Ryan Manelick's Hyundai Galloper

The second of three posts here at the Missing Man looking at vehicles:

1. Kirk von Ackermann's Nissan Patrol SUV
2. Ryan Manelick's Hyundai Galloper
3. The 'nice white Land Cruiser' driven by Manelick's assailants

Photo of a four-door 2002 Hyundai Galloper listed for sale in France.

On December 14, 2003, Ryan Manelick was driving a white Hyundai Galloper when he was shot and killed shortly after leaving a meeting at Camp Anaconda at the Balad Air Base in Iraq.

Gunmen had sprayed his vehicle with automatic fire, putting three bullets in him: one in his leg, another in his chest and a kill shot in the back of the neck. -- Death of a Contractor

Two Iraqi employees were traveling in the car with Manelick: one survived, one died. According to an email written by John Dawkins to Ryan Manelick's father, Greg, the assailants were driving a 'nice white Land Cruiser' when they pulled up along side and opened fire. Manelick had recently alleged fraud within the company he worked for, Ultra Services, and that it involved US Army officers. His murder remains under investigation.

In December 2003, at the time of Ryan Manelick's death, the insurgency had not yet taken hold; Saddam Hussein had only just been captured the day before and fewer than 20 contractors had died while working in Iraq. Four years later, civilian contractor fatalities stand at over 1,123 of which 301 were recorded in 2006, and 353 in 2007.

About the Hyundai Galloper














Photo of a two-door 2003 Hyundai Galloper listed for sale in Portugal.

The Hyundai Galloper is closely related to the Mitsubishi Pajero and the Hyundai Terracan ('Earth King'). The Terracan was introduced in 2002 to replace the Galloper. The Korean-made Hyundai Galloper was considered a "poor man's" version of the Japanese-made Mitsubishi Pajero. Financially, it was in reach for some middle class Iraqis.

The Hyundai Galloper was manufactured between 1991-2003 and later re-badged as the Mitsubishi Pajero. The Pajero is also known as the Shogun (UK) and Montero (Americas and Spain). The Mitsubishi Pajero is very popular through out the Middle East. The biggest direct competitor to the Mitsubishi Pajero is the Toyota Land Cruiser.

On March 31, 2004, four Blackwater employees, Jerry Zovko, Scott Helvenston, Wesley Batalona and Michael Teague, were driving in two Pajero SUVs when they were attacked and killed in Fallujah (ref). Just one year earlier, British ITV News correspondent, Terry Lloyd, was driving a Pajero when he was caught in crossfire between the Republican Guard and US forces near Basra. (ref & ref).

The debris of war
By Phillip O'Connor, Post-Dispatch, March 14, 2004

[Sean] O'Sullivan, 39, founded his own nongovernmental organization whose goal is to use Iraqi labor to tear down and clear the hundreds, if not thousands, of bombed-out and looted buildings that scar Baghdad's landscape. [...]

He has almost no overhead. His office is a white Hyundai Galloper in which he rides from job site to job site. His few supplies include a laptop computer, cell phone, electronic organizer, business cards and a well-worn pair of black work boots.

Four months later, in July 0f 2004....

Iraq: A Place of Ambivalence
By Tish Durkin, Huffington Post, April 6, 2007

I remember Mohaymen, a 26-year-old Iraqi who, with my then-fiancé, co-founded JumpStart, a humanitarian organization that directly employed thousands of Iraqis in the rebuilding effort. Every morning at an ungodly hour, he would show up to pick up Sean [O'Sullivan], and the two of them would drive around in Mohaymen's white Hyundai Galloper to building sites all over the place....until one day in July 2004, when Sean and I were briefly back in the States, some gunmen pulled even with the Galloper on a busy highway in broad daylight and shot Mohaymen to death.

As previously mentioned, similar vehicles to the Mitsubishi Galloper: the Nissan Patrol, the Mitsubishi Pajero, Land Rover and Toyota Land Cruiser, were and still are popular.

What about other US companies operating in Iraq? Former Halliburton subsidiary, KBR, generally used GMC vehicles like Yukons and Suburbans as well as the occasional Hummer, though much less often.

Additional Reading:

Contractor deaths up 17 percent across Iraq in 2007
By David Ivanovich, Houston Chronicle, February 9, 2008

Related Posts:

Kirk von Ackermann's Nissan Patrol SUV March 5, 2008
Safa Shukir & the Phone Call December 9, 2007
Kirk's Car December 4, 2007