Ramesses. Walk like an Egyptian

Penpal Bas from Canada sent a picture asking if we had ever heard of? An NSU with a nose job? No, a Ramses. From Egypt, where they apparently prefer pyramids and sand.

Transport in Egypt

Public transport in Egypt used to be a disaster. But no one used to be in a hurry. That is why Egypt needed and still needs cars. And what could be more beautiful for a proud country than its own car industry. Well: those pyramids are also doing well in terms of earnings model. Yet…

Mohamed Mourad moved to escape the hustle and bustle of downtown Cairo, but the move did not produce the desired result. “I used to take a bus to work,” he says. "Now I have to take three." Even worse, Mourad spent more than half of his travel time waiting for buses. “If I arrive at the bus station 10 minutes late, I have to wait 30 to 40 minutes for another one. I need a car. ” But for Mourad and countless other Egyptians, car ownership was and is nothing more than a dream. “I don't have the money to pay for a decent new car,” he said. That was no different in the past. But things were being tried. After all, President Nasser had a plan.

It is about the price

For what most of the present-day Egyptians say, this was also true of his father and grandfather: "If a car made in Egypt was cheap enough, I would buy it." In the meantime, there is still no production, but assembly. Just like before.

With a little bit of government assistance

Once Abdel Nasser as president wanted to push his country up to the speed of the nations. In 1960 he started the Automotive Manufacturing Co with enormous government support for Egyptian-made cars ... And the first car from that idea was the Ramses, of which Bas sent a picture - a copy of the NSU Prinz, the car that whistled so happily during the driving. The engine, gearbox and other quality parts were bought in Germany, while the rest of the Ramses were designed and manufactured locally. In 1972 the outdated Ramsesjes had been replaced by several 'new' models, such as the Nasr 132, 128 and 127, all of which were Fiat clones. In 1985 these models became increasingly out of the picture because no development or update was carried out. The production went out like a candle ...

Copy copies

In the 2000s, El Nasr Automotive started building Polonez in Poland, and then Tofash Dogan from Turkey. So those were copies of copies. However, those models were already obsolete at birth compared to other import cars and production ceased in XNUMX.

Entrepreneurship rules

Private auto assemblers began investing in Egypt in 1992 when Chrysler began building the Jeep Cherokee at the Army's Arab American Vehicle (AAV) plant on Cairo Suez Highway. The Wrangler followed two years later. In 1997, Mercedes-Benz began assembling various models at a new Egyptian German Automotive Co. plant in the 6th industrial zone on October XNUMX. It was a joint venture between entrepreneurs and Mercedes-Benz parent company Daimler AG.

BMW came up with its own factory in 1999 - Al Fotouh Co. for Vehicle Assembly. The factory produced all of BMW's sedans. Now it focuses more on SUVs, including the X3, X4, X5 and X6.

Today, 12 international companies assemble passenger cars in Egypt, with 45 percent of the components sourced locally, as required by law.

But whether you will quickly find an Egyptian classic here - or in Canada -? And or something like that that would have any value? Then we bet on such a deadly Opel Kadett clone from the then Soviet Union: the Moskvitch.

We found almost nothing in our archive about these Egyptian automobiles. If there is anyone who has more photos of it, then we are very curious to see it.

The license building received upgrades