African and South American car manufacturers?

This shows how busy we are around here today.

I know that there are branches of Ford, GM, FIAT etc building cars in South America and Africa. What I am wondering: is there a 'home grown' company like Korea's KIA or China's Cherry or maybe India's TATA. It seems I recall reading about some guy from Nigeria who has attempted to start such a venture with a car that looks a lot like one of the old Gazelle kit cars and he nearly got laughed out of the last auto show in New York.

Isn't Superformance based out of South Africa?

I don't think Superformance is. They're based in Texas I think. That's Carol Shelby's company, right?

The company that built the Lotus 7s (I think) was based in South Africa. They're still there today building awesome replicas.

(I'm actually supposed to be busy - I'm just not motivated)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superformance not shelby's company...

are you talking about caterham? they are UK based http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caterham_Cars

somewhere on this list is something for you http://www.naamsa.co.za/members/

There was a company in Brazil that made Alfas under licence- and kept alive a product line that died decades ago. But that's the best I can come up with.

I think cars like the Model T overwhelmed the world before many countries could form their own industry....

E-

I was just wondering if either of those continents have ever produced a truly 'home engineered and built' product. So far, it seems that all they have done is either be a host for an assembly plant (like VW in Brazil) or license others' designs (the Superformance plant in South Africa).

It just got me scratching my head: we have the US Big 3, Japan has Toyota, Nissan, etc Korea has Hyundai and KIA, China has Cherry, India has Tata, Russia has Trabant, Britain had Humber, Riley etc, France has Renault and Citroen, Italy has FIAT, the Scandinavians have Volvo and SAAB, the remains of the Baltic states have that diesel Range Rover lookalike everyone was excited about a year or so ago, but AFAIK neither of the southern continents has ever done one of their very own.

There are three southern hemisphere continents that are populated, BTW . . .

There's a book published each year, about the beginning of the year, called Cars Of the World...or something like that. I see it for a month or two on the mag racks at Borders and/or Barnes and Noble. This book, about the size of a volume of the old encyclopedias, lists ALL the car and some of the truck manufacturers in the world. It includes pix of the more popular models sold(on their home markets) for each country. But does list each manufacturer, even if pix are not currently available. Amazon probably carries this book year around. What's really wild is to see some of the cars built by non-G8 countries...usually, antiquated castoffs. Iran builds a version of the old Hillman Hunter that was a sold as a Sunbeam or a Chrysler here in the U.S. IN THE '70s.

MadScientistMatt wrote: Isn't Superformance based out of South Africa?

The company was bought-out not too long ago and is managed from an Irvine, California office. Their factory (where they build completed rolling chassis) is still located in South Africa.

Puma out of Brazil made some pretty cool cars. They used VW engines & transmissions but the rest of the car was original. I had the chance to buy one when I was living in Ontario and I'm still kicking myself for not doing it.

J

confuZion3 wrote: There are three southern hemisphere continents that are populated, BTW . . .

I am NOT gonna pick on Australia. They'll send me some of those freaky spiders...

I had forgotten Puma. Any others?

Mexico is working on their own, but they are more Central America than South....(i know that doesnt really exist, it is just a term we Amurricans came up with to distance ourselves from the Mexicans)

Jensenman wrote: ...Russia has Trabant...

Just to nitpick with this: Trabant was East German. Russia of course has Lada, GAZ, and a bunch of others which I've forgotten.

J

Where are Noble's made?

Jay wrote:

Jensenman wrote: ...Russia has Trabant...

Just to nitpick with this: Trabant was East German. Russia of course has Lada, GAZ, and a bunch of others which I've forgotten. J

Lada was (is?) a Fiat derivative, and there was also ZIL, Moskvitch and Zaphorozhets.

IIRC they used to race Moskvitches in British Touring Car Championship races in the '70s.

I remember an '80s CAR AND DRIVER article by PJ O'Rourke where he toured the Lada factory and declared that the US had nothing to fear from the ol' CCCP since the most efficient enterprize in the entire country was an Italian auto factory...

I mentioned Trabant because that was a 'home grown' East German enterprise from the time when it was part of the USSR. I believe Volga and GAZ are a completely 'in house' thing as well.

Yeah, it would be pretty bad to have an Italian factory as the most efficient in your country. The only way it could be worse would be if it was a 1970s British Leyland plant.

spitfirebill wrote: Where are Noble's made?

The bodies are produced in the UK and the engines are produced and installed in Pennsylvania IIRC