Romania’s Vice Prime Minister and Minister of National Defence, Radu-Dinel Miruță, visited Otokar’s Mediaș production facility on 10 August, accompanied by the Chief of the General Staff, General Gheorghiță Vlad, and the head of the Defence Procurement Directorate, Major General Cornel Pleșa. It was the first senior Ministry of National Defence visit to the site since Otokar completed its acquisition of Romanian firm Automecanica S.A. and brought the plant’s production lines fully online.
Otokar said 290 of the 1,059 COBRA II 4×4 light armoured vehicles ordered by Romania’s Ministry of National Defence have been delivered to date. The Ministry stated separately that roughly 100 further vehicles are currently at various stages of production at the Mediaș facility and are due for completion by the end of 2026; vehicles built there for the Romanian Army will carry a “Made in Romania” label. He said the contract remains in progress and that the first Mediaș-built vehicles have already reached the Romanian Army, with further deliveries to follow.
The COBRA II order dates to November 2024, when Otokar signed a contract with Romania’s state defence procurement agency, Romtehnica, for 1,059 vehicles valued at approximately €857 million excluding VAT. Under the deal, around 270 vehicles were initially built in Turkey and delivered to Romania, while nearly 800 are to be manufactured locally as part of an industrial-cooperation arrangement tied to the contract.
Local production began through a 50:50 joint venture Otokar had formed with Automecanica in 2025. In January 2026, Otokar signed a memorandum to acquire 96.77 percent of Automecanica’s shares outright; the share purchase agreement followed on 29 April 2026, valued at approximately €85 million, and the acquisition was finalised after Romanian regulatory approval in June. The first COBRA II built at the 140,000-square-metre Mediaș plant was shown publicly at the BSDA 2026 exhibition in Bucharest, with mass production beginning that June.
The Mediaș complex also houses a Rheinmetall production unit, which the Romanian Ministry of National Defence said is undergoing capacity investment to build the SKYNEX and SKYRANGER air-defence systems and the LYNX infantry fighting vehicle for the Romanian Army. The Ministry said discussions during the visit centred on increasing the participation of local companies in the country’s procurement programmes and on ensuring the Mediaș facilities can sustain production in Romania over the longer term. The Ministry said more than 400 Romanian staff currently work across the Otokar and Rheinmetall units at the complex.
Otokar has also pitched two further platforms in Romania: the TULPAR modular tracked armoured vehicle, presented at BSDA 2026 as a candidate for Romanian and regional requirements, and a multipurpose unmanned ground vehicle developed with Romanian firm BlueSpace Technologies and Turkish company Elektroland for the Romanian armed forces’ UGV requirement.
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