What do those logos mean???? - Team-BHP

v12 · 16th February 2004, 22:49

Alfa Romeo

Alfa-Romeo uses the arms of Milan: Per pale argent a cross gules, and [argent]azure a serpent ondoyant in pale [azure]vert crowned with a ducal crown or and vorant a child gules. (The tinctures are modified from the original coat). The dexter coat is that of the city, the sinister coat is that of the duchy.
There is a historical description of the Alfa-Romeo logo (in German). The present version dates from 1972. Until 1946 the legend around the shield included two Savoy knots.

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BMW

Back in the day bmw made fighter plane motors for the german military. If you have ever seen a plane motor with two blades spinnin it will look like the bmw logo. blue for the sky and white for the twoblades spinning. That is the origin.

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Cadillac

Cadillac uses as its emblem the arms of Antoine de La Mothe, seigneur de Cadillac, born in Gascony on March 5, 1658 of minor nobility. He founded Detroit in 1701, and was governor of Louisiana. His arms were: Quarterly, 1 and 4: Or a fess between three martlets sable, 2 and 3: quarterly gules and argent three bars azure. The count's coronet is fanciful, as was often the case in 17th and 18th c. France.

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Mercedes Benz
The "Mercedes" name was registered right back in 1902, but at that time there was no logo or trademark to accompany it. The idea for the 'Star' logo came when Paul and Adolf Daimler, the two sons of the company's founder (and then in charge of the business) remembered that their father had once used a star symbol in his family correspondence.

Their father, Gottlieb Daimler, had been technical director of the Deutz gas engine factory from 1872 until 1881. At the beginning of his employment there, he had marked a star above his own house on a picture postcard of Cologne and Deutz, and had written to his wife that this star would one day shine over his own factory to symbolize prosperity.

In June 1909 the company registered both three-pointed and four-pointed stars as trademarks. Although both designs were legally protected, only the three-pointed star was ever used. From 1910 onwards it began to appear at the front of the cars as a design feature on the radiator.

The three-points of the star were supposed to represent Daimler's ambition of universal motorization: "on land, on water and in the air".

Over the years the logo evolved, to include the 'Benz' laurel wreath, and then, in 1923, the three-pointed star enclosed in a circle was registered as a trademark.

Since then it has changed little, and is now a powerful symbol and integral part of the Mercedes-Benz brand.

-----------------------------------------------------------

SAAB

The logo of SAAB consists of the crowned griffin from the arms of the province of Skåne (Scania) in southern Sweden: Or, a griffin gules crowned azur. This is the official coat of arms of Skåne since 1660 and has its origin in the medieval arms of the city of Malmö. The reason why SAAB adopted it as its logo is that the original SAAB company (which produced small cars and aeroplanes) merged in 1969 with the truck manufacturer Scania-Vabis which in turn consisted of two companies, originated in Malmoe and in Södertälje, respectively.

GTO · 16th February 2004, 23:41

That sure made for very interesting reading. It always comes back to me, that did the Daimlers in 1902 ever envision how famous their three-pointed star would one day be the most renowned car marque around the world...say a hundred years down the line?

Learn something new everyday.

GTO

P.S. What about the prancing horse?

v12 · 17th February 2004, 10:13

The History of the Ferrari Prancing Horse Logo

The history of the provenance of the prancing horse in the Ferrari logo is not always clear to everybody and to be honest, we can only go by the explanation that Enzo Ferrari has given himself in his autobiography "My terrible joys" which first appeared in 1963 and in which he says:

"As my trade mark, I continued to use the rampant horse that had been used on the cars of the old Scuderia Ferrari.

The story of this rampant horse is a simple and fascinating one.

The emblem was emblazoned on the fighter plane of Francesco Baracca, the ace of World War I, who was shot down at Montello.

In 1923, when competing in the first Circuito del Savio, at Ravenna, I made acquaintance of Count Enrico Baracca, the hero's father; as a result of that meeting, I was subsequently introduced to the ace's mother, the Countess Paolina Baracca, who one day said to me: Ferrari, why don't you put my son's rampant horse on your car? It will bring you luck"

I still have Baracca's photograph, with his parents dedication in which they entrust the horse to me.

The horse was, and has remained, black; whilst I myself added the gold field, this being the color of Modena".

------------------------------------------------------------------

The Tuning Fork Mark

The three tuning forks of the Yamaha logo mark represent the cooperative relationship that links the three pillars of our business -- technology, production, and sales. They also evoke the robust vitality that has forged a reputation for sound and music the world over, a territory indicated by the enclosing circle. The mark also symbolizes the three essential musical elements: melody, harmony, and rhythm.

pranay · 25th February 2004, 19:52

thats really good info....i am not sure if many ppl know that

satan_crazy · 16th August 2005, 14:35

Hi,
Found the following while browsing on the net.

