Timor (car)

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The Timor (Teknologi Industri Mobil Rakyat) was a car sold in Indonesia in the mid-1990s, which was simply a rebadged version of the South Korean Kia Sephia. It was intended to be Indonesia's 'national car', similar to Malaysia's Proton, and as such, exempt from taxes and duties levied on other cars sold in the country. The full name of the company was Timor Putra Nasional, literally, 'Timor, National Son' in Indonesian.

However, this proved controversial, because when the car was first released it was not assembled in Indonesia at all. Instead, it was imported completely built-up from South Korea, to the annoyance of companies like Toyota, which were already producing vehicles in Indonesia. This led to accusations of nepotism and cronyism, as the project was the brainchild of Hutomo 'Tommy' Mandala Putra, son of the then President Suharto.
The controversy also led to the cancellation of Indonesian Government's own national car project M3 Maleo (Mobil Murah Masyarakat Maleo)^[1]. The Maleo project was a joint venture between Konsorsium Mobil Indonesia (Indonesian Car Consortium), Millard Design and Orbital Engineering, Australia. Members of Konsorsium Mobil Indonesia were BPIS (Indonesia's agency for strategic industries), BPPT, PT PINDAD, PT IPTN, PT BBI and led by former Minister for Research and Technology, BJ Habibie.

The choice of Timor as the name of the Indonesian 'national car' was also unfortunate having negative connotations with East Timor, which Indonesia had annexed in 1976, although the name was not used overseas. The head of the Roman Catholic Church in East Timor, Carlos Felipe Ximenes Belo, was given a Timor car as a gift, but he refused to use it.

With the Asian financial crisis in 1997 came the collapse of Kia, and the demise of the Suharto regime in 1998, which saw the Timor car project abandoned.