Th!nk!

Just before I moved to Liverpool, a friend of mine asked which car brands were Norwegian. I said "none." That was a lie. But to my defense, I did not lie in purpose, just out of ignorance. Norway do in fact produce a car, the little Th!nk electric car.

The car was brought to life by the Norwegian company PIVCO in the 1990s, and the company had some success with the CityBee/Citi model in the mid-90s. The CityBee even won the Scandinavian Electric Car rally in 1995. In 1999, PIVCO was bought by Ford, and renamed Think Nordic, keeping it until it finally went back to Norwegian owners in 2004. (And for any Czech-speaking readers; yes, it is quite funny that a car company is called PIVCO.)

The Th!nk comes in three models - Th!nk City, Th!nk Ox (5 seater), and Th!nk Open (cabriolet), with prices from around £14.000, not including battery rental. The car will go on the UK market in the last quarter of this year. The car can travel up to 200 km before recharging, and can go as fast as 100 kh/h. And all of that of course, being an electric car, with no local emissions whatsoever.

Norway is not and has never been a great vehicle-producing nation. But the Th!nk is not the only car that has been made in Norway. During a very short period of time, from 1956 to 1958, the Troll car was produced in Norway. Although only 5 cars were delivered from the factory, had it not been for lacking support from the government, this could have been the start of a car-producing industry in Norway - the car was at the time compared to Citroën, SAAB, and even Porsche.

The Troll-project stranded in 1958, just after the factory having gotten into production, due to the government more or less conciously obstructing the production of the car. The company initially got a promise of a license to produce 500 cars for sale in Norway, but this was later reduced to a ridiculous number of 15 cars.

When the company wanted to produce additional cars for export, the government refused to support the company. This was despite the fact that the company also had other investors, who would invest only if the government also supported the production. The main reason for the governments reluctance to support the Troll company was that it did not want to disrupt the trade balance with Eastern Europe, from which Norway imported cars in exchange for fish flour. So in effect, the government chose not to risk their markets for fish flour instead of supporting a possible car producing industry in Norway.

Lets hope the Th!nk will have a much brighter future than what the Troll had...