Turkey develops national car with Saab

A senior minister has announced Turkey purchased the intellectual property rights to Saab's 9-3 model, with the goal of using it to develop a Turkish-branded car and advance in the field of extended-range vehicles.

"We bought the Saab 9-3's intellectual property rights, but not its name," Science, Industry and Technology Minister Fikri I??k said in a televised interview on Oct. 15. 

"The brand [of the car to be developed] will be a Turkish brand, it will not be Saab. We'll develop the technology in Turkey," he added, as quoted by Anadolu Agency. 

He said that, once in mass production, a minimum of 85 percent of the parts used for the car will be produced in Turkey. 

Saab CEO Mattias Bergman confirmed the company and Turkey have worked together in the country's national car project in a press meeting in Sweden on Oct. 16. 

"We inked a deal on May 28. Our engineering team and the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey [TÜB?TAK] work together in developing the design with the contribution of our other partners in Turkey. We have created a couple to prototypes and presented them to Turkish Minister Fikri I??k to be launched in Turkey. We share knowhow in marketing as well as development and production with our Turkish partners. We offer training to Turkish manufacturers and engineers, and work together with them.

We provide production parts and system. We'll also share our resources in product development. The resources we don't have are provided by TÜB?TAK. We work together in TÜB?TAK's engineers in their laboratories," Bergman said, as quoted by Do?an News Agency. 

The news comes two days after he unveiled three prototypes of the first Turkish-made car, which was met with comments by...