Bognor SA, based in

Montevideo Montevideo () is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Uruguay, largest city of Uruguay. According to the 2011 census, the city proper has a population of 1,319,108 (about one-third of the country's total population) in an area of . M ...

Uruguay Uruguay (; ), officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay ( es, República Oriental del Uruguay), is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast; while bordering ...

is firstly an automotive parts maker, but since 2007 also engages in various joint ventures, building cars from Asian automakers under license. The company was founded in 2000 and employs just over 200 people. Bognor's own current products are protection parts for various armored cars, both

passenger cars A car or automobile is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of ''cars'' say that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport people instead of goods. The year 1886 is regarded as t ...

, as well as commercial and military armored cars. The company's current customers are all major automotive manufacturers. The products are used in serial sedans like for instance the

Mercedes-Benz S-Class The Mercedes-Benz S-Class, formerly known as ''Sonderklasse'' (German for "special class", abbreviated as "S-Klasse"), is a series of full-sized luxury vehicle, luxury sedans, limousines and Armored car (VIP), armored sedans produced by the Germa ...

. The manufacturer's product range also features parts for

stretch limousine A limousine ( or ), or limo () for short, is a large, chauffeur-driven luxury vehicle with a partition between the driver compartment and the passenger compartment. A very long wheelbase luxury sedan (with more than four doors) driven by a pro ...

s, armored fighting vehicles and special vehicles. Since 2007, Bognor has engaged in several joint ventures with original automakers, to build their vehicles in Bognor's plant, notably with Russian

AvtoVAZ AvtoVAZ ( rus, АвтоВАЗ, p=ɐftoˈvas) is a Russian automobile manufacturing company owned by the state. It was formerly named as VAZ ( rus, ВАЗ), an acronym for Volga Automotive Plant in Russian (russian: Во́лжский автомо� ...

( Lada) under Bognor name, as well as with Chinese

Chery Automobile Chery Automobile Co. Ltd., Doing business as, trading as Chery and sometimes known by the pinyin transcription of its Chinese name, ''Qirui'' (), is a Chinese state-owned automobile manufacturer headquartered in Wuhu, Anhui, China. Founded in ...

, in an agreement to use the SOCMA brand (Argentina); and a venture called Oferol, in cooperation with

Hafei Hafei, officially Hafei Motor Co., Ltd. (), is a Chinese automaker currently operating as a subsidiary of Changan Ford, and manufacturing passenger vehicles. It previously independently manufactured sedans, MPVs, mini vehicles, small trucks, an ...

, also Chinese.

History

Founded in 1997, Bognor worked as an assembly plant for PSA (Peugeot Citroën) for seven years, assembling

Citroën Xsara The Citroën Xsara () is a compact C-segment family car, produced by the French automaker PSA Peugeot Citroën, under their Citroën marque, from 1997 to 2006. The Xsara was a development of the Citroën ZX and Peugeot 306, which shared a platfo ...

s in Uruguay. Since then, production shifted to armored cars, and three-wheelers, available for export to any country. Beginning in 2007, several joint ventures were established with automobile manufacturers, all of them located at the same plant, though legally independent companies.

(Lada) was the first company that strengthened its cooperation with Bognor SA. In its first year at Bognor, in addition to their regular parts production, the

Lada Samara The VAZ-2108, known as the Lada Samara in much of Western Europe (codenamed and later officially badged as the Lada Sputnik in its native Russia), is a series of small family cars produced by Soviet/Russian vehicle manufacturer AvtoVAZ under the ...

saloon was built as the 'Bognor Sagona' and original Lada Niva SUVs rolled off the production line as 'Bognor Diva'. The latter was factory installed in armored versions, which were mainly ordered by Central and South American customers. The second joint venture was decided to separate the car-making from the main production company to make the divisions more clear. Chery cars at some point supplanted the outdated Ladas. Involved in the venture was the Argentine SOCMA, to build the Bognor cars as ''SOCMA'' Chery, with a production capacity up to 25,000 vehicles a year. In parallel, a third joint venture called Oferol developed, in which

brand cars are manufactured by Bognor. Vehicle identification number of the manufacturer code 9U3, 9UE and 9UF for passenger cars and 9UC and 9UN for SUVs.

Models

VAZ-21099.jpg, Bognor Sagona
2000 to 2007 Lada Niva 1991 Brazil.jpg, Bognor Diva
2000 to 2007

References

Bognor S.A. TradeData at ComXport.com

External links

Bognor S.A. official site
* {{Automotive industry in Uruguay Automotive companies of Uruguay Manufacturing companies of Uruguay Companies based in Montevideo Uruguayan brands

History

Models

See also

References

External links