AVIA

With modern production facilities at the heart of Europe in Prague, Czech Republic, AVIA Ashok Leyland is a wholly owned subsidiary of Ashok Leyland Ltd. Established in 1919 as an aircraft manufacturer, AVIA has a proud engineering heritage and reputation for outstanding aerospace level quality.

Certified to both ISO9001 and TS16949, AVIA not only produces its own truck and bus range, but also carries out production work for other European manufacturers.

Its truck building history started directly after the Second World War - with the 706R entering production in 1946, followed in the early 1960 by the S5T and the ubiquitous V3S - which remained in production until 1988.

AVIA's modern history started in 1967 with the signature of a production license with Renault-Saviem to product the French manufacturer’s 1.5 and 3 tonne payload trucks in Prague. The local products - the AVIA A 15, A21 and A31 included an integral van - the "A21Furgon". This up-to-date range of "blue AVIAs" became the most commonly sighted truck throughout the Central and Eastern Europe, as AVIA manufactured up to 20,000 per year.

In 1995 Daewoo took a 50.2% holding in the company and invested in the upgrading of the existing A range - which became the A60, A75 and A80 range. Daewoo also invested heavily in both product development and production tooling for an entirely new range - the D-Line. Launched in 2000 this state of the art range covering models from 6-9 tonnes gvw allowed AVIA to enter a number of Western European markets.

In 2005, Odien, a Czech investment group, bought Daewoo's share of the company and restructured it before selling the truck business unit in 2006 to the Indian commercial vehicle giant Ashok Leyland. During this period, Odien invested in development of the D120 - 12 tonne gvw truck.

Since their acquisition in 2006, Ashok Leyland have made sizeable investments in the company and ensured compliance with EURO 4 and EURO 5 emissions regulations.