True Stories Behind Car Company Logos

True Stories Behind the Company Badge

Did a wallpaper pattern in a Paris hotel room inspire the famous Chevrolet Bowtie emblem? Does the blue and white BMW roundel really symbolize a propeller and sky? And was the Porsche logo first sketched on a napkin in a New York City restaurant? In the world of automobile logos, truth can be stranger than fiction—though a good story can go a long way toward embellishing a brand’s corporate identity.

From Ferrari’s Prancing Horse to Cadillac’s crest, automobile logos appear on everything from steering wheel hubs to giant billboards, and even the lapel pins on the suits of company executives. This kind of flexibility is one of the design elements needed for an effective and strong logo, says Jack Gernsheimer, Creative Director of Partners Design Inc. and author of Designing Logos: The Process of Creating Symbols that Endure.

With over 40 years of advertising experience and more than 500 logos to his credit, Mr. Gernsheimer believes it’s essential to look long-term and to keep things simple when designing a logo. “Not getting too trendy with the type or color” is vital, he says. “When you design a logo, ideally it should endure for decades.” For many automakers, the roots of their logos stretch back over a century and contain enough symbolism and intrigue to fill a Dan Brown novel.

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Whelan - 10/5/2010 12:06:06 PM

+1 Boost

Porsche's horse looks very similar to Ferrari's, just turned. I would love to hear about others though, Mazda with the weird stick tree emblem them the wavy M. Lincoln, Mercury, etc. I remember an article a couple years back where a Saturn big wig said the name came from the rockets in the U.S. space race. Funny though that their logo is an outline of the planet Saturn and ring system.

Neverfollow - 10/5/2010 2:45:55 PM

+1 Boost

Here's an interesting one for you. Of course, this is just a rumor told to me by a German national that works for the company. I can't verify the source or authenticity but here it goes anyway:

The BMW emblem is derived from a supposed invention by an early German aircraft engineer who figured out a way to keep the machine guns mounted to WWI fighter planes from shooting off the propeller. The device looked very much like the emblem itself and told the guns to fire or not fire.

I'd love to here from anyone who might have heard this same story.

America - 10/5/2010 3:37:23 PM

+3 Boost

Not true, neverfollow.

http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/07/bmw-roundel-not-born-from-planes/

A recent story in the New York Times dispels the ’spinning propeller’ myth of the BMW roundel. Much to the dismay of many, the article is 100% correct, the origins of the blue and white checker in the BMW roundel has nothing to do with a propeller.

Instead it has everything to do with the national colors of Bavaria, which is, of course, incorporated in the name of the company. One only has to look at the logo used by the company BMW emerged from, Rapp Motor Works, to understand.

Rapp Motor Works intended to build a number of aero engines for the Prussian War Ministry and the ‘Imperial Prize’. Rapp overreached with a clumsy six cylinder redesign of an existing four cylinder aero engine (they added the additional two cylinders beyond the timing gear at the front of the four cylinder and the engine vibrated excessively).

Rapp was a contemporary of the Bavarian Aircraft Works founded by Gustav Otto (the son of Nikolaus Otto , inventor of the four stroke engine – also known as the Otto cycle). Rapp’s logo employed a roundel with a black horse head in the center (Rappe is a German word for ‘black horse’). So there is symmetry between the logo and the company name.

When BMW emerged from Rapp, they reused the roundel, inserting a mirrored image of the Bavarian national colors, into the center. The blue and white was reversed from the Bavarian national use in the roundel due to legal constraints around the use of that emblem. But the symmetry between the name of the company and the image in the logo continued.

The propeller myth turns out to have been the result of a technical publication from the late 1920s that provided servicing information for BMW aero engines.

It has taken awhile to debunk that myth but debunked it has been. In fact, a 2005 article by Dr. Florian Triebel, in a BMW Mobile Tradition publication, lays out the entire history fo the BMW roundel and the myth surrounding it.

MBdude - 10/7/2010 12:38:17 AM

+1 Boost

My 87 year old father - from Germany - said he distinctly remembers the BMW logo on sewing machines when he was a child there.

The so-called 'propeller logo' was featured on the electric motor. Long before they became known for automobiles ... and long before the 'propeller logo' myth came about. True story!!