The tiny little badge on car’s hood depicting brand, model or manufacturer of the automobile which may appear cute and sometimes not so cute is not merely the insignia of the company but much more than that.
Inherited in that little logo is the history of the company and its legacy.
Lovejeet Alexander provides an account of history behind most popular cars of the world and interesting stories behind their logos.
BMW
Initially BMW was a major manufacturer of airplane engines and not cars. After the First World War, Germany was forbidden by the Treaty of Versailles to manufacture airplanes and hence BMW was forced to change its business.
Originally their circular logo was depiction of a rotating propeller of a Bavarian Luftwaffe aircraft which BMW used to manufacture.
At that time aircrafts were painted with the colours of the Bavarian flag which were white and blue. It is said that the pilot saw the propeller as alternating segments of white and blue, hence the logo.
Mercedes-Benz
In 1926 two car companies, Daimler-Motored-Gesellschaft (DMG) and Benz & Cie of Mr. Daimler and Mr. Benz who worked independently to invent internal combustion-powered automobiles merged into one Daimler-Benz.
The name "Mercedes" came about in 1900. A wealthy European businessman and racing enthusiast named Emil Jellinek began selling Daimler’s cars. He wanted a faster car, and specified a new engine to be designed by Maybach and to be named after his 10-year-old daughter’s nickname, Merc Spanish for "grace."
The star in Daimler’s logo came from an old postcard where Gottlieb Daimler had drawn a star above the picture of his house and wrote that "this star would one day shine over [his] own factory to symbolize prosperity." The three-pointed star symbolized Daimler’s ambition of making vehicles "on land, on water and in the air." (Source: Daimler)
After the merger, a new logo was designed. It combined the symbols of the two companies: the three-pointed star of DMG and the laurel wreath of Benz.
TATA
Tata Motors is one company which has geared in over a 4 million Tata vehicles on Indian roads, since the first rolled out in 1954 and now lso the owner of JAGUAR. In the year 1998 the group went in for a re-branding exercise and by 2000 all the new batches of vehicles from Tata began to sport the new three-dimensional Tata group logo.
Earlier, the Indica used to come with a straight-lined T in the ring.
The now ubiquitous blue-coloured Tata logo was designed by the Wolff Olins a brand consultancy firm of London. The logo signifies fluidity; it may also be seen as a fountain of knowledge, also as a tree of trust under which people can take refuge.
MARUTI
It was the first company in India to mass-produce and sell more than a million cars. Maruti undoubtedly brought in an automobile revolution to India. In the year 2007, Maruti Udyog was renamed to Maruti Suzuki India Limited. With shifting stake in the company, the trademark winged ‘M’ of Maruti was replaced by spiky ‘S’ of Suzuki.
Audi
German engineer August Horch, who used to work for Karl Benz, founded his own automobile company A. Horch & Cie in 1899. A decade later, he was forced out of his own company and set up a new company in another town and continued using the Horch brand. His former partners sued him, and August Horch was forced to look for a new name.
When Horch was talking to his business partner Franz Fikentscher at Franz’s apartment, Franz’s son was quietly studying Latin in a corner of the room. He was listening to the discussion until he finally blurted out, "Father wouldn’t it be a good idea to call it ‘Audi’ instead of ‘Horch’?. "Horch!" in German means "Hark!" or "listen", which is "Audi" in Latin. The idea was enthusiastically accepted by everyone attending the meeting.
In 1932, four car makers Audi, Horch, DKW, and Wanderer merged to form Auto Union. The logo of Auto Union, four interlinked rings that later became the modern Audi logo.
Volkswagen
Volkswagen (German for "People’s Car") can trace its history straight to the villain of World War II: Adolf Hitler.
After World War I, Germany’s economy was shot and cars cost more than most people can afford. When Hitler rose to power and became Chancellor, he spoke at the 1933 Berlin Auto Show of his idea to create a new and affordable car.
At the same time, Ferdinand Porsche (yes, that Porsche) was designing an odd-looking yet inexpensive car (which would later become the Volkswagen Beetle). Porsche met with Hitler in 1934, who asked that the car to have the following specifications: it should have a top speed of 100 km/h (62 mph), a fuel consumption of 42 mpg, and could carry 2 adults and 3 children. He said the car should look like a Maikaefer – a May beetle and even gave Porsche a sketch of the basic design. Porsche promised to deliver the design, with prototype cars to be built by Daimler-Benz.
