Katmerciler Arac Ustu Ekipman Sanayi ve Ticaret A.S.

Katmerciler started in Izmir in 1985 building equipment that bolts onto truck chassis. Tippers, tankers, refuse bodies, the unglamorous hardware that municipalities buy in quantity. It floated on Borsa Istanbul in 2010 under the ticker KATMR and used the capital to push into armoured vehicles, which is now the part of the business that gets written about. The company still describes itself around two halves, defence industry vehicles and commercial vehicle superstructures, and it runs a certified research and development centre plus an inspection centre licensed to test vehicles carrying dangerous goods under ADR rules. Exports reach more than seventy countries. Roughly thirty different types of on-board equipment come off the lines.

The defence half is built around Hizir, a 4x4 mine resistant ambush protected vehicle with a 16 tonne gross weight, a 5.57 metre hull and a modular interior that has been ordered in combat, command and control, CBRN, weapon carrier, ambulance, reconnaissance and border security fits. Kenya ordered 118 of them, the Democratic Republic of the Congo bought a batch in 2024, and an upgraded Hizir II followed the original. Around Hizir sits a family of lighter and heavier platforms: the Khan 4x4 armoured personnel carrier seating eight, the Ates armoured border security vehicle built for static and patrol surveillance work, the Eren 4x4 tactical urban warfare vehicle and the Nefer armoured command and patrol vehicle. Riot control vehicles with water cannon remain a steady line for police customers at home and abroad.

Unmanned and remotely operated equipment is where the two halves of the company meet, because armouring a bulldozer and removing its driver is a natural extension of a firm that already builds construction bodywork. UKAP is a tracked remote controlled weapon platform with a tracking system, able to run about five hours at up to 25 km per hour, and the company also sells a remote controlled armoured bulldozer, a remote controlled armoured tracked excavator and a remotely operated articulated wheel loader for engineering work under fire. Armoured logistics rounds it out, covering ADR compliant fuel tankers, water tankers, tippers, backhoe loaders, troop and cargo bodies, armoured shields and tank carrier lowbed trailers. The commercial side has not been abandoned as the defence orders grew. Katmerciler still builds fire fighting vehicles, street sweepers and waste collection bodies, transport bodywork, and a special products line covering one-off and low volume bodies built to a customer's drawing, including aircraft refuelling trucks and hydrant dispensers that straddle the civil and military airfield markets. A cooperation agreement signed with the Malaysian vehicle house Deftech points at the strategy for export growth, which is local partnership rather than plain shipment. The pattern is consistent across the company. Take a commercial chassis, add the armour, the body and the mission kit that a customer actually needs, and sell it into markets that want protected mobility without the price or the political conditions attached to buying from a Western prime.