S

• Mercedes tri star, the story goes, was inspired by a star Gottlieb Daimler penned on a post card of Cologne, marking where he was living and sent to his children. Today, a rotating tri star is visible on the skyline of almost every German city. Benz brought the wreath when Mercedes and Benz merged in the 1920s. The ring around the tristar was patented in 1923.

• BMW's circle with blue and white quadrants is an interpretation of the image of a spinning propeller, powerfully simple as an early airline poster and suggesting the company's beginnings in building aircraft engines.

• Alfa Romeo hails back to the city arms of Milan and the 12th century bishop who bestowed them.

• Porsche borrowed arms from the city of Stuttgart, where it located its headquarters.

• Ferrari's rearing stallion has roots in insignia of World War I Italian fighter.

• Citroen's chevrons come from stylized gear teeth.

• Volkswagen's iconic buttressing of V and W was the creation of an engineer named Franz Reimspiess, the same man who perfected the engine for the Beetle in the 1930s. He won fifty marks in an office competition to do the job. Before WW II, when the car was still Hitler's "Strength through Joy" car the logo was surrounded by the gear shaped emblem of the German Labor Front that built it.

• In reviving the super luxury Maybach brand of the 1920s, when it was favored by maharjas and marquis, Mercedes updated an almost Wiener Secession looking "M."

• Some logos evolve but, like Time Warner's infamous "IUD," are abandoned in favor of their predecessors. In the 1980s Fiat supplanted its pre war, wreathed emblem in favor of a Scrabble piece letter logo. The story goes that Fiat design chief Mario Maioli was driving past the company's Mirafiori factory one night in 1982 during a power outage. He noted a neon sign outlined against the dark sky, bearing the letters FIAT and was inspired to sketch a new logo.

• Audi's four rings have nothing to do with the Olympics but represent the juncture of four earlier German auto companies in 1932. Horch, DKW, Wanderer and Audi were forced to ally by depressed market conditions to form Auto Union. After the war, the company finally took the name Audi which is Latin for "I hear," a translation of the name of August Horch, founder of the company that bore his name, but kept the Auto Union rings.

• Best H logo. Hummer dealerships are built around a giant "H" that functions as both entrance and supergraphic visible from highways. But the best H logo was that of Horch, the prewar German company that enjoyed a status not unlike Buick in the U.S. Its H was formed to suggest the gateway of a city or castle -- an image of sturdy tradition.

• Coolest recent logo: Subaru's five star logo refers obscurely to the keiretsu joined together in the parent company Fuji Heavy Industry. But this the new high performance road rally inspired Sti model (for Subaru Technology) arrived with a hot pink and high (graphic) fashion logo on its horn button, side panels, radiator and two or three more places. The parallel looping lines of the Sti logo suggest hip retro graphics such as old American basketball association expansion team emblems or the recent logo for the band OK Go by Stefan Sagmeister.

***Edit: Here is the source- http://www.businessweek.com/innovate...812_131296.htm

tsk1979 · 16th August 2005, 14:40

Mercedes tri star is supposed to represent supremacy in Air, Sea and land. Mercedes has aircraft/ship/road transport engines to its credit.

merve_extreme · 16th August 2005, 14:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by tsk1979

Mercedes tri star is supposed to represent supremacy in Air, Sea and land. Mercedes has aircraft/ship/road transport engines to its credit.

yes that is what it signifies but it came into existance the way, satan has written.

sandeepmdas · 16th August 2005, 15:26

The name "Mitsubishi" refers to the three-diamond emblem. "Mitsubishi" is a combination of the words mitsu and hishi. Mitsu means three. Hishi means "water chestnut", a Kanji word used for a long time to denote a rhombus or diamond shape. Japanese often bend the "h" sound to a "b" sound when it occurs in the middle of a word. So they pronounce the combination of mitsu and hishi as mitsubishi.

Yataro Iwasaki, the founder of the old Mitsubishi organization, chose the three-diamond mark as the emblem for his company in 1873. The mark is suggestive of the three-leaf crest of the Tosa Clan, Yataro's first employer, (read Samurai clan) and also of the three stacked rhombuses of the Iwasaki family crest (another Samurai tradition).

Source (except comments in () ): http://www.mitsubishi.com/e/group/mark.html

The word,Volvo, is Latin which means "I roll". Combined that with the circle and arrow (alchemist's symbol for iron), the logo represents rolling strength.

