Maribor vehicles factory celebrating 70th anniversary

The factory, whose demise seriously hurt the region around Maribor, has seen a revival in recent years, mostly owing to Chinese-owned bus maker TAM Europe.

The beginnings of TAM date back to 1942, when the Germans used the location on the outskirts of Slovenia's second largest city for the production of aircraft parts for the Luftwaffe.

The authorities in Belgrade decided after the war to turn the site over to vehicle production, naming it in 1947 the Tezno Maribor Car Factory (Tovarna avtomobilov Maribor Tezno).

TAM, whose first vehicles were modelled on Czech designs, quickly became the biggest manufacturer of trucks and buses in Yugoslavia.

In the 1960s the company started exporting substantially, especially to markets of unaligned countries, while it also produced trucks for the Yugoslav army.

In the 1980s, TAM secured the livelihood of more...