Riga Autobus Factory Logo: Meaning and History

The Riga Autobus Factory logo shows the letters RAF inside the outline of a small bus with two wheels. Riga Autobus Factory, known as RAF, was a Latvian maker of vans and minibuses under the brand name Latvija, and it no longer builds vehicles.

Riga Autobus Factory Logo

This Riga Autobus Factory symbol combines lettering and a vehicle in one design. The three letters R, A and F are drawn in a slanted, rounded style, with the bars of the letters running together. They sit in the body of a bus seen from the side, drawn as a single outline with a long roof line and two round wheels. On this page, the Riga Autobus Factory logo is a black line drawing on a transparent background.

A Riga Autobus Factory badge marked RAF vans and minibuses, which were used mostly as ambulances and for public transit, and the Riga Autobus Factory emblem was the mark of the whole brand. The page offers the Riga Autobus Factory logo PNG as a transparent PNG, so the Riga Autobus Factory truck logo can be placed on a light or a dark background without a white box.

Riga Autobus Factory Logo History

Riga Autobus Factory logo history is short: the factory used one emblem, the RAF letters inside a bus outline. The abbreviation RAF came into use in 1955, when the factory was renamed the Riga Experimental Bus Factory, and the emblem spells out that short name.

Riga Autobus Factory History

Production began in 1949, when the factory started making van bodies on the site of the Riga auto repair factory No. 2, which was commonly known as RARZ. In 1955 it took the new name and its products were abbreviated to RAF. It became the main Soviet producer of minibuses, and together with UAZ it was one of only two producers of vans and minibuses in the Soviet Union.

The first product was the RAF-251, a 22-seat local bus built on the GAZ-51 chassis, which RAF also built. From 1958 the factory made the RAF-977 minibus, based on the GAZ-21 Volga’s engine, transmission, axles and steering. It was inspired by the VW Type 2, seated ten and was built in a first batch in 1959, mostly by hand.

In 1965 RAF proposed two prototypes of a new van, a conventional one and a forward-control one. The factory was too small for mass production of the chosen design, so the one-tonne model was moved to ErAZ in Yerevan, Armenia. The factory itself stood in Jelgava, Latvia, and the brand is listed as active until 1998.