History of the logos...

[henk4]

Hmmm, so was Andre Citroeen German in an way?

I am proud to say that he was Dutch. If I am not mistaken he left for France at the beginning of the century. As CITROEN in Dutch means lemon (I see the jokes rolling in ) ans is pronounced as "Cetroon" he added the two dots on the "e" to have it sound more French, like "Ce-tro-an".

[Matra et Alpine]

He was not a Nazi, but he did commision for Htiler i.e. All early Volkswagens.

Well he was jailed for collaborating.
Freed after a few months and a LOT of money from Ferry !!
He was a Nazi / Nazi sympathiser.

[r1ckst4]

Just off the topic a bit...

just about how much money would u get from designing a logo for a car company?... or any company really...

by the way, great thread andy!

[andy.muc]

Porsche

after 8 years without a logo, Ferdinand Porsche used a simple elongated word 'Porsche' on his 356 series. In 1956 he went to a restaraunt for lunch and sketched down the Porsche cerst we all know and love.

The horse was taken out of the crest of the city of Stuttgart.
The red-black stripes and the horns were taken out of
the crest of the state of Württemberg.
The first Porsche wearing this badge was delivered in 1952.

[andy.muc]

Maserati:
The Maserati brothers were born in Bologna.
There is an old spring from the time of the renaissance
on the old local market square. The spring is dedicated to Neptun.
Neptun was the God of the seas and his distinctive mark
was the trident.

[DarkPhenix]

Jeep started out as a military vehicle and was later considered a Willys-Overland model, so it didn't really originally have a logo unless you count the word "Jeep" in parentheses, which appeared in the same typeface from civilian introduction in '46 well into the '60s. Probably the closest thing to a Jeep logo appeared in '63 in the center of Wagoneer and Gladiator hubcaps and steering wheels. This was the same time Kaiser dropped the Willys name, changing the division name from Willys Motors to Kaiser Jeep Corporation and establishing Jeep as a stand-alone brand name. This emblem was a circle (in some illustrations looking vaguely like a stylized dendition of a Warn locking hub) with two gold quarters, two red quarters, and the "Jeep" name across the middle. After AMC's purchase of Jeep in 1971, the gold was replaced by blue.

[Motorace]

There are several stories regarding the origin of the dramatic man-eating serpent in the Alfa Romeo logo. Although it has been described & portrayed occasionally as a child being eaten, that version goes back to a 5th century fable about the family founder slaying a child-devouring dragon that was terrorizing the region around present-day Milano Italy, but this is not the version I favor since dragons do not actually exist.

The version I favor is that the man-eating serpent was painted on the shield of a Saracen leader named Voluce, killed during the first crusades by an Italian named “Ottone”. Under the rules of Christian heraldry, Ottone could then adopt the slain man’s symbol(s). Ottone was the first duke of Milano, so "Visconti" was originally his title (as in "Viscount" meaning Count or Duke in Italian), rather than his name at the time – though the title Visconti was later incorporated into the family name.

Through successive generations and marriages, the man-eating serpent remained in their family heraldry. Around the mid-1400’s there was a captain who had demonstrated enough success that he was known as “La Sforza” (Italian for “The Force” – You’ve probably seen racing fans holding up banners for “Sforza Ferrari”, etc). He married the daughter of the last male in the Ottone/“Visconti” family and had his own name legally changed into “Sforza”. If you visit the Sforza castle in the old part of Milano, you will see the serpent-eating-a-man symbol carved into the stone in numerous places – especially near the gates. It is incorporated in different forms with different versions of heraldry, so while the heraldry has not always been consistent, but the man-eating serpent theme has remained the same. There is also a crown over the serpent’s head and I’ve not heard where that came from but my guess is that it was added as a symbol of the family’s position as governors of the region… I do not think the crown was on the Saracen’s shield. As the Sforza family dominated Milano during the Renaissance, their heraldry became incorporated into the city emblem – next to the crusader’s cross, but the city of Milano does not endorse any one version of the origin of the man-eating-serpent as the “true” story, so it has been lost to time.

