The automotive industry in Croatia is not very developed: in this country, industry enterprises mainly manufacture auto parts and software for transport. They supply components to world-famous companies from Germany, France, the USA, Italy, Japan, and Sweden. However, the Croatian market also has its car brands that deserve attention. They are not very popular abroad but are sometimes exported in small quantities, such as the electric sports car produced by Rimac Automobili. Let’s look at the brightest representatives of the local auto industry.
Crobus
AZ Crobus is a well-known bus manufacturer in Croatia, registered in 2006. Its history began with an intercity bus project. The prototype of the tourist liner, named after the goddess of the morning dawn Zora, was created in 2011, after which it was launched into mass production.
A logo represents the products of the Croatian manufacturer in the form of a silvery circle. Inside it is a smaller circle covered with thin horizontal lines. In the center is a red parallelogram – the brightest element of the emblem. The frame is a wide ring with a dark gray inscription “CROBUS” located in the form of an arch at the top. The designers designed the drawing with a gradient and added light highlights to make the graphic composition seem voluminous. The company’s name is duplicated on the right: the word consists of large silver letters. The glyphs do not have serifs, and all the strokes are almost the same thickness.
DOK-ING Loox
The private Croatian company DOK-ING has its automotive division. It appeared in 2010 when the prototype of DOK-ING Loox was presented. Serial production of this electric car was planned for 2012 but never started because no single investor wanted to finance it. The machine continues to exist on paper as a project.
The logo of the brand of electric vehicles is in the form of a triangular crest with a high wave at the top. Its outer outline is bold and black. Then a wide white stripe was drawn, separated from the rest of the shield by a thinner black line. In the middle is a composition of four geometric shapes touching the corners in the center. These are two small black squares and two dark red polygons on a white background. They alternate, which is why the right and left sides of the picture seem to be mirror images of each other. The “DOK-ING” lettering uses a sans-serif font similar to Korataki Bold by Typodermic Fonts Inc.
TAZ Neretva
Tvornica Autobusa Zagreb is the founder of the Croatian car industry. This factory was opened in 1930. Trucks, buses, and motorcycles were produced there and exported to other countries. One of the main brands was TAZ Neretva passenger transport. Under it, minibusses were produced, popular on the Balkan Peninsula. But the plant was closed in the late 1990s, and all the brands disappeared with it.
The TAZ Neretva logo looked brutal. In the center was a black heraldic shield with two rectangular protrusions on the sides. The abbreviation “TAZ” was written inside it: a large “A” stood proudly between small and jagged “T” and “Z.” The shield was placed in a white circle with a frame outlined on both sides with black outlines. And outside, there was a ring with the inscription “TVORNICA AUTOBUSA ZAGREB.” The third word was located at the bottom and separated by short dashes.
Rimac Automobiles
Since Croatia became independent, it has hardly exported cars abroad. But there are exceptions. The first of these was the electric sports car Rimac Concept One, introduced in 2013. It is produced by the private company Rimac Automobili, which was founded in 2009 and had been creating sports cars since then.
The emblem of this manufacturer is very minimalistic. It consists of a triangular shield with an “R” inside and the word “RIMAC” written on the right. The base of the shield is white, and the outline is black. Glyphs that look non-standard are painted in the same black color: all of them, except for “I,” lack individual fragments.
