ABOUT US
History
1940 1940
FOUNDING OF COMPANY
During the early 1940’s, planes sat on the ground waiting for deliveries of a screw machined rudder control cable terminal that had been consistently failing. Cold forming the part was the solution but many manufacturers claimed the small part couldn’t be cold formed. There were three men who felt differently. In 1943, those three men – Bob Campbell, Ray Carlson, and Gene Aspling put together $16,000 to purchase a 40 year old cold forming machine and started a company called, Camcar Products Company; the “Cam” coming from the first three letters of Campbell and “car” coming from the first three letters of Carlson.
1946 1946
ENGINEERING EXCELLENCE
The founders said the part could be cold formed and eventually delivered 250,000 terminals from their factory, a converted airplane hangar in Rockford, Illinois, to the airplane manufacturer. This was the start of our culture of innovation. Camcar’s slogan said it all, “we make the parts that others can’t.” Ray Carlson was famous for saying that “our only license for being in business is to make a meaningful contribution to our customers.” Put it all together and you can see why today, we continue to bring innovation to the world that helps our customers meet their challenges.
1953 1953
EXPANSION
In 1953, the company began a large expansion program and Camcar would grow to $1.5B in revenue and have over 40 factories in 17 countries including Germany, Mexico, USA, Canada, Spain, Italy, UK, China, Malaysia, Taiwan, and France. Engineered products made by Camcar were in all industries around the globe.
1967 1967
INNOVATION
In 1967, a revolutionary new drive system put Camcar on the map. It was named TORX® and it was invented by Bernard Reiland and became a patent in 1971. Torx® quickly grew as users saw it as a way to transmit higher torque with less strain on the fastener or tool versus the other internal drive systems offered at that time. Problems such as camout were virtually eliminated and assembly efficiency and quality increased dramatically. To this day, the Torx® family continues to be the most effective drive system on the market
2021 2021
TODAY
CAMCAR Innovations® is in the business of licensing fastener technology to more than 180 companies all over the world who in turn supply to hundreds of thousands of end assembly manufacturers. We continue to offer market leading solutions that have relevance across many industries and regions. And our name reinforces our drive to be the leading innovators, just as our founders were. We are guided daily by our vision to “make assemblies better worldwide”. We intend to do this by globally licensing the most impactful technologies supported with superior services, tools and information making it simple to implement our highly functional cost effective solutions.