The other half of the Alfa Logo is a red cross on a white background, which was the nearly universal symbol of all the Christian crusaders (in Britain it is known as the cross of St. George). The city of Milano combined the Red cross/white background and the Sforza's serpent as their city symbol.

Alfa - being from Milano – then incorporated their city's logo into the center of their corporate logo – much as the Porsche logo adopted the city of Stuttgart’s logo. [“Stuttgart” by the way, literally means “Stud garden” (as in horse farm, and those knobby things are symbolic antlers) – but I digress].

The Alfa emblem shown at the start of this thread is a modernized, updated version of Alfa's logo. In 1925, a gold laurel wreath was added to surround Alfa’s emblem to commemorate Alfa's early racing successes – especially the winning of the first Grand Prix race by an Alfa P-2. (Note: older FIAT emblems had a similar laurel wreath around their logo for similar reasons)

There also used to be two little pieces of rope tied into a figure eight knot included in the ring surrounding the logo – where it used to say “Alfa Romeo Milano”. I’ve heard variously that these rope knots were good luck symbols, or that they were symbols of the house of Savoy when Italy had a monarchy. In a later edition of the logo, the knots were simplified into little squiggles after the monarchy was lost and Italy became a republic in 1946. Then, in 1972, when Alfa opened its Alfa-Sud (Sud meaning "South") plant in southern Italy as a concession to help the unemployment problems there, the logo was modernized. The knot/squiggles were removed and also the name "Milano" was dropped from the ring since the new plant was outside Milano. The laurel wreath was simplified into a mere gold ring around the logo.

Personally I much prefer the earlier, more heraldic versions of the logo from 1925 through 1972.

In this image from Ultimatecarpage.com for the Alfa Romeo 6C 2500 SS Pinin Farina Cabriolet, you can see the older logo above with the full figure-eight knots, while the smaller logo in the left flag used the stylized squiggles substituting for the knots.

mitsubishi = mistubishi's logo came from the days in ww2 when they were making ships and planes for the japanese war efforts. the three points on the logo are for propeller blades, and ocianic shiping blades.

I do not speak Japanese, but I've heard that the name "Mitsubishi" literally translates into "Three Diamonds". If someone else speaks Japanese, please let me know if this is incorrect.

[Uberquik_Hachi]

I originally saw this as a symbol for "horsepower" go figure...
Explanation -.. Horse ... on a shield.. shields (used by armies back in the day) representing power... as a countries power was judged on the size of their army & strength of their army... anyhow.. thats what it symbolised for me..

The true story goes something like this... I've read this in a book of the worlds ultimate cars or something along those lines.
It's true name is "The Cavallino Rampante" <-- translation anyone??
Firstly theres 2 seperate badges, the rectangle (usually on top of the car (bonnet/boot) the shields (on the sides)
The shield was used on the race cars only, emblem simple yellow shield, black horse (its origin explained below).... and the rectangle was for the road cars & has the stripes on top (green white red) for the italian flag.

The horse & how it became ... Enzo Ferrari met a lady (Countess Paolina) who's son was a WWI Hero in the italian air force & who was known for painting a horse on the side of his warplanes. The countess 'wooed' Enzo to use the horses on his cars to bring him good luck (she must have flashed him or something because he ended up using it!!). The original horses painted on the planes were Red on a white "cloud" background... However Enzo chose to use a black horse as a symbol of grief for pilots who were killed in Baraccas squadron in action.
The yellow background is symbol of the city of Modena (the color of Modena, Ferrari's birthplace).
Enzo also changed some aspects of the horse (the tail most notably) was pointing down on the original design used on the planes.

There is a simililarity with enzo's design & the coat of arms for the city of stuttgart in Germany which is the emblem on the Porsche badge.
The name Stuttgart, when translated into ancient german is 'Stutengarten', translated to english means 'stud farm' and into Italian "Scuderia". Marking the origin of "Scuderia Ferrari".
Quite a nice history for such a simple badge


* as accurate as i can remember... feel free to correct me