Road transport has a long history in Turkey. From the first century to the 14th, roads in this region formed the western leg of the important Silk Road, connecting traders in China with ports along the Mediterranean Sea. The route got its name from the valuable silk that was transported over it.
Turkish roads still connect Europe with Asia. The modern version of the Silk Road is a network of roads totalling about 60,000 kilometres stretching from Iran in the east to Bulgaria in the west. The roads often traverse mountainous terrain. Many of the vehicles that travel on them have been produced in Turkey, where car production is an important industry.
Turkey’s largest automotive producer is the Koç Group, a conglomerate with about 50,000 employees. Together with Ford and Fiat, the group produces cars, trucks, tractors, motor bikes and other commercial vehicles. The group also manufactures Peugeot and Magirus commercial vehicles and assembles Land Rovers.
The Koç Group’s relationship with SKF stretches back more than 30 years. Almost every one of the 300,000 vehicles manufactured annually by the Koç Group has SKF bearings in it.
An important part of the cooperation between Koç and SKF is the automotive aftermarket. Koç Group’s sales and service network covers every corner of Turkey. With the help of new products from SKF such as spare-part bearing kits for cars, this sector is growing very fast. So the Koç Group and SKF are in some sense helping the modern version of the Silk Road bring the East to the West – safely and efficiently.