The rise & fall of Hawksiran.

Story told by David Edgington.

3/ The M16-2 SANE, referred to in Iran as a ‘Listeroid’, was a copy of the CS 16-2.

Lister had a factory assembling engines in Iran but when the Islamic Revolution took place in 1979 the workers downed tools and fled for their lives across the Jordanian border.

Hardly a week goes by when Iran isn’t in the news. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has put the country on a collision course with the world over his pursuit of an Islamic bomb. His policies are close to bankrupting the country, businesses are moving money over the borders and unemployment is rising. Yet here is a country that has, for decades, been dependant upon the stationary engine to generate electricity, pump water for crop irrigation, power machinery for construction purposes---but of all these the pumping of water is probably the most important. With fuel costing next to nothing the stationary engine is in a unique world position of reigning supreme.

The forming of Hawksiran.

The story starts in 1975 when a wealthy businessman named Jamshid Yegangegi, who was already involved in the importing of Lister and Blackstone engines, established a 50-50% split joint partnership with the Hawker Siddeley Group. A new company called Hawksiran (an amalgam of Hawker Siddeley and Iran) was set-up at Tabriz for the production and supply of both Lister and Petter engines. Staff from both Dursley and Staines was seconded to the factory with the main aim to provide facilities for an increasing level of local production.
Initial production comprised the assembly of C.K.D. (complete knock down) kits sent from Dursley with the addition of certain local made components. The first engines to be supplied were the CS 8-1, 16-2, Petter PJ and PH, with the Blackstone OP with the Lister ST following later. The venture, while it lasted, proved a success with around 4,500 engines per annum supplied.

1/. A publicity photograph showing the Hawksiran factory in the 1970s. In the foreground and centre left, 8-1 and 16-2 flywheels easily recognisable by the 3-trapezoidal shape holes. Using local employment for operations such as casting was rife with problems……

8/. Crates of ST3 Lister-Petter engines shipped from the UK in 1975-80 and never used. Note the Hawksiran-Tabriz name stencilled on the crates, the engines would have been re-named Hawksiran and sold on. You will be pleased to know that Mohammad was able to purchase them for re-sale!

2/. ….. as illustrated by mountains of faulty flywheels still lying around on display for all to see. This close-up shows inferior casting.

Lister-Petter staff down tools and flee!

4/. With the factory placed under the auspices of the Islamic regime the Government sent teams of Mullahs to oversee operations, here the Minister for Industry visits just prior to the offer of increased funding.

In 1979 it all came to an abrupt end when the Islamic Revolution took place resulting in the Shah being deposed. British employees, taken by surprise, were forced to make a quick exit—stories still abound of unnerving instances with whole families lying on the floor of cars being driven through check-points to escape. It was apparently a case of taking the nearest vehicle and setting of for the border!

Although all contacts with the UK were initially broken, a demand for essential spares required to keep farmers productive, resulted in a cautious re-establishment of contact. Lister and Petter were ‘invited’ to donate the factory to the Revolution which, bearing in mind its location, gave very little choice. Strangely enough the seriousness and complexity of the situation doesn’t seem to have been heeded, even when in 1981 the Iranian directors of the business were forced to flee for their lives. Despite a marked deterioration in relations between Iran and the West a decision was taken back home at Dursely to re-commence the supply of C.K.D. kits and spares. When the new regime demanded a portion of pre-revolutionary profits to be paid before business could start, it was still thought to be a worthwhile gamble!

Name change to Iran Diesel.

5/. The Hawksiran factory in the early 1970s with newly cast 16-2 crankcases just prior to assembly. This is probably a press photograph recording the first crankcases to be cast on-site.

The new company, operating under the name ‘Iran Diesel’, placed significant orders for CS 8-1 and 16-2 together with limited quantities of the new ST. Part of the new arrangement was the supply of enough machinery to improve the local output of components to boost production of the slow-speed CS. It was also intended to ‘metricate’ the total production, a deliberate move to further dependency from British and American systems.

When David Parrott (Technical Manager, Overseas Division) visited Iran in November 1983 he found the factory up and running with limited local content but a programme to increase this was already underway. The management of the factory was in the hands of a young and capable team headed by a man who had returned from post graduate study in the US to aid the Revolution. Later, when this person moved to greater things, a more radical and less competent Chief Executive took over.

In 1984 Lister announced the T range to replace the ST and informed Iran Diesel of the change, which would involve a new licence with related fees. The Iranians reaction to this was to tell Lister-Petter, as it was by then, that they were under no obligation to sign any new agreement and would carry out a full survey of suitable engines and suppliers.
A detailed survey was apparently undertaken with Lister-Petter and Hatze ending as front-runners.

Abortive attempts to resurrect business

While the T type proposals were being considered Lister-Petter’s David Parrott made several visits to Tabriz in 1985/6 and watched the progress of the ‘slow speed’ engine integration programme. Even at the time visits to India were being made to source the various components, later it became their major supplier. By 1988 Lister-Petter finally gave up the challenge, by which time all contracts and prices were under Government control and proving unrealistic.
In order to keep the Tabriz factory afloat the Iranian government, working under the Islamic regime, tendered a colossal £14,000,000 loan to expand Tabriz and build a new factory. A new name SANE (meaning “Industries” in Farsi) was given to the factory and its products---the low speed engines, the CS copies, becoming SANE M8-1 and SANE M16-2. While crankcases, crankshafts and flywheels were cast and machined on-site the remainder of the components were out-sourced.
Due to a lack of skilled labour the project, launched with great aplomb, had failed within two years. Furthermore, although many components were imported from Indian companies, the Indians were in direct competition where the end product was concerned and sold their own engines at less than half the price.
In 2000 the KIA Company of Korea purchased both old and new factories and to this day are producing KIA cars and engines at Tabriz, but the SANE CS Lister copies, known as ‘Listeroids’ were phased out several years ago.

9/. SANE engines were initially painted green but then changed to blue, as depicted on these radiator cooled M 16-2 powered generating sets.

A visit to Tabriz in 2006!

I had heard so much about the Tabriz factory that I rather cheekily suggested to our man on the spot, Mohammad Matbouei, that he should pay a visit to the area to see if it was still in operation. More importantly, I suggested, it would be worth finding out if the CS or ‘Listeroid’ was still being manufactured. Mohammad accepted the challenge but experienced extreme difficulty in gaining entry to the factory. Having failed with a soft approach he (I quote) turned forceful with the manager and thus was permitted to gain entry. Once inside, and having explained his situation, it was a different matter with cups of tea all round and stories told by employees who worked there in the Hawksiran period. Draws and files were opened to produced photographs, catalogues and information which Mohammad……well let’s just say a large package dropped through my letter box in Westbury a few week later!

Thanks! I would like to thank Mohammad Matbouei who visited the factory in order to provide the photographs and the Iranian side of this story, also David Parrott formerly Technical Manager of overseas operations at R.A.Lister, and of course David Harris for checking the various facts.

6/. An M 8-1 SANE sectioned for use in the showroom. The SANE used Indian components which proved expensive to import and of inferior quality, this marked the beginning of the end for CS production in Iran. Mohammad says the Mullahs should have heeded the Iranian proverb which says, ‘A wise enemy is better than a stupid friend’!