16th February 2004, 22:49	#1 (permalink)
v12 Senior - BHPian Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: Mumbai Posts: 2,843 View My Garage	Alfa Romeo Alfa-Romeo uses the arms of Milan: Per pale argent a cross gules, and [argent]azure a serpent ondoyant in pale [azure]vert crowned with a ducal crown or and vorant a child gules. (The tinctures are modified from the original coat). The dexter coat is that of the city, the sinister coat is that of the duchy. There is a historical description of the Alfa-Romeo logo (in German). The present version dates from 1972. Until 1946 the legend around the shield included two Savoy knots. ----------------------------------------------------------- BMW Back in the day bmw made fighter plane motors for the german military. If you have ever seen a plane motor with two blades spinnin it will look like the bmw logo. blue for the sky and white for the twoblades spinning. That is the origin. ----------------------------------------------------------- Cadillac Cadillac uses as its emblem the arms of Antoine de La Mothe, seigneur de Cadillac, born in Gascony on March 5, 1658 of minor nobility. He founded Detroit in 1701, and was governor of Louisiana. His arms were: Quarterly, 1 and 4: Or a fess between three martlets sable, 2 and 3: quarterly gules and argent three bars azure. The count's coronet is fanciful, as was often the case in 17th and 18th c. France. ----------------------------------------------------------- Mercedes Benz The "Mercedes" name was registered right back in 1902, but at that time there was no logo or trademark to accompany it. The idea for the 'Star' logo came when Paul and Adolf Daimler, the two sons of the company's founder (and then in charge of the business) remembered that their father had once used a star symbol in his family correspondence. Their father, Gottlieb Daimler, had been technical director of the Deutz gas engine factory from 1872 until 1881. At the beginning of his employment there, he had marked a star above his own house on a picture postcard of Cologne and Deutz, and had written to his wife that this star would one day shine over his own factory to symbolize prosperity. In June 1909 the company registered both three-pointed and four-pointed stars as trademarks. Although both designs were legally protected, only the three-pointed star was ever used. From 1910 onwards it began to appear at the front of the cars as a design feature on the radiator. The three-points of the star were supposed to represent Daimler's ambition of universal motorization: "on land, on water and in the air". Over the years the logo evolved, to include the 'Benz' laurel wreath, and then, in 1923, the three-pointed star enclosed in a circle was registered as a trademark. Since then it has changed little, and is now a powerful symbol and integral part of the Mercedes-Benz brand. ----------------------------------------------------------- SAAB The logo of SAAB consists of the crowned griffin from the arms of the province of Skåne (Scania) in southern Sweden: Or, a griffin gules crowned azur. This is the official coat of arms of Skåne since 1660 and has its origin in the medieval arms of the city of Malmö. The reason why SAAB adopted it as its logo is that the original SAAB company (which produced small cars and aeroplanes) merged in 1969 with the truck manufacturer Scania-Vabis which in turn consisted of two companies, originated in Malmoe and in Södertälje, respectively. __________________ Enfield Cafe Racer completed. Yamaha Cafe Racer started.

16th February 2004, 23:41	#2 (permalink)
GTO Team-BHP Support Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: Bombay Posts: 13,115 View My Garage	That sure made for very interesting reading. It always comes back to me, that did the Daimlers in 1902 ever envision how famous their three-pointed star would one day be the most renowned car marque around the world...say a hundred years down the line? Learn something new everyday. GTO P.S. What about the prancing horse? __________________ GTO Change the way you think, and watch the world change around you. Please don't PM for support. Use the Contact Form instead. Please read the NEW Team-BHP FAQ section for all your queries.

17th February 2004, 10:13	#3 (permalink)
v12 Senior - BHPian Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: Mumbai Posts: 2,843 View My Garage	The History of the Ferrari Prancing Horse Logo The history of the provenance of the prancing horse in the Ferrari logo is not always clear to everybody and to be honest, we can only go by the explanation that Enzo Ferrari has given himself in his autobiography "My terrible joys" which first appeared in 1963 and in which he says: "As my trade mark, I continued to use the rampant horse that had been used on the cars of the old Scuderia Ferrari. The story of this rampant horse is a simple and fascinating one. The emblem was emblazoned on the fighter plane of Francesco Baracca, the ace of World War I, who was shot down at Montello. In 1923, when competing in the first Circuito del Savio, at Ravenna, I made acquaintance of Count Enrico Baracca, the hero's father; as a result of that meeting, I was subsequently introduced to the ace's mother, the Countess Paolina Baracca, who one day said to me: Ferrari, why don't you put my son's rampant horse on your car? It will bring you luck" I still have Baracca's photograph, with his parents dedication in which they entrust the horse to me. The horse was, and has remained, black; whilst I myself added the gold field, this being the color of Modena". ------------------------------------------------------------------ The Tuning Fork Mark The three tuning forks of the Yamaha logo mark represent the cooperative relationship that links the three pillars of our business -- technology, production, and sales. They also evoke the robust vitality that has forged a reputation for sound and music the world over, a territory indicated by the enclosing circle. The mark also symbolizes the three essential musical elements: melody, harmony, and rhythm. __________________ Enfield Cafe Racer completed. Yamaha Cafe Racer started.

