Ford Otosan unveils 90 percent indigenous tow truck
Emre Özpeynirci - ISTANBUL
Ford-Otosan, a joint venture between Ford Motor Co. and Turkey’s Koç Holding, has unveiled its new tow truck, mostly developed domestically in Turkey by 1,500 Turkish engineers in five years.
Dubbed by Ford-Otosan General Manager Haydar Yenigün as “Big Boy” the tow truck has drawn an investment of $500 million.
“The factor that makes us stand out competitively in our global growth strategy is our capability of domestic design and production. We take our strength, which has enabled us to arrive at this point in such a short time, from our indigenousness rate of 90 percent,” Yenigün told reporters at the company’s R&D headquarters in Istanbul’s Sancaktepe district on July 25.
“In the first phase, we will export a third of the trucks produced to the world. In time, the ratio will be reversed as it had been in the case of the light commercial vehicles. Production of this tow in Brazilian and Chinese factories under our license is also on the agenda. If it materializes as expected, all the supplies to those factories will be made by Ford-Otosan,” he added.
Ford-Otosan and its American partner company Ford Motor Co. had restarted the Ford Truck brand in 2010 in the Turkish market.
With the new tow truck, which will be put on market at the IAA Commercial Vehicles 2018 in Hannover in September, Ford Truck aims at increasing the number of national markets it operates in from 32 to 40 by the end of 2018, and to 50 by the end of 2020.
The new tow truck’s 500-horsepower engine, Ecotorq, will be accompanied by the indigenously developed transmission system in 2020, uplifting the rate of indigenousness from 80 percent to 90 percent, according to Yenigün’s remarks.
