad, a car enthusiast who drives a pristine Mercedes 250C, offered to host the event. He also provided space inside to display a vintage motorcycle and made indoor parking spaces available to handle the overflow. A total of 41 cars showed up to celebrate the event. Aryana is located across Mirdamad Boulevard from Eskan Towers, left, one of the first luxury condo apartment buildings built in the 1960s.
“We invited members to show up at 11:00 and I brought my Baldwin-Motion 454 Camaro at 9:00 so I could make sure we had adequate parking. Members starting drifting in at 10:00 and by 11:00 more than 80% of the guys had arrived. Since Mirdamad Boulevard is like Midtown Manhattan, Mr. Jafarnejad had to get permits to rope off the front of his restaurant,” said Ramin.
The event drew the largest number of cars since the Tehan satellite group started. By 12:30, still an hour away from lunch, the cars had attracted pedestrians as well as motorists, causing a major traffic jam. That’s when the Traffic Police arrived. Fortunately they had their permits and were able to get the Police to help organize parking.
“We were causing traffic jams and without help from the Traffic Police, above, a really great bunch of guys who went all-out to accommodate us, we could have never been able to show our cars on the street. They also made it possible for us to park one of the cars, a ’57 Ford Skyliner, below, on the sidewalk in front of Aryana,” said Ramin.
“At 1:30 we started to eat lunch and I had expected that by 3:00, we’d be winding it down and starting to leave. That was not the case. Nobody wanted to leave, above,! Lunch went on until the last few stragglers left at 5:00. This had never happened before.”
The event brought together really interesting cars, like the 300SL, above, Peugeot 202, below, and car guys, including some of the major players in car club activity in Iran. The President of the Classic BMW Club of Iran came with his rare ’78 BMW (Bauer) convertible. Hadi Nikpour, Ramin’s Deputy at the Classic Car Committee of the Automobile Federation and Safa Ahmadi, President of the Tehran Chapter of the Classic Car Committee joined the group.
Nader Moajed, four-time Iran National Racing Champion, attended the lunch and is the previous owner of Ramin’s Baldwin-Motion Phase III 454 Camaro. He was quoted as saying, “The Baldwin-Motion Camaro was the only car I ever found that I could place First in a race and then pick up groceries with it on the way home!”
“It was a great day and it couldn’t have happened without a lot of help from my Team and friends. Special thanks go out to Mr. Ali Beheshti, a well-known car collector who connected us with Mr. Masoud Jafarnejad, owner of Aryana, who we also thank. I would be remiss if I didn’t thank you and the Sarasota Café Racers for introducing us to the fantastic Car Guys Who Lunch concept. We’re going to have to start planning for our second anniversary,” said Ramin.
Photos by Keyvan Moradi
For more information about the Car Guys Who Lunch in the United States and Iran, please visit, http://www.sarasotacaferacers.com/community.html