The Pantelemidis family owned a company producing farm machinery (specializing in
threshing machine
A threshing machine or a thresher is a piece of farm equipment that threshes grain, that is, it removes the seeds from the stalks and husks. It does so by beating the plant to make the seeds fall out.
Before such machines were developed, threshi ...
s) and buses, using the Titan brand name. It was established in
Thessaloniki
Thessaloniki (; el, Θεσσαλονίκη, , also known as Thessalonica (), Saloniki, or Salonica (), is the second-largest city in Greece, with over one million inhabitants in its Thessaloniki metropolitan area, metropolitan area, and the capi ...
,
Greece
Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders with ...
, in 1937. This company became best known, however, for the engineering inventions of Ioannis Pantelemidis; especially a novel
chassis
A chassis (, ; plural ''chassis'' from French châssis ) is the load-bearing framework of an artificial object, which structurally supports the object in its construction and function. An example of a chassis is a vehicle frame, the underpart ...
type he designed in 1955, on which he produced two vehicles, a 4-tonne truck and a city bus. The chassis featured a complex hydraulic mechanism and axle design which enabled the driver to adjust ground clearance (e.g. low, for easier loading, or elevated, for all-terrain drive).
Pantelemidis's struggle to get a licence to produce the vehicles are indicative of the Greek state's historically negative attitude to the local motor industry. A series of delays and refusals to conduct approval tests by the state (with the claim of insufficient legal framework concerning novel developments) lead Pantelemidis to "parade" his vehicles through Thessaloniki to gain public support. He exhibited his truck in the 1956
Thessaloniki International Fair, while in an article published in 1958 he claimed that successful tests were conducted in a Greek military facility. Eventually he got state permission to produce a maximum of two 4-tonne trucks. It seems that Pantelemidis abandoned all efforts at production in 1959, while the Pantelemidis factory continued to make bus bodies, supplying the
Thessaloniki City Transport Authority (OASTH). The company was dissolved in 1988. The concept of Pantelemidis's "invention" seems familiar today, as several vehicles with similar mechanisms have appeared ever since, most probably through independent development.
Sources
L.S. Skartsis, "Greek Vehicle & Machine Manufacturers 1800 to present: A Pictorial History", Marathon (2012) (eBook)
* ''Neon Aftokiniton'' magazine, article in the January 31, 1956 issue
* ''Makedonia'' newspaper, articles in the May 16, 1957 and September 28, 1958 issues
* ''Eleftheria'' newspaper, article in the July 4, 1957 issue
* E. Roupa and E. Hekimoglou, ''I istoria tou aftokinitou stin Ellada (History of automobile in Greece)'', Kerkyra - Economia publishing, Athens (2009)
* Apostolos Kourbelis archive
External links
Pantelemidis truck in Dutch auto catalogue
{{Automotive industry in Greece
Manufacturing companies based in Thessaloniki
Defunct motor vehicle manufacturers of Greece
Vehicle manufacturing companies disestablished in 1988
1988 disestablishments in Greece
Vehicle manufacturing companies established in 1937