16th August 2005, 14:35	#5 (permalink)
satan_crazy BHPian Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: Bangalore Posts: 125	Origins of some auto logos Hi, Found the following while browsing on the net. S • Mercedes tri star, the story goes, was inspired by a star Gottlieb Daimler penned on a post card of Cologne, marking where he was living and sent to his children. Today, a rotating tri star is visible on the skyline of almost every German city. Benz brought the wreath when Mercedes and Benz merged in the 1920s. The ring around the tristar was patented in 1923. • BMW's circle with blue and white quadrants is an interpretation of the image of a spinning propeller, powerfully simple as an early airline poster and suggesting the company's beginnings in building aircraft engines. • Alfa Romeo hails back to the city arms of Milan and the 12th century bishop who bestowed them. • Porsche borrowed arms from the city of Stuttgart, where it located its headquarters. • Ferrari's rearing stallion has roots in insignia of World War I Italian fighter. • Citroen's chevrons come from stylized gear teeth. • Volkswagen's iconic buttressing of V and W was the creation of an engineer named Franz Reimspiess, the same man who perfected the engine for the Beetle in the 1930s. He won fifty marks in an office competition to do the job. Before WW II, when the car was still Hitler's "Strength through Joy" car the logo was surrounded by the gear shaped emblem of the German Labor Front that built it. • In reviving the super luxury Maybach brand of the 1920s, when it was favored by maharjas and marquis, Mercedes updated an almost Wiener Secession looking "M." • Some logos evolve but, like Time Warner's infamous "IUD," are abandoned in favor of their predecessors. In the 1980s Fiat supplanted its pre war, wreathed emblem in favor of a Scrabble piece letter logo. The story goes that Fiat design chief Mario Maioli was driving past the company's Mirafiori factory one night in 1982 during a power outage. He noted a neon sign outlined against the dark sky, bearing the letters FIAT and was inspired to sketch a new logo. • Audi's four rings have nothing to do with the Olympics but represent the juncture of four earlier German auto companies in 1932. Horch, DKW, Wanderer and Audi were forced to ally by depressed market conditions to form Auto Union. After the war, the company finally took the name Audi which is Latin for "I hear," a translation of the name of August Horch, founder of the company that bore his name, but kept the Auto Union rings. • Best H logo. Hummer dealerships are built around a giant "H" that functions as both entrance and supergraphic visible from highways. But the best H logo was that of Horch, the prewar German company that enjoyed a status not unlike Buick in the U.S. Its H was formed to suggest the gateway of a city or castle -- an image of sturdy tradition. • Coolest recent logo: Subaru's five star logo refers obscurely to the keiretsu joined together in the parent company Fuji Heavy Industry. But this the new high performance road rally inspired Sti model (for Subaru Technology) arrived with a hot pink and high (graphic) fashion logo on its horn button, side panels, radiator and two or three more places. The parallel looping lines of the Sti logo suggest hip retro graphics such as old American basketball association expansion team emblems or the recent logo for the band OK Go by Stefan Sagmeister. **Edit: Here is the source- http://www.businessweek.com/innovate...812_131296.htm __________________ Lucifer waits for everyone Last edited by satan_crazy : 16th August 2005 at 14:46.*

16th August 2005, 14:40	#6 (permalink)
tsk1979 Team-BHP Support Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: Noida, New Delhi Posts: 8,793 View My Garage	Mercedes tri star is supposed to represent supremacy in Air, Sea and land. Mercedes has aircraft/ship/road transport engines to its credit. __________________ Reclaiming.....!

25th February 2004, 19:52	#4 (permalink)
pranay Newbie Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: kathmandu, Nepal Posts: 5	thats really good info....i am not sure if many ppl know that

16th August 2005, 15:26	#8 (permalink)
sandeepmdas BHPian Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: Varkala Posts: 303	The name "Mitsubishi" refers to the three-diamond emblem. "Mitsubishi" is a combination of the words mitsu and hishi. Mitsu means three. Hishi means "water chestnut", a Kanji word used for a long time to denote a rhombus or diamond shape. Japanese often bend the "h" sound to a "b" sound when it occurs in the middle of a word. So they pronounce the combination of mitsu and hishi as mitsubishi. Yataro Iwasaki, the founder of the old Mitsubishi organization, chose the three-diamond mark as the emblem for his company in 1873. The mark is suggestive of the three-leaf crest of the Tosa Clan, Yataro's first employer, (read Samurai clan) and also of the three stacked rhombuses of the Iwasaki family crest (another Samurai tradition). Source (except comments in () ): http://www.mitsubishi.com/e/group/mark.html The word,Volvo, is Latin which means "I roll". Combined that with the circle and arrow (alchemist's symbol for iron), the logo represents rolling strength. Last edited by sandeepmdas : 16th August 2005 at 15:37.

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