Outdoing Hephaestus

They roll'd from place to place, around the bless'd abodes

Self-moved, obedient to the beck of gods.

--Iliad

Homer thus described the 20 threewheeled chariots built in a single day by the Greek god of fire, Hephaestus, the master craftsman who dwelt on Mount Olympus. Though ordinary Greek chariots lacked the gift of self-propulsion, the Greeks once led the ancient world in the production of wheeled vehicles. For the past several millennia, however, the Greek vehicle industry has been in quite a slump. In modern times, while such smaller nations as Portugal and Israel have managed to produce autos of their own, Greece has had no automotive industry.

Last week six brothers named Kondogouris moved to emulate Hephaestus and restore the vehicular glory that once was Greece's. Their family-owned National Motor Co. of Athens selected a site in the port city of Patras, where it will build a factory in September, hire nearly 1,000 workers and begin production before year's end of a three-wheeled utility truck called the "Pully," designed by Fiat. Their initial production goal: Hephaestus' 20 vehicles a day. So many foreign orders have already been received that the Kondogouris brothers have earmarked the 6,000 vehicles they will produce in 1966 for export to Common Market countries; they hope to raise production to 15,000 in 1967, begin selling in Greece. If they succeed, the brothers will provide an important economic lift for Greece, which has an annual trade deficit of $530 million: the value of Pully exports in 1966 should equal the exports of Greece's entire metal-manufacturing industry. Says Victor Kondogouris, 34, National's assistant managing director: "We aspire to make our Pully business the backbone of Greece's export trade."

The sons of a well-off former mayor of Salonika, the Kondogouris brothers invested $400,000 in 1961 to build

Greece's first automotive factory, began assembling a German-licensed farm truck. In 1963 they sold their Salonika plant to Chrysler International for $1,800,000, a deal that gave them enough to start their $2,000,000 Pully venture without outside financing. The Pully, which will be powered by a two-cylinder Fiat engine, weighs 1,100 Ibs., costs less than $1,000 and will--according to National--"motorize the masses." Once the Pully gets going, the company will start work on a small passenger line --which, because the Greeks do not quite have a word for it, Victor Kondogouris calls "a Greek Volkswagen."

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