Monsieur Bernar Nahum

Bernar Nahum, the silent pioneer of Turkey’s automotive industry, was a passionate entrepreneur who worked behind the scenes to promote and build a viable automotive sector in Turkey. Never content to see Turkey develop only as an importer or assembler of automobiles, he worked diligently to carve out a manufacturing industry in a newly established republic that lacked resources, infrastructure, and experience. A determined and impassioned Turkish citizen and patriot, Bernar Nahum was not only the driving force behind the development of the Ford and Fiat interests in Turkey, but also of the Türk Traktör Company. His is the fascinating and often satirical story of how he transformed Ford’s original disdain of Turkey into a Ford-Koç Corporation partnership that became profitable for both countries and it was his adventures as a tractor salesman on the untraveled back roads of Anatolia in the 1920s and 30s that eventually led to the leadership role that Turkey today plays in tractor production sector.Not simply a chronicle of one man’s life, this book details the reconstruction of a nation that had been torn apart by war and bad governance. Bernar Nahum emerges as one of the many actors who joined in the struggle to propel Turkey to a leadership role in the region and one of the forces that led Turkey to the secure position it enjoys today.