You might have heard about what’s going on in Syria by now. Rebels overtook the capital city of Damascus and the nation’s dictator Bashar al-Assad fled, leaving some of his many riches behind. That includes his car collection, which features exotics like a Ferrari F50—though that’s nothing surprising. What I’d argue is surprising is the ’90s Revcon Trailblazer tucked away in the corner, which is essentially a six-wheeled Ford F-350 motorhome. What’s a guy like that got to do with a rig like this?
Of course, we’ve seen before that bigger is better in Middle Eastern car culture. There’s a 21-foot-tall Hummer H1 that lives in the United Arab Emirates. But this blue-collar adventure rig isn’t that. My coworker Bev touched on it in her story recapping Assad’s broader collection but allow me to chase this rabbit for just a minute.
The six-wheeled Trailblazer was essentially an EarthRoamer bug-out vehicle before that kind of thing existed. It was extreme in style and price, boasting a $180,000 starting MSRP in 1993 as the “world’s only all-terrain motorcoach.” While every well-to-do Tom, Dick, and Harry wants a built overlanding machine these days, that wasn’t the case when the Trailblazer came out. It seems only 67 were ever built, and a few survivors have popped up for sale in recent years. I wrote about one this summer that was listed for $125,000, though others before it were offered up for around $45,000.
Every Trailblazer I’ve seen is powered by a 460-cubic-inch gas V8 with an automatic transmission. Importantly, they aren’t true 6x6s—two of the wheels ride on a tag axle with no driveline connected. It surely needs that tag axle to manage the massive weight as these suckers are 30 feet long, 10 feet 6 inches tall, and 8 feet wide.
So knowing all that about the old-body-style Ford motorhome, it begs the question: What is the Syrian dictator doing with one? Unlike the Sultan of Brunei’s recently leaked collection, most in Assad’s dusty warehouse seem to be roadworthy. We only get a brief glimpse of the Trailblazer so it’s hard to say what condition it’s in, but I have a hard time picturing him hitting the desert in one of these. I can only assume he bought it just to say he did.
In case you hadn’t noticed, that’s a running theme among people like him.
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