Announced with great fanfare in 2016 (https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2016/11/29/caracal-wants-make-guns-brazil/), the plans of the United Arab Emirates’ Caracal company to establish a factory in Goiás State, Brazil, now seem to have all but gone. The concern, in fact, had a major stand at the 2017 LAAD – Latin America Aerospace and Defence exhibition in Rio de Janeiro, where it was announced that actual construction work of industrial facilities in the city of Anápolis would start “within a few months”. However, this did not happen, nor did the materialization of the project, as a whole.

The very large, centrally-located Caracal stand at the 2017 LAAD exhibition in Rio de Janeiro was a clear indication of the UAE company’s intention to set a foot on the Latin American market. (Photo credit: Roberto Caiafa)

But a new gun manufacturing project in the very same Goiás State has just been announced. This time it involves the Slovenian Rex firearms company and, very significantly, in association with a local industrialist previously involved in the Caracal venture, Augusto de Jesus Delgado Júnior, owner of a fire extinguishers producer called Delfire Indústria e Comércio de Extintores. Not surprisingly, the new undertaking goes by the name of Delfirearms.

The whole thing was initially revealed with the announcement that eight 9x19mm Rex Zero 1 S pistols have been donated to Goiás State’s Civil Police agency for evaluation, this being followed by a public demonstration of said weapons.  Mention was made that the Slovenian company might add  .40 S&W (a Brazilian LE common preference) and .380 ACP (for the local civil market) chambered variants to its line in the future, but this is pure speculation. Only time will tell what the outcome of this new endeavor will be.

A Rex Zero 1 S pistol being fired during a recent demonstration staged at the Goiás State’s Escola Superior da Polícia Civil in Goiânia, the state capital.

If you want to know more about these Slovenian pistols, take a look at this TFBTV episode: https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/?s=Rex+Zero+1.

TKS, Hratchya, for the clue!