Our History
The history of KMF can be traced back to 1863, when Johannes Göldenberg delivered to the Eskerrös & Sankt-Wiktorja Railway the first steam locomotive built in his Bankstead shop. Göldenberg's workshop would eventually grow to become the Esker Railway Works, one of the largest suppliers of locomotives and railway wagons in Sondstead.
Five decades later, aviation pioneer Isak Kjirkjh was commissioned by the fledgling Sondsteadish air corps to build reconnaissance planes. His company became the first in Sondstead to manufacture a domestically-designed fighter plane, which proved a success. However, Kjirkjh required a stable market during peacetime to keep his company afloat, and in 1920, the first Kjirkjh touring car left his Twedmünster factory.
Despite their past successes, both the Esker works and Kjirkjh Loftfartujgen fell on hard times, as many Sondsteadish companies did, in the poor economic times of the 1930s. By 1932, Kjirkjh was perhaps days away from bankruptcy when the Federal Diet voted to nationalize several failing companies in key strategic sectors like aircraft and railway equipment, including Esker and Kjirkjh. The resulting conglomerate, Künlih Mäsjin Fäbrigen (Royal Machine Factories), or KMF, was soon tasked by the government with building an automobile affordable enough to motorize the country, and the first KMF-branded car, a Peugeot built under license, rolled off the line in 1936. It was soon replaced by a newer, still Peugeot-based, model in 1938.
While KMF had been working on designs for an in-house design for a compact car since the mid-1930s, it was not until the KMF Tip C, launched in 1947, that this came to fruition. Soon renamed the KMF 100, the car quickly became one of the best-selling in the country. From then on, KMF has built on that success and on a strong cooperation between the company and Sondsteadish research and development to grow into Sondstead's largest automaker. Since the old KMF conglomerate was broken up and privatized in 1985 especially, KMF has expanded to a offer a full line of premium vehicles, starting with the 1991 e3 — at the time one of the largest and most ambitious engineering projects in Sondstead — and solidified our reputation as a premium brand.
Our Facilities
The KMF world headquarters campus in Twedmünster.
The world headquarters for our sporting subsidiary, Länik Audomobil A/F, is located in Esjrberg, and is also home to our Performance Research Center and motorsports department as well as the Lanik test track. Our main proving grounds, where we put all of our new cars through rigorous testing and develop new safety and efficiency solutions is in Be̊nfors.
KMF operates six assembly plants in Sondstead, in Astangjr, Esjrberg, Eskerrös, Kifmay, Mänjeärd, and Twedmünster City. Our main passenger car manufacturing location in Mänjeärd just outside Twedmünster can produce roughly 320,000 cars per year after recent expansions and builds most e3 as well as all e5 and e8 vehicles for the domestic and international markets. Our plant in Eskerrös will have a capacity of up to 140,000 cars per year when brought fully online and produces all e1 vehicles for the domestic and international markets.
At our sister company Länik's Esjrberg plant outside Asteriopol, we produce all e3 Cabrio and e3 Sport by Länik vehicles. We produce trucks in Astangjr and Twedmünster and buses and vans in Kifmay.
We also operate two assembly locations in Dormagen, Brunswick-Swabia, producing both commercial and passenger vehicles. Our passenger car plant in Dormagen has a yearly capacity of around 205,000 cars per year and builds all e2, eX3, and eX7 vehicles for both local and international markets. Later this year, our new assembly plant in Argensborough, Maltropia will open, producing e3, e5, and eX3 vehicles for the Maltropian domestic market and other markets outside Maredoratica; with a capacity of 400,000 cars annually it will become the largest KMF plant worldwide.
Brand DNA
While KMF's brand DNA is multifaceted — an obsession with safety, rally-bred performance credentials, classical Nordic design, and a passion for doing more with less — one word sums it up — engineering. Since the beginning, our drive to push the technological envelope further in style, safety, and sport has informed who we are as a company and as a brand. Even if we may never be the biggest, we will continually challenge ourselves to be the best and to think in a different way. Our customers come from all walks of life, but one thing unites them — they don't want just a car, they want engineering brilliance.