Crashed ‘carma’: Haifa exhibit shows history of Israel's failed auto industry
From a peak during the 1960s of manufacturing more than 3,000 cars annually, 1980 – the last full year of production – saw just 540 cars roll off the assembly line. In 1981, the plant shut its gates.
Yitzhak Shubinsky in the first sports car that left the factory, 1960s.(photo credit: Shubinsky family collection)ByGIL ZOHAR
For a trip down memory lane, cruise over to Haifa’s City Museum at 11 Ben-Gurion Blvd. in the German Colony to see “Sussita: The Exhibition.” The riveting display, open until May 25, documents Israel’s failed automobile industry during the early decades of statehood.
Alas, the doorways of the museum’s 19th-century Templar building are too narrow to permit restored examples of the fiberglass shell cars to pass through. On hand is a stripped-down version of a Sussita and a trove of fascinating documents and photos. Missing are full-size examples of the Carmel truck and Sabra Sports roadster that Autocars Co. Ltd. assembled at its Haifa workshop, and then in Tirat Carmel.
The exhibition was curated by Yifat Ashkenazi, together with filmmaker Avi Weissblei. The latter produced the 2020 documentary Desert Tested, which tells the Sussita’s story.
The story of the Sussita
Like Shai Agassi’s ambitious Better Place electric car company, which burned through almost $1 billion in venture capital before declaring bankruptcy in 2013, Israel’s ultimately insolvent auto industry was ahead of its time.
“Sexy” isn’t an adjective one associates with the puritanical, socialist ethos of that era. But the Sabra’s aerodynamic curves evoke the glamor of early James Bond films.
A Sussita advertisement. (credit: Shubinsky family collection)
Jump-started by foreign firms, Haifa’s car industry never quite managed to compete with Detroit. Discussing Autocars’ 1966 Sussita at www.CarSurvey.org, one classic car aficionado noted: “What things have gone wrong with the car? Almost everything! It was a very cheap car made of a fiberglass body attached to a very simple welded pipes chassis, with a Triumph engine. The car was unstable, seriously dangerous, unreliable, and very badly built.”
Folklore has it that camels liked to munch on the cars’ fiberglass body. But the relative paucity of dromedaries in 1960s Israel makes this apocryphal story doubtful.
Founded in the mid-1950s with assistance from Britain’s Reliant Motor Company, Autocars initially assembled quirky but popular three-wheeled micro-cars. The first four-wheeled blue-and-white vehicle, the Sussita, was also designed by Reliant. The Sussita, which means “mare” in Aramaic, developed a reputation as a reliable workhorse. By 1960, Autocars was exporting the inexpensive car – available in estate, van, and pick-up models – to the US and Canada. Rebranded as the Sabra – a genus of cactus originally from Mexico that had become an icon of native-born Israelis – the car sold poorly in North America due to its inferior quality.
Changing business strategy, that year Autocars’ owner Itzhak Shubinsky spotted the coupé Ashley GT at London’s Sports and Racing Car Show. Purchasing the bodywork molds, he created the Sabra Sport, which made its debut at the 1961 New York Motor Show. The roadster was also sold as a hardtop coupé. Less than 150 were exported to the US, while a similar number were sold in Belgium.
Reliant also launched the car in Britain. Anglicizing its moniker to Sabre, the prickly cactus morphed into a swashbuckling sword.
Expanding production, in 1961 Autocars introduced the Carmel, named for the mountain that defines Haifa. The car featured a 1,200-cc. Ford Cortina engine mounted in a Reliant chassis.
By 1965, Autocars declared bankruptcy and was taken over by Britain’s Leyland-Triumph. Revamping the product line, the following year it introduced the Gilboa, a four-door version of the Carmel. In 1967, it produced an off-road, front-wheel drive utility called the Dragoon.
But the red ink continued to spill. In 1971, Leyland severed its ties with its Israeli subsidiary. Three years later, Autocars was bought by Rom Carmel Industries which brought out its Gilboa-based Rom 1300.
Sputtering along, in 1978 the company was purchased by the Netanya-based foundry Urdan Industries. Re-styled again, the Rom 1300 became the Rom 1301. But declining sales could not be reversed: From a peak during the 1960s of manufacturing more than 3,000 cars annually, 1980 – the last full year of production – saw just 540 cars roll off the assembly line. In 1981, the plant shut its gates.■
