An Engineering Marvel and a Story of Faith: The Devrim Automobile

Eskişehir is often remembered for its railways in Turkey's industrial history. Yet in this city's workshops, it was not only locomotives, wagons, and railway parts that were produced. Some of the boldest ideas about Turkey's ability to create its own technology also took shape here.

The most striking example of this is, without a doubt, the Devrim Automobile.

Today, when you look at that car standing behind glass in a museum hall in Eskişehir, the first thing you see is an automobile. But the real story of the Devrim is far greater than four wheels and an engine.

Because the Devrim was not only an engineering project in which Turkey tested, in 1961, whether it could build its own car; it was also a test of how much a country could trust its own industrial power.

And perhaps the most interesting part is this:

The Devrim is still talked about today not because it failed, but because — even though it proved it could succeed — it was never followed through.

## The Birth of the Project: A Race Against 129 Days

1961 was a significant turning point for Turkey.

Following the military intervention of May 27, 1960, the country entered a new political era, and Cemal Gürsel assumed the presidency. In this period of intense debate over Turkey's economic and technological independence, the idea of domestic production was once again on the agenda.

On May 15, 1961, President Cemal Gürsel stated at the Automotive Industry Congress that Turkey needed to produce its own automobile.

Then a task was given to the State Railways.

The task seemed simple: **Turkey would build its own car.**

But the timeframe was anything but simple. Working prototypes were expected to be ready by October 29, Republic Day. The calendar showed only about 129 days.

129 days to design a car from scratch, manufacture its parts, develop its engine, build its body, assemble its mechanical systems, and make all of it work...

This timeframe, which would be extremely challenging even today, was an even greater challenge in 1961 Turkey. Because there was no ready automobile factory, no advanced computer-aided design systems, no automotive supply industry in the modern sense, and no global parts supply chain.

Despite all this, the task was accepted. And the address chosen was the **Eskişehir Railway Factory**.

In the industrial campus that today houses the TÜRASAŞ Eskişehir Regional Directorate, the workshops that produced railway equipment suddenly became a massive work area that would bring Turkey's first domestic car to life.

## A Race Began Inside the Factory

Engineers and technical personnel from different parts of Turkey gathered in Eskişehir. The number of engineers assigned to the project was 23. Around them worked a large number of workers, technicians, and craftsmen.

Days had turned into hours, hours into minutes.

A sign was hung in the workshop: *"Days Remaining Until Delivery."*

Every day the number on that sign went down by one:
129... 128... 127...

As time progressed, it was not only the car that was racing, but a country's engineering ambition. Engineers worked through the nights, drawings were redone, parts were processed again and again, measurements were taken, and solutions to emerging problems were sought right there in the workshop.

Thinking that design and production processes that could take weeks in a modern car factory were carried out with much more primitive means, almost by hand, is enough to grasp the scale of the Devrim project.

For this reason, one of the most important details in the Devrim's story is not that the car reached Ankara on October 29, but that the car was brought into being in Eskişehir within 129 days.

## How Do You Build a Car from Scratch?

What made the Devrim project interesting was not only the race against time. The engineers faced another problem: they were not assembling the parts of a ready-made car; they had to design their own car.

Work was done on the chassis, body, suspension system, engine, and various mechanical parts.

The production capability of the railway factory provided a great advantage at this point. Because the engineers and workers in Eskişehir already had significant experience in metalworking, casting, welding, mechanical production, and precision manufacturing.

The production culture used in the railways was now being applied to the automobile. The hands that produced locomotive and wagon parts were now bringing forth the body and engine of a car.

In this respect, the Devrim is also a symbol of a very important transition in Eskişehir's industrial history: an engineering courage extending from railway technology to automotive technology.

## The Engine Problem and Design Experiments

One of the most difficult parts of the project was, without a doubt, the engine. Making the exterior appearance of a car was one thing; developing a reliable engine to move it was quite another.

In the Devrim project, Turkish engineers and technicians also worked on the engine and engine parts. Many stages, from the casting of the engine blocks to their machining, were carried out with the facilities in Eskişehir and Ankara. The resulting engine had a four-cylinder, four-stroke design.

The car's performance, considering the conditions of the time, was not to be underestimated. The Devrim could reach a speed of approximately 135 kilometers per hour.

The main issue here was not how many kilometers per hour it could reach. The main issue was that an automobile engine developed by Turkey's own engineers in 1961 actually worked.

At the same time, the engineers did not merely imitate existing technology. It is known that the engineers working on the project considered different technical solutions and revisited many details, from the car's design to its driving characteristics. One of these was some steering and drivetrain ideas that could be considered quite advanced for the conditions of the time.

If we consider that many automotive features that seem ordinary to us today were only just beginning to be discussed in that period, we can understand that the work done in the Devrim workshops was not merely an effort to "produce a car." The engineers were also trying to lay the foundations of an automotive engineering culture in Turkey.

## October 29, 1961: The Devrim Goes to Ankara

And finally the awaited day came.

October 29, 1961... The 38th anniversary of the founding of the Republic of Turkey.

The Devrim cars, the result of months of work in Eskişehir, were sent to Ankara. One of the cars was black, the other cream-colored. Turkey's first domestic cars were now in the capital.

But the journey to Ankara was itself a logistical problem. The cars were transported by train. For safety during the train transport, it was decided that only a limited amount of fuel would be in the tanks. The plan was to refuel the cars once they arrived in Ankara.

The plan was clear. Fuel would be supplied and the cars would be used in the Republic Day ceremonies.

