Thursday, 1 September 2016
Eskİşehİr — Turkey
Temps: Hi 80 (27C) / Lo 57F (14C)
This morning, on our way from the Anadolu University guesthouse to Işıl’s house, we stopped at the TÜLOMSAȘ factory. Our brief five-minute stop had nothing to do with the locomotives and train wagons built at the plant. Rather, our purpose was to check out the only remaining Devrim Arabası [Car of the Revolution] on display here.
The gist of the backstory is that in 1961 then-President Cemal Gürsel ordered the production of the first car to be designed and built entirely in Turkey and with Turkish resources. Four prototypes were completed for unveiling during the 29 October Republic Day celebrations in Ankara that same year. One black and one cream-colored car was shipped from Eskişehir by train — with just enough gas to maneuver the cars … a safety precaution that backfired when the cars were later unloaded in Ankara.
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President Gürsel got into the black car before the gas tank was topped off and set off on the much-anticipated ceremonial ride … only to have the car come to a halt after just 100 meters (approx. 300 feet) when it ran out of gas. He completed the ride in the cream-colored car, whose tank had been topped off in the interim. But the damage was done. The newspaper headlines the next day proclaimed that the Devrim had managed to travel only 100 meters before breaking down. The car became the subject of jokes for years to come. It was never mass-produced … partly because technical drawings to replicate the process of building the car did not exist.
(The full-story is in the link above, or you can check it out on Wikipedia.)
If only the gas tank had been topped off, history might have written
a different ending to the story of the Devrİm Arabasi.
In 2010, Pakistani university students, inspired by the Devrim Arabası, developed a hybrid vehicle that they named Devrim II … so perhaps the work done in 1961 was not in vain after all.
© 2004-2016 Two to Travel. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED by ERIN ERKUN.
Interesting. We take care designing and building completely for granted, something that occurs in the background somewhere. Fun story.
ReplyDeleteNeedless to say, I'd never heard of this car, but it's great someone managed to save the car in the photo above and the factory has it on display. Bet Mui enjoyed checking it out. Too bad about the gas foul-up ... as you say, history might read differently had the gas tank been full. Oh well, not to be!
ReplyDeleteWhat an interesting story! Thanks for sharing:)
ReplyDeleteWe have never heard this story. Oh dear...poor car.
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