A decade into Egypt’s Industrial Revolution, in 1962, President Gamal Abdel Nasser gave a speech to celebrate the country’s strides in industrializing its economy. In the company of foreign delegates, Nasser iconically championed the fact that Egypt now manufactures everything – “from needles to rockets,” he claimed, later repurposing that quote into an iconic slogan. A few minutes later in the speech, Nasser proudly highlighted that Egypt produces its own cars as well: Ramses, Egypt’s first locally manufactured car. As short-lived as it was, from 1960 to 1972, it became a cultural staple of the era, and a driving force behind belief in Egypt’s post-colonial industrial powers. The idea behind Ramses began to materialize in 1958, according to Adel Gazarin, former president of Al-Nasr Automotive Manufacturing Company, a state-owned enterprise that produced Egypt’s local vehicles. “It is said that any newly independent country longs for three things: to set up embassies, to have a flag, to establish a car industry,” explains Gazarin in an interview for ‘Ramses the Car’ (2008), a short documentary. Basing its design and engine off of the NSU Prinz, a compact automobile manufactured in West Germany,…
