Rocar Logo: Meaning and History

The Rocar logo is a black swirl emblem next to the name ROCAR in wide black capitals. Rocar was a Romanian maker of vans, light trucks, buses and trolleybuses from Bucharest, and the company ended in 2004.

Rocar Logo

This logo has two parts, a symbol and a wordmark, both in black on white. The Rocar symbol on the left is a diamond-shaped emblem made of curved blades that turn around a small centre, like the shutter of a camera, with a tiny RC mark in the middle. On the right, the name ROCAR is set in wide, heavy capital letters with thin cuts through the strokes, which gives the letters a technical, stencil-like look.

The Rocar emblem can be used alone as a Rocar badge, or together with the wordmark as the full Rocar truck logo. It is a black and white design. The page offers the Rocar logo PNG with a transparent background, so the black swirl and the lettering can sit on a light background without a white box.

Rocar Logo History

Rocar logo history follows the names of the company. The Tudor Vladimirescu Works, created in 1951, were renamed in 1974 as the Întreprinderea “Autobuzul” company, and the firm became known as Rocar from 1991. The swirl emblem with the ROCAR wordmark is the only Rocar logo of the company.

Rocar History

Tudor Vladimirescu (T.V.) Works was created in 1951 and named after the revolutionary Tudor Vladimirescu. Its first production lines made rolling-stock equipment and agricultural machinery. The first bus was built on a truck frame in 1956, and in 1957 the program grew to trolleybuses, minibuses and pick-ups from the company’s own designs. From 1968 it exported vehicles to Eastern Europe, Africa, South America and the Middle East, and in 1971 it bought a license from MAN.

Much of the production relied on parts from other Romanian makers such as ARO, Brasov, DAC and SR, and Rocar vehicles were everywhere in Romanian passenger transport, because imports were banned. After 1990 Rocar worked with the Italian bodywork company De Simon, and more than 300 Rocar De Simon U412 buses were delivered to Bucharest between 1996 and 2002.

Demand fell through the 1990s, as customers bought second-hand buses from the west, and the company went bankrupt in 2002. It was liquidated in late 2003 and early 2004, ending 52 years of bus manufacturing in Romania, and Grivbus and Astra Bus Arad are named as its successors. Over its life the company produced more than 350,000 vehicles, and a small trolleybus system in Târgu Jiu still ran Rocar trolleybuses in 2017.