The Devrim Car Prepared for Cemal Gürsel.
The then-head of the provisional government, Cemal Gürsel, requested 23 Turkish engineers, whom he had specially summoned, to produce a car with all its design and materials being domestically sourced by that year's Republic Day ceremonies. The work began at the TCDD's Cer Workshop in Eskişehir. There were only 129 days left until Republic Day. However, with great dedication, the team completed three four-cylinder cars with steering wheel gearshifts, all designed and handcrafted by them, on the evening of October 28. One of the cars was black, and the other two were cream-colored. They named the cars Devrim (Revolution).
Only One Remains Today.
One of the cars, the black one, which was to be used for official purposes, was painted black on the train en route to Ankara. The vehicles, which did not have gasoline in their tanks during the journey as a security measure, were prepared for the October 29 ceremony. However, in the panic, sufficient gasoline could not be supplied. Cemal Gürsel, who moved from a cream-colored Devrim to the black Devrim, asked what happened after the car stopped after a short distance, and upon being told by the driver that it ran out of gasoline, he angrily abandoned the car. The Devrim, a great achievement of Turkish engineers and workers, ended before it began. Today, only one of these cars remains, preserved in a glass garage in the garden of the Türkiye Lokomotif ve Motor Sanayi Museum, and it is in working condition. It is still not fully known why the production of the Devrim cars, which were subject to speculation and for which production began with great hopes and promised a bright future, was halted.
