URI Purposely Built Vehicles, officially URI Purposely Built Vehicles PTY LTD, is a South African automotive company who manufactures the Uri off-road vehicle. The company makes two models - URI Desert Runner and URI Mining Vehicle. The first is a simple, reliable and passable jeep in civil, military and police modifications (the army and the police make the company almost the entire turnover).

History

Originally the Uri was designed and built by Ewert Smith, a local

Angora goat The Angora or Ankara is a Turkish breed A breed is a specific group of breedable domestic animals having homogeneous appearance (phenotype), homogeneous behavior, and/or other characteristics that distinguish it from other organisms of the sa ...

farmer based in

Windhoek Windhoek (; ; ) is the capital and largest city of Namibia. It is located in central Namibia in the Khomas Highland plateau area, at around above sea level, almost exactly at the country's geographical centre. The population of Windhoek, which ...

Namibia Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country on the west coast of Southern Africa. Its borders include the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south; in the no ...

designed the Uri all-terrain truck in 1995. Smith named the vehicle Uri, a

Khoisan Khoisan ( ) or () is an Hypernymy and hyponymy, umbrella term for the various Indigenous peoples of Africa, indigenous peoples of Southern Africa who traditionally speak non-Bantu languages, combining the Khoekhoen and the San people, Sān peo ...

Nama word for "jump", and small scale production began in

Witvlei Witvlei (the Afrikaans word for white marsh) is a village in the Okarukambe Constituency in the Omaheke Region of central-eastern Namibia. It is known for its meat production and had a population of 2,633 people in 2023. Geography Witvlei ...

, Namibia in 2001. Tested in the

Kalahari Desert The Kalahari Desert is a large semiarid climate, semiarid sandy savanna in Southern Africa covering including much of Botswana as well as parts of Namibia and South Africa. It is not to be confused with the Angolan, Namibian, and South African ...

, the African agro-, police, military and mining industries ( De Beers/Anglo American Diamond Mines) ordered many of these trucks. The original manufacturing company was called Uri - Automobiles, production was then taken over by Uri International Vehicle & Equipment Marketing (Pty.) Ltd. (UVM) located in Waltloo, a north east suburb of

Pretoria Pretoria ( ; ) is the Capital of South Africa, administrative capital of South Africa, serving as the seat of the Executive (government), executive branch of government, and as the host to all foreign embassies to the country. Pretoria strad ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

. Since 2008, UVM was as a subsidiary of the South African defense contractor Ivema (Pty.) Ltd. As of 2015, the vehicle is produced by Uri Purposely Built Vehicle (PTY) LTD of

Rustenburg Rustenburg (; , Afrikaans and Dutch language, Dutch: ''City of Rest'') is a town at the foot of the Magaliesberg mountain range. Rustenburg is the most populous city in North West (South African province), North West province, South Africa (549 ...

, also in South Africa whose cofounders, Andre Squire and Raymond Squire, purchased over all intellectual property in 2015. The vehicle was originally used in rally, but the designer found out that there could be a market in agriculture, police, military, and the mining industry.

Variants

The Uri is broadly divided into two broad ranges Road and Mining in both 4×4 and 4×2 versions.

Uri Desert Runner

Specifications The vehicle is built of mechanical components from Toyota. * Motor options are Toyota 2 liter or 3 liter five-cylinder turbodiesel or 2.2 or 2.4 liter four-cylinder petrol engine. * Gearbox is five-step manual. * Length: 4450 mm * Width: 1680 mm * Height: 1855 mm * Weight: 1425 kg

URI Mining Vehicle

The URI Mining Vehicle is designed to operate in underground mines. The Uri Mining Vehicle is available in two different low-profile cab heights, a 1.4 meter high cab and URI 1.8 meter high cab.

Notes

External links

Manufacturer's Website (English)

Namibia Economist: Uri the perfect toy for a farmer or a villager

Popular Mechanics Russia
(The article "Cars of the Black Continent" was published in the magazine "Popular Mechanics" ( No. 9, September 2014 )). {{Automotive industry in South Africa Military history of Namibia Off-road vehicles Armoured vehicles Defence companies of South Africa Military vehicle manufacturers 1939 establishments in South West Africa