From Bedford to sleek cars: The story of Ghana’s auto industry
From rickety, smoke-blowing Bedford trucks to luxurious 4X4s and saloons, Ghana’s automobile and road transport sectors have seen it all, from years preceding independence in March 1957 till today.
Vehicles made their appearance in the Gold Coast at the turn of the 19th century, not very long after they took to the road in Europe in the 1890s.
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From some hundreds, the number of cars has increased over the years and now there are over one million cars, according to statistics from the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority.
Lorries, especially the untiring good old Bedford trucks, became common in the late 1930s. They were used extensively to transporting cocoa, salt and foodstuffs to the railways even before properly tarred roads became common.
The diesel engines and steel frames had good reputation, were as strong as tractors and reliable. The owners, often wealthy traders, men and women, would contract carpenters to build the box, seats, roof (tarred to be waterproof) and canvas flaps for the sides and back to use when it rained.
Not everyone took to cars straightaway. My 90 something-year-old grandfather was quite content to walk. He was suspicious of the car when he first came across one somewhere at Keta in the 1930s.
Hear him: “Those days at Keta, there was this Bremen missionary who drove a Crossley Bugatti, a windowless car with wheels that looked like today’s bicycle tyres.
“As if to tease us to chase the car, he would stand right in front of us and when all eyes were on him, he would dash away, leaving trails of smoke and dust.
“My chance to step into that car came when ‘Yevu Lorrivi,’ as we used to call him, spotted me on my way home from the farm. When the car stopped right in front of me, I took off without looking back.”
Years on, he did not only come to own a Renault 4 but took to driving as a career with the then GNTC, having a feel of quite a number of vehicles.
The fleet
The fleet of cars that have moved on Ghana’s roads, especially from the 1950s till now is long and impressive. Do you remember the days of vintage cars such as Hennessey, Vauxhall, Rolls-Royce, Bentley, Humber, Morris Minor, Aston Martin, Jaguar, Leyland and Austin, all from the United Kingdom?
The USA’s share of the automobile space were cast in the make of the vintage Ford cars such as Dodge, Buick, Cadillac, Ford Mustang, Chrysler, Chevrolet and Pontiac.
What about the German line-up of the Beetle or VW; the Opel Astra, Daimler Mercedes Benz, Opel Rekord and others? Other cars that were embedded in the fabric of the automobile industry included the Plymouth, Toyota, Packard and Nissan Datsun. The Datsun’s days of glory were in the late 60s and throughout the 70s and were used extensively as taxis.
Just like today, the luxury cars were the Ferrari, Saab, Lincoln, Maybach, Lamborghini, Mercedes Benz and BMWs.
Good old Peugeot
Among the most celebrated cars to have trekked Ghanaian roads was the Peugeot 404. Not long after it entered the European market in May 1960, it made its way to Ghana in the mid-60s. It was notoriously known as ‘One pound, One pound.’