{"id":46319,"date":"2025-03-28T01:17:44","date_gmt":"2025-03-28T08:17:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=46319"},"modified":"2025-03-27T20:45:51","modified_gmt":"2025-03-28T03:45:51","slug":"the-sussitas-short-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2025\/03\/28\/the-sussitas-short-history\/","title":{"rendered":"The Sussita\u2019s short history"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sussita entrepreneur Itzhak Shubinsky driving a Sabra Sport car, from the newspaper Barkav, in the 1960s. <\/i>(photo from Haifa City Museum)<\/i><\/p>\n

For a trip down memory lane, cruise over to Haifa\u2019s City Museum at 11 Ben-Gurion Blvd., in the German Colony, to see\u00a0Sussita: The Exhibition. The display, which\u00a0continues until May 25 (the opening was delayed by Hezbollah rocket fire from Lebanon), documents Israel\u2019s failed automobile industry during the early decades of statehood.<\/p>\n

Alas, the doorways of the museum\u2019s 19th-century Templar building are too narrow to permit restored examples of the fibreglass shell cars to pass through. So, on hand is a stripped-down version of a Sussita, and a trove of fascinating documents and photos. Missing are full-size examples of the Carmel truck and Sabra Sport\u00a0roadster that Autocars Co. Ltd. assembled at its Haifa workshop and then in the city of Tirat Carmel.<\/p>\n

The exhibit was curated by Yifat Ashkenazi, together with filmmaker Avi Weissblei. The latter produced the 2020 documentary\u00a0Desert Tested, which told the Sussita\u2019s story.<\/p>\n

Like\u00a0Shai Agassi\u2019s Better Place electric\u00a0car\u00a0company, which went through almost $1\u00a0billion in venture capital before declaring bankruptcy in 2013, Israel\u2019s ultimately insolvent auto industry never thrived.<\/p>\n

\"image<\/a>
A Sussita Autocars Co. Ltd. advertisement in the 1960s, featuring its \u201c5 Road Champions!\u201d (photo from Haifa City Museum)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Sabra\u2019s aerodynamic curves evoke the glamour of early James Bond films. Nonetheless, even though they were jump-started by foreign firms, Haifa\u2019s car business never quite managed to compete with Detroit.<\/p>\n

Discussing Autocars\u2019 1966 Sussita at\u00a0carsurvey.org, one classic car aficionado noted: \u201cWhat things have gone wrong with the\u00a0car?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Almost everything! It was a very cheap\u00a0car\u00a0made of a fibreglass body attached to a very simple welded pipes chassis, with a Triumph engine. The car\u00a0was unstable, seriously dangerous, unreliable and very badly built.\u201d<\/p>\n

Folklore has it that camels liked to munch on the cars\u2019 fibreglass body. But the relative paucity of dromedaries in 1960s Israel makes the truth of this story doubtful.<\/p>\n

Founded in the mid-1950s with assistance from Britain\u2019s Reliant\u00a0<\/span>Motor Co., Autocars initially assembled quirky but popular three-wheeled micro-cars. The first four-wheeled blue-and-white vehicle, the Sussita, was also designed by Reliant.<\/p>\n

The Sussita, meaning mare in Aramaic, developed a reputation as a reliable workhorse. By 1960, Autocars was exporting the cheaply priced car \u2013 available in estate, van and pick-up models \u2013 to the United States and Canada. Rebranded as the Sabra \u2013 a genus of cactus originally from Mexico that had become a descriptor of native-born Israelis \u2013 the\u00a0car sold poorly in North America due to its inferior quality.<\/p>\n

That year, in 1960, Autocars\u2019 owner Itzhak Shubinsky spotted the coup\u00e9 Ashley GT at London\u2019s Sports and Racing\u00a0Car\u00a0Show. Changing business strategy, he purchased the bodywork moulds and created the Sabra Sport, which made its debut at the 1961 New York Motor Show. The roadster car\u00a0was also sold as a hardtop coupe. Fewer than 150 were exported to the United States, while a similar number were sold in Belgium.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Reliant also launched the\u00a0car\u00a0in Britain. Anglicizing its moniker to Sabre, the prickly cactus morphed into a swashbuckling sword.<\/p>\n

\"image<\/a>
Advertising for the Sussita: \u201cYou bought Sussita, you were not wrong.\u201d (photo from Haifa City Museum)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Expanding production, in 1961, Autocars introduced the Carmel, named for the mountain that defines Haifa. The\u00a0car\u00a0featured a 1,200cc Ford Cortina engine mounted in a Reliant chassis.<\/p>\n

By 1965, Autocars declared bankruptcy and was taken over by Britain\u2019s Leyland-Triumph. Revamping the product line, the following year it introduced the Gilboa, a four-door version of the Carmel. In 1967, it produced an off-road, front-wheel drive utility called the Dragoon.<\/p>\n

But the red ink continued to spill. In 1971, Leyland severed its ties with its Israeli subsidiary. Three years later, Autocars was bought by Rom Carmel Industries, which brought out its Gilboa-based Rom 1300.<\/p>\n

Sputtering along, in 1978, the company was purchased by the Netanya-based foundry Urdan Industries. Restyled again, the Rom 1300 became the Rom 1301. But declining sales could not be reversed, going from a peak of manufacturing more than 3,000 cars annually during the 1960s to just 540\u00a0cars\u00a0rolling off the assembly line in 1980, the last full year of production. In 1981, the plant shut its gates.<\/p>\n

For more about the exhibit, visit hcm.org.il\/eng\/exhibitions\/11128\/sussita.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Gil Zohar<\/b> is a writer and tour guide in Jerusalem.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sussita entrepreneur Itzhak Shubinsky driving a Sabra Sport car, from the newspaper Barkav, in the 1960s. (photo from Haifa City Museum) For a trip down memory lane, cruise over to Haifa\u2019s City Museum at 11 Ben-Gurion Blvd., in the German Colony, to see\u00a0Sussita: The Exhibition. The display, which\u00a0continues until May 25 (the opening was delayed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":46321,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4329],"tags":[23941,23944,23942,4242,23943,23940],"class_list":["post-46319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-israel","tag-auto-industry","tag-autocars","tag-haifa-museum","tag-history","tag-itzhak-shubinsky","tag-sussita"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46319\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}