The origin and meaning of some car brand logos, such as the Prancing Horse of Ferrari, is well known, but not so much in the case of the emblems of many others. Here’s where they come from
Alfa Romeo
The Anonima Lobarda Fabbrica Automobili was founded in 1910 in Milan, Italy. From its birth, it took as symbols two elements linked to the city: the red cross on a white background characteristic of the coat of arms of Milan, and the Biscione -in Italian, ‘great snake’-: the heraldic icon of the noble family of the Visconti, that governed the city from 1277 to 1477. Thus, the first emblem of the brand grouped these two symbols on a blue circle with the words ‘Alfa’ and ‘Milano’ -separated by two separate knots- in gold, which in 1915 became be blank edged in gold.
In 1915, an industrialist named Nicola Romeo took control of the company and, in 1918, added the ‘Romeo’ to the original ‘Alfa’. This logo remained unchanged until 1925, when after Alfa Romeo won the first Grand Prix world championship, a silver laurel wreath was added along the entire circumference. The edges of the logo and the knots inside it were also changed to silver. Already in 1946, when Italy became a republic, the company considered it advisable to remove the knots – which symbolized the royal house of Savoy – from the logo, which were replaced by wavy lines. However, the biggest change took place in 1971: they simplified the logo by removing the laurels, knots and the word ‘Milano’, in addition to recovering the gold tone in letters and borders.
Aston-Martin
The company, created by the pilot Lionel Martin and Robert Bamford in 1913, took its name by mixing the surname of its founder and the name of a mountain climb, the Aston Clinton, in which he had won in 1913. The first logo of the brand, designed in 1920, was a circle where the letters A and M were superimposed on a gold background. By 1930, the company had already adopted a silver emblem, in the form of outstretched bird wings, with the name on its inside. However, the brand’s classic logo would not be created until 1932, by Sammy Davis, a former Bentley driver. Passionate about Egyptology, Davis took as his base the image of outstretched beetle wings, with silver edges and a cream-colored interior, which also included, in a black rectangle, the name Aston Martin in silver letters.
In 1947, industrialist David Brown bought the company and put his name on the logo, placing it above the Aston Martin in the black box. The logo returned to its original appearance in 1972, when Brown sold the company, but it would be retouched in 1984, with more rounded wing tips, simpler ribs and a larger brand name. The last restyling of the Aston logo took place in 2004 when, taking advantage of the launch of the DB9, it was decided to increase the size of the rectangle with the name, in addition to retouching the lines of the wings.
Audi
The German brand was originally created, in 1909, in Zwickau, Germany, by August Horch. Horch had already founded another car company with his surname in 1899 and could not repeat the name in the new one, but at a meeting in the house of one of his partners, his son proposed that the Horch surname be translated -which is the imperative to listen, ‘listen’- in Latin: hence the name Audi. Audi made luxury vehicles, but by 1932 it was in financial trouble. That’s why it merged with three other manufacturers – Horch, DKW and Wanderer – to create Auto Union.
The new company would take four interlocking rings as its logo, representative of the four firms. Although, after the purchase of the company by Volkswagen in 1965, the German group would recover the Audi name as a brand and its oval logo. However, the Audis continued to maintain the four rings as an emblem and Volkswagen would definitively withdraw the oval logo in 1997.
Bugatti
Although Ettore Bugatti was born in 1891 in Milan, this engineer would found the Bugatti factory in Molsheim, in Alsace – at that time, belonging to Germany; since 1918, to France-. Specializing in sports and luxury vehicles, he himself designed the logo of his brand: a red oval, bordered in white with red squares – during the first years they would change to the definitive red dots – and with the company name in large letters. white, crowned by the anagram of his initials ?EB? facing each other in black just as Ettore signed his cards.
The logo has hardly undergone modifications -sometimes, it is represented with the outer trim with a gray background-, not even when, in 1998, Volkswagen acquired the French brand.
