ANTIQUE WAGONS AND MOTOR VEHICLES

In 1903, motorcars first arrived in Mexico City, totaling 136 cars in that year and rising to 800 by 1906. This encouraged then president Porfirio Díaz, to create both the first Mexican highway code (which would allow cars to move at a maximum speed of 10 km/h or 6 mph on crowded or small streets and 40 km/h or 25 mph elsewhere) and, along with this, a tax for car owners which would be abolished in 1911 with Francisco I. Madero's successful campaign against Díaz's presidency at the outbreak of the Mexican Revolution. In 1910, Daimler and Renault both established small facilities for the local assembly of vehicles primarily for the Mexican government at the behest of Porfirio Díaz, but these functioned for little more than a few months before being destroyed in the Mexican Revolution. A short time after the end of the armed struggle, Buick became the first automobile producer to be officially established in Mexico, beginning in 1921. In 1925, Ford Motor Company was established and began manufacturing vehicles in the country, and, as of 2020, remains the longest-running brand in the country. In 1961, Mexico produced its first fully domestic vehicle, a small truck called the Rural Ramírez, produced by the Ramirez truck company.