In 1937, the Gesellschaft zur Vorbereitung des Deutschen Volkswagens mbH was created (it became simply Volkswagenwerk GmbH a year later). In 1938, Hitler opened the state-funded Volkswagen factory in Wolfsburg, which was to produce the KdF-wagen (kraft durch freude, meaning "strength through joy"). Few were actually built, instead, the factory (employing forced labor) churned out military car, based on the same chassis: the Kübelwagen, Schwimmwagen, and Kommandeurwagen.
It was later found out that Hitler had this in mind all along. He added an extra secret specification to Porsche’s design: the car was to be able to carry 3 men, a machine gun, and ammunition.
After Germany was defeated in World War II, the British took over the Volkswagen factory and the KdF-Wagen was renamed the Beetle. The British then sought to give control of the company – first they asked the Ford Motor Company, then the French Government, other British car manufacturers and lastly, Fiat. All turned down this "free offer" because they thought the Beetle’s design was inferior and that the company would be a money drain.
So, the British gave the Volkswagen company back to the German government in a trust. Later, having sold more than 21 million cars, the Volkswagen Beetle became one of the world’s best selling cars ever.
The VW logo itself was supposedly designed by Franz Xavier Reimspiess, an employee of Porsche, during an office logo design competition. He was given a one time payment of 100 Reich marks (about $400).
Aston Martin
In 1913, Lionel Martin and Robert Bamford founded a company that later became Aston Martin. At the time, Martin & Bamford Limited produced Singers racing cars, but the duo wanted to create a more sophisticated model of their own. They named their first car Aston Martin after the founder Lionel Martin and the Aston Clinton hill climb racing course where their Singers car had won previously.
Fiat, then named Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino (Italian Automobile Factory of Turin), was founded in 1899 by a group of investors, including Giovanni Agnelli who later became its Managing Director. Agnelli bought his shares for $400. It’s worth billions now, and there had been an Agnelli in Fiat management ever since. Regardless or perhaps because of its wealth, the Agnelli clan remained a fractious and complicated group of people.
The famous Fiat "scrabble tiles" logo of the 1960s was designed by the company’s Chief Designer who was driving past the Fiat factory during a power outage and saw an outline of the factory’s neon sign against the dark sky.
Ford
In 1902, Ford established his third automobile company, the Ford & Malcomson, Ltd., In 1909, Childe Harold Wills, Ford’s first chief engineer and designer lend a script font that he created to make his own business card, to create the Ford logo. The famous blue oval was added later for the 1927 Model A – it remained in use until today.
Mazda began its life in 1920 as the Toyo Cork Kogyo Co. in Hiroshima, Japan.
In 1927, Jujiro Matsuda came onboard and the company began manufacturing tools, three-wheeled "trucks" and then cars. After World War II, the company formally adopted the name Mazda, which depending on who you ask, stood for the Zoroastrian God Ahura Mazda or an anglicized pronunciation of Matsuda the founder’s name (or both).
In the 1936 logo, the M shaped curve was inspired by the emblem of Hiroshima city. The 1991 and 1992 logos symbolized a wing, the Sun and a circle of light. Mazda’s current logo, nicknamed the "owl" logo, was designed by Rei Yoshimara in 1997. The stylized "M" was meant to look like stretched wings, but many people saw a stylized tulip instead.
In 1868 one Mr. Iwasaki a Japanese who was working for the Tosa clan when the Meiji Restoration abolished Japan’s feudal clan system acquired Tsukumo Shokai, the Tosa clan’s shipping business and renamed it Mitsubishi in 1873.
It was a fourth-generation Iwasaki, a man named Kayota Iwasaki, who turned Mitsubishi into a giant corporate group that included an automobile manufacturing company, Mitsubishi Motors.
The name Mitsubishi was a combination of the words "mitsu" (three) and "hishi" (water chestnut, used in Japan to mean a rhombus or a diamond shape). The official translation of the name was "three diamonds."
The Mitsubishi logo was a combination of the Iwasaki family crest, three stacked diamonds, and the three-leaf crest of the Tosa Clan.
Louis Renault was 21 when he made his first car in the backyard of his home. He soon got orders so in 1898, along with his brothers and friends, Louis opened the company Renault in Boulogne-Billancourt, France.
The first Renault logo, drawn in 1900 featured the three initials of the Renault brothers: Louis, Ferdinand and Marcel. In 1906, the logo changed to a front end of a car enclosed in a gear wheel.
During World War I, Renault manufactured light tanks for the Allies called the Renault FT-17. This was so popular that after the war, Renault actually changed its logo into a tank. The diamond shape was introduced in 1925 and remained until today. The modern Renault logo was created in 1972 by Victor Vasarely.
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