Thailand’s never-die tuk-tuks now a global export

Here's a look inside one of the country's four tuk-tuk factories, which churns out about 200 of the popular tourist icons every year
This partially completed tuk-tuk will soon be ferrying hotel guests around Bangkok.

After 25 years of service, a company traditionally rewards a loyal employee with a gold watch. But for Win van Rootselaar of Dutch company Cryovat Internationaal, his reward for working for the family company for a quarter of a century is considerably larger and infinitely more unique -- a Thai-made tuk-tuk.
For more than 50 years tuk-tuks have been burping their way around the cities and villages of Thailand, a legacy of the Japanese World War II occupation of most of the region.

Though Indonesia’s Bajaj and India’s auto rickshaw bare remarkable similarities, the stainless steel “Thailand” plate on the rear, liberal chrome plating and the distinctive blue and yellow livery applied to Thailand’s taxi tuk-tuks have seen them become a unique symbol identified with Thailand the world over. Not to mention a vehicle tourists to the country can’t get enough of.

No robots on this production line. All welding is done by hand. Here the roof support is welded for the canvas top.As a frequent traveler to the company’s Thailand division, Win’s brother Tim was familiar with the tourist appeal of tuk-tuks and concluded that nothing short of a genuine Thailand tuk-tuk would suffice as a suitable silver anniversary gift for his brother.

Though the Thai government will not register any new tuk-tuks for private use, export orders, along with larger variants used by hotels, resorts and shopping malls throughout the country are such that four factories still specialize in their production.

Originally fitted with a single or twin cylinder 350cc two-stroke Daihatsu engine, the cause of the high-pitched burping noise they make as they zip around Thailand’s streets, modern-day tuk-tuks are fitted with 660cc four-stroke Daihatsu or Suzuki engines, making them as quiet as a family sedan.

For a long-time the bane of environmentalists due to their lead-fuel operating engines and smoky two-stroke exhaust, all of Bangkok’s taxi tuk-tuks today run on CNG, the result of a government campaign that funded the cost of conversion.
At Tuk Tuk Thailand in the Bangkok suburb of Bang Khae, Chett Taikratoke has been turning out tuk-tuks for more than eight years, prior to that working for Thailand’s largest tuk-tuk factory, which was a casualty of the Asian economic crisis of the late 90s.
“Every tourist who comes to Thailand wants to ride in a tuk-tuk. I even get emails from people wanting me to pick them up from the airport in a tuk-tuk," Chett says.
While road-regulations prohibit tuk-tuks on the country’s expressways and hence entry to the airport, there’s no shortage of affection for the vehicles from tourists, who leap at the opportunity to sit in the open-sided vehicles in the blistering heat or monsoonal rain, choking on the acrid black exhaust fumes expelled by Bangkok’s buses and cars, in preference to air-conditioned taxis.
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