South Africa does not have a locally-owned car brand. The ‘Joule’ prototype for a South African electric car has unfortunately just been canned. However, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t cars manufactured locally. There are more than 200 dedicated and another 150 non-exclusive automotive part manufacturers in South Africa. Many of the parts are exported to factories for assembly elsewhere and there are a number of cars that are manufactured in South Africa for export only, but some cars are manufactured and sold right here.

The most popular locally manufactured brand is Toyota. They manufacture Corolla, Hilux and Fortuner cars at their Durban factory. They will also reintroduce the locally made Siyaya taxis. The Ses’fikile, despite its name, and the Quantum taxis are imported. If, like me, you are not a huge fan of individual transport but feel like you can’t get around in South Africa without a car, Toyota’s practices might endear themselves to you. They encourage manufacturers to set up shop as close as possible to their factory to avoid long distance transport.

Toyota have also just committed to ‘shipping’ their vehicles for both domestic use and export using Transnet Freight Rail, which means moving dozens of truckloads worth of vehicles on rail rather than road. Business schools study their successful company philosophy and corporate culture. It might also make business sense to buy a locally manufactured Toyota and support the 8,500 employees in South Africa.

Volkswagen (VW) has kept Uitenhage on the map for more than 60 years! The Uitenhage factory produced the Beetle and the Golf 1, both of which made it into car history. Now they build the new Polo and the Polo Vivo, employing more than 5,000 people.

Ford manufactures their Rangers and Mazda BT50 vehicles locally. They won’t tell you on their website, but I got a very friendly email response from them providing the information.

Nissan employs 2,000 people at their Rosslyn plant where they build the Livina, the Tiida and the NP200 and 300 bakkies. The plant also assembles the Sandero forRenault.

General Motor assembles some of its models in South Africa: the Isuzu KB, the Chevrolet Corsa Utility and their trucks. However, the popular Chevrolet and Opel models, like the Spark, the Aveo, the Corsa and the Astra, are imported. Still they employ almost 2,000 people in their factories and over 6,000 people are employed at dealerships countrywide.

If you want to be seen driving around in a German luxury car, you can buy two locally manufactured brands:

Mercedes-Benz has a large local operation and manufactures the Mercedes-Benz C-class model, (the W204 chassis) for the local market and abroad. The engine size ranges from 2 to 3.5 litres and there are diesel versions, but if the C-class does not appeal to your taste, I am afraid it’s a Mercedes truck for you... All their other models are imported.

BMW churns out a much smaller number of locally assembled vehicles, but they manufacture the 3 Series sedan here and sell it into the local market.