Saturday, March 15, 2008
One way to tell you’re not in Oregon anymore is to notice how many cars there are in Ankara—cars, that is, as opposed to mini-vans, pickups and SUVs. The fact is that most personal vehicles in Ankara are sedans or hatchbacks, mostly small to medium sized and almost always with four doors. And where do these cars come from? Lately I’ve been counting car brands. Here are some notes:
American-made cars: These are very rare. I’ve noticed a few Jeep Cherokees—they’re hard to miss. I’ve seen one Dodge Magnum, one very old and ragged Dodge something, one brand new Mustang and two or three very old Pontiacs, including the one shown here. It dates from the late 70’s and is to my mind a very handsome car. Also shown is an even older International Harvester 4WD pickup that I saw in Antalya.
That’s about it for US built cars. But just about every other world brand you’ve ever heard of is here. Here are the most common makes according to my sightings:
BMW: Not as common as some in this group, but there are actually quite a lot of these around. Mostly sedans, but also some convertibles, two-door coupes, and sport utes. There’s a rusting but still mean-looking black M5 in my neighborhood. No sign of any Z series roadsters. And generally they like their Beamers big here; the 5-series sedans seem to outnumber the 3’s.
Fiat: Lots and lots of Fiats around, most, I think, manufactured in Turkey.
Ford: Tons of Fords also, manufactured here through a joint venture, which also exports a considerable number.
Honda: Mostly small sedans, with an occasional HRV, CRV, or Accord.
Hyundai: A relative newcomer but already in the first tier of popularity here. Mostly small sedans, but once in a while a big Sonata, an SUV or even a private owner minivan.
Mercedes: A fair number, many of them diesel. Lots of black, silver or white sedans, the occasional black SUV.
Opel: Lots and lots of Opels around, giving GM a very considerable presence in the market. Here’s a fairly nice looking example of one of the larger Opels.
Peugeot: Tons of Peugeots, from the small 207s to the gigantic 407s—and by ‘gigantic’ I mean about the size of an Accord or VW Passat. Here are two Peugeot 207s, parked one behind the other:
A 207, in fact, isn’t all that small by local standards. At 4,149 millimeters in length, it is about 12 inches shorter than a Toyota Prius, but a Renault Clio is 6 inches shorter still. and an Opel Corsa is 6 inches shorter than that. A Nissan Micra is 5 inches shorter than the Corsa. The Kia Picanto is 7 inches shorter than a Micra. They have a lot of different sizes of small here. But the large, 407-sized segment is also hot. Passats, 407s and Accords compete with similar sized Fords, Opels, Fiats and Renaults.
Audi, Renault, Toyota, and VW are in fact very well represented on Ankara streets in several size segments. The makes below have a presence but are a little less common:
Alfa Romeo: Nice looking medium sized cars.
Chevrolet: Nondescript little cars, but with the bow tie. Maybe made by Opel?
Seat: Originally the Spanish branch of Fiat, Seat is now owned by Audi.
Skoda: I’ve seen a fair number of these Czech built cars, which are also part of the VW auto group. They are handsome cars these days and have a cool new logo. Back in the day—1976, say—Skodas were all one model with a rear-mounted engine. They were built by hard-drinking socialist workers in a highly polluting factory and were driven by mid level party functionaries who were the only folks in Czechoslovakia who could afford to have cars. They were all, for some reason, orange, and were by far the most common private cars on the road in Bratislava. Not that there were that many cars of any kind on the road in Bratislava in 1976. Traffic, in the Eastern bloc, back in the day, was definitely not an issue. Here’s Skoda’s logo today along with a still functioning example of a mid-seventies model.
Subaru: I’ve only seen two Subarus here, one ratty, ugly old sedan, and this newish but dented Forester.
Citroen, Kia, Daewoo, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Nissan and Volvo are also present though not in great numbers.
Porsche, Saab, and Jaguar are even rarer; so far I’ve seen exactly one example of each. (But then, I don’t get into Porsche neighborhoods much.)
I’ve never seen a Ferrari, but our driver to Yozgat said that there are at least three in Ankara along with one Lamborghini. I’ve only seen one AutoVAZ Lada Niva so far.
I’ll end with a photo of a Kia Picanto and a Peugeot Partner, both parked illegally in front of the Taş Fırın (Stone Oven) bakery across the street from Innocent headquarters. The Peugeot is the white wagon-like thing. The short, high box van segment is hotly competitive here; Partners compete with Doblos, Berlingos, Transits, and Kangoos. Some of these vans are personal or family vehicles, but many are for commercial use. The Partner engine is a 1.5 liter diesel, much larger than the Picanto’s 999cc powerplant, but still not quite as big as the 7.5 liter V-8 in the Oldsmobile that my friend Jeff’s dad bought in 1969 or even the 6.4 liter mill in my 1959 Pontiac Star Chief.
