Nasr (car company)
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| Public | |
| Industry | Automotive |
| Founded | 1960 |
| Headquarters | Cairo, Egypt |
| Products | Automobiles |
| Website | NascoEgypt.com.eg |
Nasr (Arabic: النصر, long form: El Nasr Automotive Manufacturing Company) is Egypt's state owned automobile company, founded in 1960 in Helwan, Egypt. Since 1979 the company has produced licensed versions of the Fiat 1100 R, Fiat 1300, Fiat 2300, Fiat 128, Fiat 125, Fiat 133, Fiat 126, series 2 Fiat 127, 1983–92 FSO Polonez and in 1991 introduced a further range of Fiat-designed cars licensed via the Turkish company Tofaş. In the early 2000s Nasr began producing the Florida range under license from Serbian manufacturer Zastava.
Nasr was a replacement for the short-lived Ramses automobile (also state produced), which suffered from poor design and performance (basically a redesigned NSU Prinz). The Nasr was intended to be an affordable car for the average person of means (though it was still too expensive for a large proportion of the Egyptian population). The company's creation was also part of the general industrialization process initiated after the Egyptian Revolution of 1952, which would see millions of Egyptians flock to urban areas to gain work in newly built factories and industrial centers.
The decision to focus on assembly of foreign licensed cars under the Nasr marque was primarily based on the desire to avoid the engineering and design problems associated with previous attempts at domestic car manufacture. Furthermore, the compact and comparatively affordable Fiat-based cars (produced in conjunction with FSO and Zastava) were well suited to the Egyptian market. Nasr would later expand to production of utility and agricultural vehicles such as trucks.
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