BMC has begun delivering Vuran and Kirpi II tactical armoured vehicles powered by Indigenous 400 HP Tuna engines to the Turkish Land Forces and Gendarmerie.
The delivery ceremony took place at BMC’s İzmir Pınarbaşı facility and was attended by key officials, including the Secretary of Defence Industries Professor Haluk Görgün, Turkish Land Forces Commander General Selçuk Bayraktaroğlu, Gendarmerie General Commander General Ali Çardakcı, and BMC Chairman Fuat Tosyalı.
A total of 100 tactical armoured vehicles were handed over in batches. This included 50 VURAN vehicles for the Turkish Land Forces, 40 VURAN vehicles for the Gendarmerie General Command, and 10 KİRPİ II MRAP vehicles for the Turkish Land Forces.
The 400-horsepower TUNA engine powers the vehicles, Türkiye’s first domestically mass-produced engine. The TUNA engine underwent over 6,500 hours of rigorous laboratory testing and completed 140,000 kilometres of on-vehicle testing, including NATO durability trials.
Initially ignited in 2020, the engine progressed through calibration and vehicle-based testing before entering mass production in 2022. In 2023, BMC POWER began serial production of the TUNA engines at its Sakarya Arifiye facility, which were then integrated into vehicles at BMC’s İzmir Pınarbaşı plant.
BMC Chairman Fuat Tosyalı highlighted that including the domestic engine increased the localisation rate of the VURAN and KİRPİ II vehicles to per cent 95, marking a significant milestone for the Turkish defence industry.
