[Update October 21th, 10:45 UTC / October 21th 20:15 NT time]

Two teams from Iran entered the World Solar Challenge this year, and unfortunately it has been extremely difficult to find any information about these teams and their cars. Correction: I have not been able to find any information about this teams, and I’ve wondered aloud a few times if these teams actually existed.

And they did exist, they passed scrutineering and entered the race. At the end of racing day five (newer position information is not yet available) the Qazvin Islamic Azad University team is at position twenty while the University of Tehran‘s team occupies the 31st spot.

Nuon Solar Team supporter Ton Boon thought of me when he had the opportunity to photograph one of these two ‘mystery cars’ and sent me two photos. This the Persian Gazelle II from the University of Tehran solar car team:

Persian Gazelle II

And a detail shot from one of the wheel fairings and solar panels

It’s clearly not as refined as some of the other solar racing cars currently in the WSC. Still, it looks quite good but unfortunately the team has no chance of making it to Adelaide within the official race time. They’ll have to trailer it to Adelaide. I sure hope they’ll participate in the 2013 WSC.