BMW
The Bayerische Motoren Werke was born in 1916 as a manufacturer of aircraft engines and its logo, which appeared for the first time in 1917, took the characteristic blue and white quadrant of the flag of the federated state of Bavaria… and framed it in a black circle with the acronym of the brand on the top and in golden tones. In 1923, and after the prohibition to continue building aircraft engines – a consequence of the Versailles Treaty of 1919, which ended the First World War -, BMW began to manufacture motorcycles. In 1928, he acquired the Automobilwerk Eisenach company and began assembling his own cars bearing his logo; yes, from 1937 the yellow color of the edges and letters was replaced by white.
The logo would remain unchanged until 1962, when the brand launched the 1,500 model, a middle-class sedan. For the occasion, the BMW letters lost their finials and the emblem did not undergo any further changes until 1999, when it was retouched to show a slightly three-dimensional shape.
ferrari
Although he drove Alfa Romeo single-seaters from 1920 to 1924, Enzo Ferrari began to emerge in motorsport as an organizer. From 1929 to 1939 he was in charge of the Alfa Romeo racing team and, in fact, the famous Prancing Horse shield first appeared on Italian cars during the 1932 Spa 24 Hours. But where did it come from? the horse? It was the emblem used by the late Italian driver Francesco Baracca in the First World War and his mother, Countess Paolina Biancoli, offered it to Ferrari so that he could put it on his cars as a tribute. Enzo did, but with a significant change: he changed the white background of the original drawing to the characteristic yellow tone of Modena, Italy, where he was born.
The horse became the marque’s symbol, and the manufacturer’s racing cars have since featured the shield surmounted by the colors of the Italian flag and with the initials SF, for Scuderia Ferrari, underneath.
However, on street vehicles, the emblem of the cavallino, which was stylized in 1945 by the Italian engraver Eligio Gerosa, appears since 1947, when the first Ferrari was born: the 125 S. It does so in a rectangle, with the colors of the Italian flag at the top and with the name of Ferrari at the bottom. Again, Eligio Gerosa was the one who designed this logo, lengthening the upper stroke of the F to the final ‘i’ of Ferrari, and which has survived to this day without changes.
Jaguar
In 1935, Englishman William Lyons created the SS Cars company. Lyons named his first range of vehicles the SS Jaguar and, from 1938, the company offered as an official emblem for the top of the bonnet, the figure of a jaguar in mid-jump. Known internally as ‘The Jumper’, this figure has been a hallmark of British fashion ever since. What’s more, it is still offered as an option in those markets where road safety laws accept it.
However, from 1945, when Lyons changed the company name to Jaguar Cars, Jaguars began to use a red circular emblem, with the brand name inscribed in a central prism. Although with the arrival of the XK and Mk II models in the 1960s, it was replaced by the drawing, framed in a circle and with silver motifs, of the jaguar’s face showing its jaws. That motif, with wide variations – with or without a circle, including or not including the manufacturer’s name – has since become the emblem of British cars alongside ‘The Leaper’.
Maserati
Founded in 1926 by the four Maserati brothers, the brand curiously only built racing cars during its first 20 years of life. Its first emblem, also created in 1926, was inspired by a sculpture of Neptune, located in the Square of the same name in the Italian city of Bologna -headquarters of the company- and takes as its central element the trident of this god, with the brand name below.
The trident became the most distinctive element of the firm and was maintained in 1953, when the logo was redesigned to incorporate, in an oval, the characteristic red and blue colors of Bologna: the trident was colored red and the lower quarter of the oval, in blue, with Maserati lettering in white. Since then, it has not received any changes.
However, another very characteristic element of Maserati is the trident logo on the radiator grille of its vehicles: it was used, for the first time, on the 1955 A6G2000, which featured a more stylized version of the original trident on its grille and, since then, , has appeared in practically all the models of the brand.
Mercedes Benz
If the German brand is the result of the merger, in 1926, of the…
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