Hellenic Vehicle Industry (ELVO, also spelled in English as ELBO) is a Greek manufacturer of civilian and military vehicles based in Thessaloniki, Greece.
History
The Hellenic Vehicle Industry started business as Steyr Hellas S.A. assembling and manufacturing trucks, motorbikes and farm tractors (Steyr and Puch models). Significant orders for trucks and buses by the Greek Army and state authorities soon gave momentum to the company. The tractor division declined in the 1980s, as the company focused on military vehicles. In 1986 it changed its name to Hellenic Vehicle Industry S.A..
The Greek company's first original designs were a 3-tonne truck in 1980, which was not industrially produced, and a military bus (chassis and body) in 1981. In the same year it undertook the construction of "its own" Leonidas Armored Personnel Carrier, Steyr’s 4K 7FA model built with minor modifications, again with progressively increasing local content. In 1987 Hellenic Vehicle Industry introduced Leonidas-2, this time with significant modifications of its own. Hundreds were built, while a number of different versions were proposed.
In the years that followed, Hellenic Vehicle Industry became a major producer of military and civilian trucks for a variety of uses (all based on Steyr models), engines (Steyr types, many for export to the Austrian company itself), military jeeps (Mercedes-Benz G-Class under licence), customized vehicles and machinery, and buses, with significant exports. Production of buses usually involved body construction on imported chassis. Only a few models actually included complete ELVO chassis design and construction, among them the Midas and Europe models of 1993, and a number of military bus types.