THE FIFTH-YEAR JOURNEY OF TOFAŞ
It was an unforgettable period both for me and for Tofaş—a period of hard work and serious learning. The mechanical shop was completely changed; a high level of automation was introduced to the factory and a serious leap was made in terms of quality, as well. We used to manufacture normal engines. I, too, had been an engineer for a year or two. There was a method-mechanic service in which engineering works were conducted and it was run under the Directorate of Technical Services. The line to be established for the manufacturing of Tempra was a huge facility, with its lines, central cooling systems, CNC benches and was worth nearly 50 million U.S. Dollars. When it was time to buy new machinery for this line, they said to me, “Go ahead, bargain, buy, bring, and set up the system.” It was extremely thrilling for that period. I told Savaş Bey, “I just began working here,” and it looked too heavy a task at first; nevertheless, we got right down to work. Tofaş had this particularity—it always provided its employees plenty of freedom. As an entirely new generation vehicle, manufactured in Turkey, Tempra brought many gains to Tofaş. For a period, Tofaş became the only producer of Tempra in Europe.
Considered as one of the most important milestones in Tofaş history, Tempra received 80.7 billion Turkish Lira in investments for local production in 1991. Investments continued in the ensuing years. By the end of 1992, 60% of Tempra was locally manufactured. Tempra’s production ended in 1998. 112.218 cars were manufactured in total. The production of the Tempras manufactured for Egypt in 1996 ended after 2.496 cars per the conditions of the agreement. WHAT COMES WITH THE COMPETITION
The 1990s witnessed a rise in competition and car imports along with new factories. In 1990, newspapers often ran headlines such as “race of the giants” to highlight the growing competition on the automobile market. Having been founded in 1990 after General Motors entered the Turkish market in 1989, Opel Türkiye Limited Şirketi began production the same year. In 1994, Toyota-Sabancı Otomotiv Sanayi ve Ticaret A.Ş. was inaugurated; the factory had a capacity of 100 thousand cars and was based in Adapazarı. Hyundai Assan went into production in 1997 and Honda initiated production at the factory in Gebze in 1997. The old domestic automobile manufacturers were competing not only against the products of rival automobile factories that were just being established, but also against imported cars that were becoming less expensive once customs and taxes were lowered. The demand boom of 1990 had not been predicted, but as imports blossomed in direct proportion with this boom, it was thought that in the short run, it would not have an impact on domestic producers except to initiate imports. In
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T H E 1 9 9 0 s : I N N O V AT I O N S I N T E C H N O L O G Y, I M P O R TA N T M I L E S T O N E S