Turkey’s first mass-produced domestic car Anadol is marking the 55th anniversary of its first sales, one year after its production started, on Feb. 28. Though the production was discontinued, Anadol remains an inspiration for current efforts to produce the country’s first fully domestically developed car and a passion for vintage car lovers.

Anadol was the brainchild of Koç, one of Turkey’s biggest conglomerates, which also owns Turkish plants for Ford and Fiat, producing local versions of their cars. Koç business dynasty’s patriarch Vehbi Koç and his son Rahmi Koç had sought to manufacture Turkey’s first "local" car a few years after the debut of Devrim, Turkey’s first domestic car whose production was backed by the state. Unlike Devrim, Anadol (one letter short of Anadolu or Anatolia) was mass-produced and, though not entirely original, found a cult following over the years.

Its prototype was developed by United Kingdom-based Reliant, three years after Rahmi Koç and Bernar Nahum, the business partner of Vehbi Koç, launched the project. The two men were impressed by a pick-up truck with fiberglass body they saw at Izmir Fair in 1963. In Otosan, a Koç car plant established in cooperation with Ford in Istanbul produced the first Anadol on Dec. 19, 1966. Though the design was British, the car’s parts, including its chassis and fiberglass body. were entirely domestic. Ford contributed the other parts for the first batch of cars before the production of all parts became domestic a few years later. Until 1984, when the production was discontinued, Otosan manufactured some 93,188 cars and pick-up trucks bearing the name of the brand, from sedans to the A6 Böcek (Bug), a car resembling a dune buggy. The first Anadols were sold starting from Feb. 28, 1967, for a price of $1,938 (TL 26,800).

The car remains nostalgic for many and adorns the garages of vintage car collectors. Though not as prevalent on roads as it was up until the 1990s, Anadol found a new life elsewhere: rallies. Indeed, it was the star and winner of the first Rally of Turkey held in 1968, thanks to legendary driver Renç Koçibey.

Serdar Bostancı continues Koçibey’s legacy and represents Turkey today with Anadol in international rallies. Bostancı, a renowned figure in Turkish motorsports, led a team of drivers competing in Anadol in 2010 for a vintage car rally between Beijing and Paris. The Anadol team finished the rally in second place. They sought to repeat their success in this year’s edition with a 1973 Anadol STC but the COVID-19 pandemic pushed the race’s schedule to April 2023. Bostancı, the current director of the Castrol Ford rally team in Turkey, says Anadol "brought Turkish automotive industry to where it is now today."

"If Vehbi and Rahmi Koç did not have the courage to produce it, we would not see Murat 124, Toros and others," he told Anadolu Agency (AA) on Sunday, referring to local versions of Renault and Fiat cars exclusively produced in Turkey. "It also paved the way for public admiration in motorsports, especially rallies, after it won the first rally," he noted.