The Vektor Z 88 is a South African pistol developed from the Beretta 92FS. The Z 88 was designed to replace the mixture of service revolvers and pistols used by the South African police and military.
Development[]
It was originally reverse-engineered from 1984 to 1986 by Lyttelton Ingenieurs Werke (LIW) from twenty sample pistols the South African government had acquired. The Z 88 has complete parts commonality with the Beretta 92FS it is based on in order to simplify maintenance and repair. The designation of the “Z” in "Z 88" is spawned from the last name initial of T.D. Zeederberg, a serving general manager of LIW. The "88" within the designation is derived from the year in which the firearm was approved (1988).
LIW began tooling up to produce the Z 88 in 1986. It soon underwent trials with the South African military and was approved for service in 1988. The first pistols went to the South African Police Service in 1988, with the military getting their first consignment in 1989. When the international embargo against South Africa was lifted in 1991, Beretta negotiated a licensing agreement that allowed Vektor to make the Z 88 for internal manufacture, but forbade export.
Denel Pty Ltd. was set up in 1992 to control South Africa's arms manufacturing group, with ARMSCOR (Armaments Corporation of South Africa) reorganized into an acquisitions and marketing role. LIW was made one of Denel's divisions. LIW produced military arms and Musgrave Manufacturing produced civilian hunting rifles and shotguns. Vektor Arms absorbed Musgrave's tooling in 1996, became its own separate division in 1997, and stopped producing civilian-market arms in 1998.