Introduction
The history of the automobile is also, in many respects, a history of visual communication. From the earliest motorcars of the late nineteenth century to today's highly computerized electric vehicles, automobile manufacturers have relied upon visual symbols to distinguish their products, communicate their values, and establish emotional relationships with consumers. Among the most enduring of these symbols are the car logos that appear on grilles, hoods, steering wheels, wheels, dashboards, advertisements, dealerships, and an expanding array of digital interfaces.
Unlike many ordinary commercial trademarks, an automobile logo is physically attached to a product that is itself highly visible, mobile, expensive, and socially significant. The logo travels through streets and highways, becomes part of the visual landscape of cities, and is repeatedly encountered by people who may have no direct relationship with the owner of the vehicle. It consequently functions simultaneously as a corporate signature, a badge of ownership, a status symbol, and a compact expression of the manufacturer's identity.
Table of Contents
The Emergence of Automobile Logos
The emergence of automobile logos coincided with the development of mass production and modern consumer culture. During the early years of the automobile industry, manufacturers were not merely selling transportation; they were selling a new technological experience. The automobile represented speed, mechanical power, personal freedom, modernity, and social mobility. These ideas naturally demanded a new visual vocabulary. Early automotive emblems consequently borrowed from heraldry, mythology, national symbols, family crests, machinery, animals, and geometric forms.
The choice of an emblem was rarely arbitrary. A manufacturer might employ an animal to suggest strength or speed, a shield to communicate durability and prestige, wings to evoke freedom and movement, a star to suggest excellence or aspiration, or a monogram to emphasize corporate heritage. Other companies developed abstract geometric marks whose meaning emerged gradually through repetition and association. In this respect, automobile branding became an important laboratory for the development of modern logo design.
Some of the most recognizable automotive symbols originated in highly specific historical circumstances. Mercedes-Benz, for example, developed its famous three-pointed star as a symbol associated with the company's ambitions for motorization on land, sea, and air. BMW's identity evolved from its history as an aircraft-engine manufacturer and became associated with a distinctive circular emblem. Volkswagen created a highly economical combination of the letters V and W within a circle, demonstrating how typography could be transformed into a powerful visual mark. Audi's four rings provide another example of abstraction, where a simple geometric structure came to represent the historical union of several automobile manufacturers.
Other identities drew upon animals and mythical creatures. The leaping horse of Ferrari became one of the most powerful symbols of automotive performance, while Lamborghini's charging bull communicates strength, aggression, and competitive energy. Jaguar used the image of the animal itself to associate the automobile with speed, elegance, and predatory power. Such examples demonstrate how designers convert characteristics attributed to the natural world into metaphors for mechanical performance.
The history of car logos also parallels the changing relationship between craftsmanship and industrial production. Early automobile manufacturers often emphasized mechanical ingenuity and hand craftsmanship. Their emblems consequently tended to be elaborate, dimensional, and ornamental. As mass production expanded during the twentieth century, automobile branding increasingly adopted cleaner forms capable of being reproduced consistently across factories, advertisements, dealerships, packaging, and printed materials.
The rise of modernism had a particularly important influence on automotive identity. Decorative complexity gradually gave way to simplification, geometric construction, sans-serif typography, and controlled colour systems. The automobile emblem increasingly became an exercise in visual economy. A successful mark had to be recognizable from a distance and capable of being translated into metal, enamel, paint, print, and eventually digital pixels.
The physical automobile itself also became part of the communication system. The grille, hood ornament, wheel hub, steering wheel, dashboard, and bodywork provided locations in which the logo could be integrated into the product. This created an unusual relationship between graphic design and industrial design. The logo was no longer merely printed on a package; it became a three-dimensional object attached to a machine. Its shape, material, reflectivity, scale, and position therefore became part of the overall design experience.
