A bid for an old Peugeot 504 car belonging to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has reached $2 million after being put for auction, the Iranian ISNA news agency reported on Monday.
"We have received bids from many countries, and the last one was $2 million," Sadegh Mahsouli, Iran's minister of welfare and social security, was quoted by the news agency as saying.
The previous bid for the white 1977 car, received from an Arab country, was $1 million, ISNA said, adding that an average market price of such a car was about $2,000.
Ahmadinejad launched a website, ahmadinejad-car.com, to receive bids for his old vehicle in late December. The auction is scheduled to close in mid-February.
The Iranian leader has pledged to spend the money received from the auction on building houses for young people and others in need of housing.
Ahmadinejad was last seen in public in his Peugeot 504 in 2005, when he was the mayor of Tehran, ISNA said. Since then, he rarely used the car, apparently because of security concerns. RIA Novosti
