Engesa (Engenheiros Especializados S.A.) was a Brazilian company in the oil and later automotive and military sectors founded in 1958. In the 70s and 80s it established itself as one of the "big three" in Brazil's arms industry, alongside Avibras and Embraer. It manufactured 6,818 land military vehicles such as the EE-25 truck and the EE-9 Cascavel and EE-11 Urutu armored vehicles, which it sold to Brazil and 18 other countries, and is still used in conflicts today. Its technological peak was the prototypes of the EE-T1 Osório main battle tank. Its founder, José Luiz Whitaker Ribeiro, was called the "civil armaments czar". In the civilian market, it became known with its Engesa 4 jeep. It went into decline at the end of the 80s as a result of bad decisions and a hostile internal and international environment, going bankrupt in 1993.
Entry into the market
Engesa emerged as a micro-enterprise, founded by José Luiz Whitaker Ribeiro, a graduate in mechanical engineering at USP's Polytechnic School, and other engineers from USP in 1958. The company had eight employees, including its shareholders. In 1963 it was incorporated as a company with capital from São Paulo. Its initial activities were the maintenance and production of parts for oil industry equipment. Its customers were the União Refinery, in Capuava, followed by those in Cubatão, Duque de Caxias and Mataripe, the latter in Bahia. Demand grew with the oil development of Bahia, resulting in the expansion to two hundred employees four years after its foundation, the purchase of machining equipment and the development of its own products. The main ones were oil pumping rods. New customers arrived: Petrobras' maritime terminals in Madre de Deus (Bahia) and Ilha d'Água (Rio de Janeiro).
Trucks and utility vehicles frequently broke down on the harsh roads to their destinations in Brazil's northeast, leading to Engesa's "homemade solution" of a suspension and traction system. It impressed the people at Petrobras, who started requisitioning the vehicles for rough and slippery terrain during the rainy seasons. In 1966 the company patented its 4x4, then 6x4 and 6x6 traction system, as "Total Traction", giving great off-road performance to trucks and pickups from Chevrolet, Ford and later Dodge. In 1969, the "Boomerang" double rear wheel drive was launched, capable of keeping the rear wheels in permanent contact with the ground. It was an off-road technological asset and was used in future projects, giving a competitive advantage, although it was expensive, heavy and could not support high loads.
Its artisanal advances outside the sector would expand its customers to the automotive sector, such as General Motors, Ford and the Brazilian Army itself: an officer would have seen a vehicle modified by the company, its vehicles were subjected to tests and as a result it received 100 army GMC trucks for repowering in 1968. Then, contacts with Brazilian Navy officers who had studied motor mechanics in the army made it possible to adapt the suspension and traction of Marine Corps trucks as well. At first they broke down, but after successive repairs in São Paulo they were in good condition, leading to more contracts. Repowering was a necessity, as all 4x4 and 6x6 vehicles were imported.
Engesa adapted 960 vehicles in 1968 and 1,371 two years later. The Ford F-600, Chevrolet C-60 gasoline and diesel D-60 received all-axle drive, reinforced bumpers and military lights. In addition to repowering trucks, the company entered the armored vehicle segment at the turn of the 1960s, producing the transfer and traction box for the Brazilian Viatura Blindada Brasileira or VBB I, a 4x4 reconnaissance vehicle to succeed the M8 Greyhound. In 1972 the number of employees reached four hundred.
When Engesa entered the defense sector, a modernization program was taking place driven by the alliance of the Brazilian Armed Forces with industrialists, state-owned companies and multinationals. It formed a military-industrial complex, which became one of the largest in the Third World during Brazil's military dictatorship, with a strong presence in this international market. Defense companies received demand from the country's Armed Forces, intellectual products from universities and research centers (such as the Army Technological Center) and subsidies and credit from government institutions. The army was undergoing a reorganization of its order of battle, creating a mechanized cavalry that would be furnished with Engesa's armored vehicles.