KZBlog

But don’t hide the women or children. Attila is the name of a new car, apparently the first designed wholly in Kazakhstan! And it has a number of unique features to represent Kazakhstan.

Most strikingly, the radiator grill, as you can see from the photo, has a big yurt on it. Furthermore, the body of the car, which the creators call Amirbek is a four-door sedan with a dome-shape on top, also representing a yurt or Ottoman-style cupolas. According to the designers, this use of Eastern architectural elements “gives the car a romantic look and a style pleasing to people with an Eastern mentality.” Veering a little too far into poetry, the designers also note that the round wheels and tires reflect the circle, the most basic of geometric shapes, and also the shape of a yurt or a shanyrak (roof-piece).I would have thought there would be other reasons for having round wheels and tires, like physics for example.

As of yet, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of information on the technical specs of this car and in fact the technical implementation section of the project website claims that the most important element of the car is the unique, Kazakh-style body and implies that the rest of the car could well be put together out of components from other car companies. If that is the case, then this project becomes little more than a prestige project in my opinion. The car is certainly unique looking, but if the components are all from Lada or Toyota or Volvo, I would rather just buy a Lada or Toyota or Volvo.

In fact a great deal of the website seems to deal with whether or not Kazakhstan needs a car of its own. I don’t see why or why not. There’s no reason why Kazakhstan needs to reinvent the wheel but there’s no reason why they shouldn’t either. But I would think that from the point of view of job-creation and industrialization, building the whole car here would do more than just building the body. And I would think it would promote the “brand image” of Kazakhstan more if Kazakhstan came up with more than just a body but also some kind of innovations in the engine, suspension, transmission, or some other technical aspect.

Check out the the website of the Attila project [RU] for more information, photos and to send questions to the creators.

So I put the questions to you, gentle readers: Do you like the look of the Attila? Would you buy it? Do you think Kazakhstan needs a car company? Is the body really the most important part? Did I misunderstand the intention of this project? Got any inside info on this project?