Automotive logos also reveal the importance of national identity and cultural symbolism. European manufacturers frequently incorporated heraldic traditions, regional symbols, or historical references, while American manufacturers often emphasized ideas of power, freedom, technological progress, and the open road. Japanese manufacturers developed identities associated with precision, technological sophistication, reliability, and increasingly global corporate identities. As the automobile industry became international, however, these distinctions became less rigid. Globalization encouraged manufacturers to develop symbols capable of functioning across very different cultural environments.
Colour has played an equally important role. Red, black, silver, blue, gold, and green have all acquired particular associations within automotive culture, although—as with airline and sports logos—these associations should not be treated as universal psychological laws. Red may suggest speed or passion; silver may suggest technology and precision; black may communicate luxury or authority; blue may imply sophistication or reliability. Yet the meaning ultimately depends upon the interaction between colour, form, typography, history, and the reputation of the manufacturer.
Indeed, the reputation of an automobile company can eventually transform an otherwise simple graphic mark into an extraordinarily powerful symbol. A consumer who sees a small emblem on the front of a car may immediately recognize not only the manufacturer but a whole collection of associations concerning price, engineering, reliability, performance, luxury, environmental responsibility, social status, and personal identity. The logo becomes a kind of visual shorthand for a complex bundle of expectations.
This is why automobile manufacturers periodically redesign their identities. A logo must preserve enough of its historical character to maintain recognition while adapting sufficiently to changing technologies and cultural expectations. During the transition from print advertising and physical badges to websites, mobile applications, digital dashboards, and increasingly software-defined vehicles, many manufacturers have simplified three-dimensional emblems into flatter, more adaptable graphic forms. The movement from chrome and metal toward digital interfaces represents not merely a stylistic change but a transformation in the environments in which automotive identity must operate.
The emergence of electric vehicles has added another dimension to this process. Traditional automobile branding frequently emphasized horsepower, mechanical strength, speed, and engineering prowess. Electric mobility introduces additional associations: sustainability, software, connectivity, efficiency, clean technology, and a redefinition of the relationship between the automobile and the environment. Manufacturers must therefore decide whether their visual identities should emphasize continuity with automotive heritage or signal a decisive break with the internal-combustion era.
The contemporary car logo consequently stands at the intersection of history, technology, commerce, aesthetics, and psychology. It can be a heraldic emblem inherited from the past, a modernist geometric abstraction, a stylized animal, a typographic monogram, or an entirely abstract symbol. Yet regardless of its form, its fundamental purpose remains remarkably consistent: to create a recognizable visual identity for a complex organization and to condense that organization's values into a form that can be understood almost instantaneously.
The history of car logos is therefore not simply a catalogue of automobile badges. It is a history of how graphic designers have attempted to give visual form to changing ideas of mobility, speed, freedom, luxury, engineering, national identity, modernity, and technological progress. As the automobile itself has evolved from a mechanical machine into a connected and increasingly software-defined platform, its visual identity has evolved with it.
The journey from the ornate badges and hood ornaments of the early motorcar to the minimalist digital symbols of contemporary electric vehicles reveals a larger principle in graphic design: the best logo is not necessarily the most elaborate image, but the one capable of carrying the greatest amount of meaning with the least visual effort. The history of automobile logos provides an extraordinary record of that continuing search for simplicity, distinction, memory, and meaning.
Alfa Romeo
The Alfa Romeo logo that has been modified many times is an admixture of the coat-of-arms of the city of Milan; the Red cross on a white background, and the heraldic insignia of the Visconti's family.
The Milanese red cross celebrates the heroism of the crusader Giovanni Da Rio who is reputed to have been the first to climb the walls of Jerusalem and erect a cross there during the first crusade. The badge can be seen as a shield, reversed, above the great door of the Castello Sforzesco in Milan. The Visconti insignia celebrates the killing of a Saracen warrior by Ottone Visconti, the founder of the family, at the first Crusade. The Biscione (grass snake), symbol of Visconti family comes from Longobard totem: the blue drake meaning power, loyalty, surveillance and the man in its jaws represents Visconti’s enemies that the snake is always ready to destroy.
