Turkey's Automobile Journey

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Zafer became the second domestic car that was introduced but never made it to the production line; its fate was shaped at the Autocars factory in Israel.

Why Wasn't the Zafer Car Produced in Türkiye?

Lütfi Mete Odabaşı23 October 2026

The Zafer automobile is the second domestic car project, developed in partnership with Triumph in the 1960s but shelved at the introduction stage, and then produced in Israel by Autocars. Zafer, which came closest to being Türkiye's move into mass pr…

Anadol's FW11, Çağdaş and A9 prototypes, which never went into series production, remained the boldest dreams that the Turkish automotive industry could never showcase.

Anadol Models That Never Entered Series Production and the Contemporary Experiment

Lütfi Mete Odabaşı23 October 2026

Anadol's models that never entered series production are the design and engineering experiments the brand could not bring to the showroom: The FW11 prototypes drawn by Marcello Gandini for Bertone in 1977, the Çağdaş designed by Jan Nahum and combine…

Türkiye is no longer just a country that manufactures cars, but one that designs automobiles with its own intellectual property.

From Design to Production: Turkish Automotive Engineering

Lütfi Mete Odabaşı22 October 2026

Although Türkiye's automotive industry was long associated with assembly and manufacturing, today Ford Otosan is Ford's global design center for heavy commercial vehicles, Turkish engineers are developing world-renowned models, and Togg has brought a…

The automobile, which was once a status symbol in Türkiye, has transformed from a luxury item into an ordinary household possession with 17.5 million vehicles.

When Did Car Ownership Become Ordinary in Türkiye?

Lütfi Mete Odabaşı21 October 2026

Owning a car in Türkiye was a status symbol in the 1960s; today, with approximately 17.5 million cars registered in traffic, it has become an ordinary household item. This transformation did not happen overnight: import policies, tax structures, cred…

Why Couldn't a Country Producing Millions of Vehicles a Year Establish Its Own Brand for Decades?

Lütfi Mete Odabaşı19 October 2026

Türkiye has been producing millions of automobiles for years, but it was only able to establish its own global brand in 2022 with Togg. The reason is not a lack of production knowledge or engineering; it was the licensed manufacturing model that pers…

From the 700 Renault 12s sent to Egypt in 1980 to 2025's record $41.5 billion: Turkish automobiles first left through the door, then became Europe's production hub.

How Türkiye Started Exporting Cars

Lütfi Mete Odabaşı18 October 2026

Türkiye's automobile exports is a process seeded by export-led growth policies after 1980 and accelerated in the 1990s when global brands like Renault, Toyota, and Hyundai made Türkiye their production base: foreign sales that began in 1980 with 700 …

The road from the first Prototype entering through the door to the Gemlik assembly line is the result of an eleven-year test of patience for a country's automobile dream.

How Was Togg Born? The Founding Story of the Domestic Car Project

Lütfi Mete Odabaşı18 October 2026

Togg is the end result of a domestic car call made in 2011, which turned into a company in 2017, a venture group established in 2018, and finally mass production in Gemlik in 2022. In other words, it is not a vehicle drawn up at a desk one night and …

When imports were opened up in 1986, Turkish manufacturers did not collapse; they were reborn by turning competition into exports and model diversification.

What Did the Turkish Automotive Industry Do When Imported Car Gates Opened?

Lütfi Mete Odabaşı17 October 2026

Until 1986, no automobiles were imported into Türkiye; when the doors opened that year, domestic manufacturers like Oyak Renault and Tofaş came face to face with competition but did not collapse - quite the opposite, they transformed by turning to ex…

Before Devrim and Anadol, the Ford factory at Tophane Dock became Türkiye's first automobile factory and installed the first moving assembly line in 1929.

The Ford Factory at Tophane Dock: The Unknown Story of the Domestic Automobile

Lütfi Mete Odabaşı17 October 2026

When it comes to automobile production in Türkiye, everyone thinks of Devrim or Anadol; yet the real beginning of this story reaches much further back, to Istanbul in the 1920s. The Ford assembly plant on the Tophane Quay assembled tens of thousands …

In Türkiye's domestic car story, the tragedy lay not in a lack of ideas, but in that expensive and patience-demanding distance between prototype and mass production.

The Forgotten Domestic Car Attempts: Devrim and Togg

Lütfi Mete Odabaşı14 October 2026

Between Devrim and Togg, Türkiye went through a series of domestic car projects over decades that it tried one by one but usually could not finish; the four prototypes born in 129 days in 1961, the Anadol that entered series production in 1966, and t…

In the eighties, Türkiye was only an assembly line, but through Toyota, Hyundai and Renault partnerships it transformed into an industrial country that produces its own parts.

Partnership Years: How the Sabancı, Kırcaali and Oyak Factories Turned Türkiye into a Producer

Lütfi Mete Odabaşı13 October 2026

Joint production agreements established in the 1990s, such as Toyota-Sabancı, Hyundai-Kibar, and Oyak-Renault, marked a turning point that moved Türkiye beyond being a country that merely assembles vehicles, transforming it into an industrial nation …

İki buçuk ayda dört prototip üreten Türk mühendislerin hikâyesi, yolda yakıtı biten tek arabanın gölgesinde yıllarca başarısızlık sanıldı.

Devrim 1961: The Real Story of the Car Built in Two and a Half Months

Lütfi Mete Odabaşı12 October 2026

Devrim was the first car designed and produced in Türkiye; It was a project of four prototypes brought to life at the Eskisehir Railway Factory in 1961, on the instruction of President Cemal Gursel, in about 129 days. At the Republic Day ceremony on …