The History Behind Some Of The Most Interesting Car Logos

Even if you aren’t obsessed with cars, it’s hard to not at least be a little curious about the stories and meaning behind their logos. OK, maybe not Honda, since it’s just an H that very clearly stands for Honda, but plenty of others aren’t nearly as straightforward. Where did Chevrolet’s bowtie logo come from? What about BMW? Or Alfa Romeo? You see these badges everywhere you go, and they had to come from somewhere, right? 

Of course, you could search for the meaning and history behind each individual logo, but that takes time and effort. So why not let someone else do the work for you and then package it into an easy-to-watch video for your viewing pleasure? That’s so much easier, at least for you, and conveniently, our friends over at the Speeed channel recently released a video that does exactly that. And while plenty of automakers, such as GMC, Jeep and Lucid, simply use stylized versions of their company names, don’t worry. As James points out in the video, it doesn’t take long to get into logos that involve millionaires, mistresses, man-eating snakes and other far more interesting stories.

That said, there are still a few interesting little tidbits in the history of boring wordmark or monogram logos. For example, if you didn’t know the Ford logo was inspired by Henry Ford’s signature, hey, now you know. Meanwhile, the Lotus logo just says “Lotus” but also includes all four of founder Anthony Colin Bruce Chapman’s initials. And while the Rolls-Royce logo is just two Rs that stand for Rolls-Royce, the Spirit of Ecstasy that the British ultra-luxury automaker uses for its hood ornaments is no ordinary woman. Instead, the sculptor used wealthy patron John Walter Edward Douglas-Scott-Montagu’s mistress and the mother of his illegitimate son as inspiration. Scandalous!

Meanwhile, you also have less obvious logos, such as Lancia’s, which has evolved significantly over the years. Originally, it was a flag that read “Lancia” being flown off a spear, with the spear/flag combo laid over a graphic that was supposed to be a steering wheel. You wouldn’t know that if you looked at the Lancia logo today, but that same design is still (sort of) present in the form of a circle surrounding the name, a vertical line that represents the spear and a little box around the word “Lancia.” 

Those are far from the only car logos the video covers, though, so even if you already knew the stories that I’ve mentioned so far, it’s still worth giving the video a watch. After all, you never know. You might actually learn something new, and who doesn’t love learning something new?