This month’s project for the MHD Partnership was to imagine a new identity for the highly traditional and old established West Yorkshire Road Car had its then owners not taken the decision nearly 30 years ago to ditch the brand altogether and embrace a suite of local trading names that are continually being refreshed
Y NOT?
As with many of these projects, the first stumbling block was the name – West Yorkshire Road Car Company. It does not exactly roll off the tongue, does it?
We suspect that the same question arose 30 years ago, when the stateowned company faced the challenge of deregulation and passed into private ownership. The name soon disappeared, which is why we asked the MHD Partnership to imagine it was still around today and in need of a relaunch.
The history is that it started out as a steam bus operator in 1906 called the Harrogate Road Car Company. As it fulfilled wider ambitions, it became Harrogate & District Road Car Company in 1924 and three years later became West Yorkshire Road Car. At that rate of expansion, by now you could imagine it being like one of those children’s addresses that end with the Universe or the Milky Way.
But it stuck as West Yorkshire Road Car, in state owners…