But the event that would go down in history began right here.

### Those 100 Meters

On the morning of October 29, President Cemal Gürsel was scheduled to ride in one of the cars. Due to a coordination problem caused by security and traffic arrangements along the route, the car proceeded without stopping at the planned refueling point.

Gürsel got into the black Devrim. The car moved. But not long after... About 100 meters later, the engine stopped. It had run out of gas.

At that moment, the project Turkey had been working on for months was reduced to a single image: **A car that wouldn't move.**

President Cemal Gürsel was taken out of the car and put into the other Devrim car, which had fuel, immediately behind. The journey continued without issue this time. But in the public's memory, a very different image now remained.

Not the Devrim's 129-day engineering story... The car that stopped at 100 meters.

### "You Built a Car with a Western Mind..."

The words attributed to Cemal Gürsel after the incident, which over the years became the most famous sentence of the Devrim story, were etched into memory:

> *"You built a car with a Western mind, but forgot to refuel with an Eastern mind."*

Although this quote appears in different forms in different sources, this is the expression that sits at the center of the Devrim narrative. And the irony of the words actually tells the Devrim's fate.

Because there was indeed a working car. The problem was not the engineering of the car; it was the missing few liters of gasoline. But history sometimes remembers the first image more than the technical truth.

## 129 Days Forgotten, 100 Meters Remembered

The greatest tragedy of the Devrim project perhaps lies right here. A country's engineers developed a car in 129 days. They built an engine, produced a chassis, made the bodywork, assembled the mechanical systems, got the car running, and took it to Ankara.

But a single image was pasted over this entire story: **The car that ran out of gas.**

This incident also caused a great stir in the press of the time. Rather than the Devrim's technical success, the mishap during the ceremony was discussed. Thus, Turkey's first domestic car project was told in the public mind not as a success story, but for a long time as a "fiasco" story.

Yet running out of a few liters of gasoline did not eliminate the car's production capability.

## So Why Did the Devrim Not Go into Mass Production?

The biggest question about the Devrim is still this: Since the car was built, why was there no follow-up?

Because producing a prototype and going into mass production were not the same thing. Mass production required large investments, production facilities, a supply chain, market planning, financing, and long-term state policy.

Turkey's automotive industry was still in its infancy at the time. For the Devrim to move beyond the prototype stage and become a real car brand, a much larger investment and political will were needed.

This will did not emerge. Thus, Turkey's attempt to produce its own car remained at the prototype stage.

The Devrim cars were produced. But the Devrim brand was never born.

This is why the Devrim's story remained not so much a car story as an unfinished possibility in Turkey's industrialization history.

## The Devrim's Silent Witness in Eskişehir

Today, more than sixty years have passed. Most of the people who worked in the workshops in those days are no longer alive. The majority of the engineers who lived the excitement of the 129-day race are mentioned in a few lines in history books.

But the car they built is still here. In Eskişehir.

The car displayed in the Devrim Cars Museum welcomes visitors as one of the most special witnesses of Turkey's industrial history. Beside the car are technical parts from the period, materials related to the production process, drawings, and various documents.

Thus the visitor is not merely looking at a car. They are looking at a period of Turkey. At the workshops of a factory... At the engineers' drawing tables... At the foundries... At the metalworking lathes... And at the calendar that counted down over 129 days...

## The Devrim's True Legacy and Its Meaning for Eskişehir

The reason the Devrim is still important today is not only that it was Turkey's first car. Because before the Devrim there were various automotive production attempts in Turkey; and after it, Turkey's automotive industry grew through different partnerships.

What makes the Devrim special is something else: Turkey's own engineers, with their own production power, proved in a very short time that they could develop their own car.

Perhaps for this reason, when looking at the Devrim, we should not only see the past. Because that car still asks another question today:

> *After a country proves it can produce its own technology, why can it not follow through?*

This question was asked in 1961. It is still valid today.

What Does the Devrim Mean for Eskişehir?

Eskişehir's place in the Devrim's story is not coincidental. Thanks to its railways, Eskişehir became one of Turkey's important technical production centers from an early period.

The craftsmen, technicians, and engineers trained here gained experience not only in railway production but over time in various industrial fields. The Devrim project is one of the most visible examples of this accumulation.

For this reason, telling the Devrim only as "Turkey's first domestic car" is incomplete from Eskişehir's perspective. The Devrim is also a part of Eskişehir's engineering memory, production culture, and industrial tradition. When we look at the presence of TÜRASAŞ in the city today, the railway industry, and Eskişehir's technical production past, we should see the Devrim within this larger story.

More Than a Car

The Devrim's story has, over the years, mostly been told with the same sentence: *"It ran out of gas, it broke down on the road."*

But this sentence tells only a few minutes of history. It does not tell the 129 days behind it. It does not tell of the workshops in Eskişehir, the engineers working through the night, how the engine was produced, how the chassis emerged, how the body was shaped, the story of people who believed a country could build its own car.

And most importantly, it does not ask this question: **If that car had not stopped after 100 meters, would Turkey's automotive history really have changed?**

We will never know the answer. But there is one thing we know: in 1961, in a railway factory in Eskişehir, engineers showed that Turkey could build its own car.

Today that car still stands in Eskişehir. As much more than a museum piece; as the silent witness of an era's courage, engineering knowledge, and an unfinished industrial dream.

Perhaps the greatest legacy the Devrim left us is not the kilometers it drove, but the distance it proved we could cover.

And that distance began in Eskişehir, in 1961.