The story
Partnership with British Motor Corporation
Exports of Austin trucks from the UK to Turkey began in 1947. Austin merged with Morris Motors in 1952 to form the British Motor Corporation, or BMC for short. BMC Turkey was formed in 1964 in İzmir by Ergün Özakat in partnership with the British Motor Corporation. The UK-based company held 26% of the capital, with the remainder belonging to the Turkish partners. Both Austin and Morris vehicles were manufactured at BMC Turkey under licence during its early years.
1966 was the first year BMC started adding trucks, tractors and engine production in its product line. Turkish-made Leyland 6/98 diesel engines of 120 hp (89 kW) were used across the line by the late 1970s.
Other partnerships
In later years, BMC evolved and developed other models with partnerships with other firms and the successors of the British Motor Corporation (which became British Leyland).
First, the Leyland TM 30 (later renamed Levend), based on the Leyland Sherpa, was released into the market as the first full-size van in 1980. It used the 1.8 litre BMC I4 diesel engine and the 5-speed BMC 15 manual gearbox.
In 1983, under a partnership with Volvo Trucks, BMC produced the Yavuz series trucks. These were followed by the Fatih series of trucks which offered Cummins diesel engines. Both the Yavuz and the Fatih used Leyland's old G-series cab, also referred to as the "Redline" or the "Bathgate" cab (after the plant where it was originally built).
TMSF (2013–2014)
TMSF has taken over the company in 2013, produced Kirpi MRAPs and completed the deliveries. After the Kirpi deliveries are completed, then TMSF put the company out to tender, which has been won by Es Mali Yatırım.
Present-day (2014–)
Currently, BMC is actively designing, developing and realizing mass production of its products. Its research and development activities are being carried out independently.
2800+ staff are working for BMC while 500+ of them are engineers. Today BMC are about to start the mass production of 250 units of Altay Turkish Main Battle Tank, designing indigenous engines for tanks and armoured vehicles, and 8x8 Armoured Personnel Carriers. BMC has also a partnership of design and mass production of domestic passenger car. BMC is also active in rail systems. BMC produces 6x6 & 4x4 Kirpi MRAP vehicles.
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In 2018 2nd generation of Kirpi, the Kirpi-2 is introduced. Lightly armored than Kirpi, Amazon is introduced in 2015. BMC produces military trucks; beginning from 8x8 tank transporter, 6x6 10 tonners, 4x4 5 tonners up to 2,5 tonners. These utility trucks can be equipped with any superstructure (water/fuel tanker, command control/shelter, rocket launcher, mobile repair/maintenance, recovery crane, etc.) and gain required role. Other specialized military vehicles are also being produced like Riot Control Vehicles or Hidden Armored Buses (looks like a soft skin commercial bus from the outside).
Other than a wide variety of military vehicles, BMC has also different commercial vehicles as well. Buses starting from 8,5m, 9m, 10m, 12m, up to 18m articulated buses and 14m airport apron buses is on mass production with three engine selections: diesel, CNG, and electric.
Commercial trucks having engines with Euro6 engine emission levels with different models are also on product range. Tractors, construction and haulage trucks with many different engine, transmission and cabin selection are presented to market.
BMC has produced 400,000+ vehicles, while exporting its commercial to 80 countries including The United Kingdom, Spain, Italy and Russia and its military vehicles to 17 countries.
From Wikipedia’s article on BMC Otomotiv, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4