A.L.F.A. is the Italian acronym for Anomina Lombarda Fabrica Automobili, Lombarda car making company. The original logo has Alfa written over the top and Milano underneath separated by two figure of eight knots. The logo was changed to Alfa Romeo in 1920, five years after the take over by Nicola Romeo. In 1925 a wreath was added to celebrate the marque’s numerous victories on road and track, and this has later evolved into the gold trim framing the logo . With the opening of the Alfa Romeo plant in Pomigliano d’Arcon in 1972 Milano was dropped from the Logo.
Audi
In 1909 August Horch, after a disagreement with the board of directors of his company Horch, quited the company and founded Audi. The new company name was a play on the word Horch which sounds like "hoerch", which in German means to hear, and its Latin translation is Audi. Horch's logo for the company was the word Audi inscribed on a black triangle with the number 1 on the top.
The four interlinked rings logo was introduced in 1932 after the merger of the four independent motor-vehicle manufacturers, Audi, DKW, Horch and Wanderer, that formed the Auto Union AG. After the Second World War, Auto Union AG's production plant in Saxony was expropriated and dismantled by the occupying Soviet forces. On September 3, 1949 a new company Auto Union GmbH came was founded in Ingolstadt, to uphold the tradition that the former Auto Union AG had established in Saxony.
On March 10, 1969 Auto Union GmbH merged with NSU Motorenwerke AG and changed its name to Audi NSU Auto Union AG with headquarters in Neckarsulm, The company changed its name to AUDI AG on January 1, 1985 and transferred its headquarters back to Ingolstadt. The current logo was released in 2009 and exhibits an improved minimized version of the three dimensional rings with a new and modern typeface for the Audi text. Deemed to be "more progressive and contemporary than its predecessor", the modernized logo stresses Vorsprung durch Technik , Advancement through Technology.
BMW
BMW stands for Bayerische Motoren Werke AG, Bavarian Motor Works, a military aircraft engine maker during WWI . The company's logo has its origins in the Bavarian Luftwaffe planes painted in blue and white, and its design is evolved from the circular design of a rotating aircraft propeller. The white and blue checker boxes, represent the Bavarian national colors.
However, a 1942 company leaflet, BMW Werkzeitschrift, maintained that the BMW logo originated from a the image of a shining disc of the rotating propeller, radiating like an aura from two silver cones, and appeared to one of the company's engineer while he was testing the first 320 bhp engine. In between the two cones, the blue from the sky shined that made the ‘rotating propeller into four areas of color – silver and blue’. Later the company has tried to downplay this militaristic history.
Buick
In a study commissioned by a corporate identity firm, the Schechter Group in the early 1990s, it was found that "among car marketers, GM's Buick gained an astounding 53 percent in positive image with its tri-shield symbol." The Buick Motor Company, was established on 19 May 1903 by David Dunbar Buick in Flint (Michigan) and was taken over by James Whiting who appointed William C. During the head of her new acquisition in 1904. Buick soon became the largest U.S. automaker, and taking advantage of this opportunity, Durant has acquired a dozen companies, under the new corporate entity General Motors.
The Buick logo's history includes several rebranding that occurred as the company grew bigger. Buick Motor Division's famous "tri-shield" emblem, basically three shields inside a circle, was based on research by a General Motors Styling researcher, who looked for ancestral arms of the Scottish Buick family, in an attempt to modernize the logo in the mid 1930s. The company's earliest logo was a large brass cursive "Buick" that appeared on the mesh radiator grille of early 1900s models. In 1911, a giant "B" with the "uick" inscribed inside it appeared as Buick logo, and in 1913 Buick script showed up in grille designs. In 1960, the tri-shield, representing the three Buick models; LeSabre, Invicta and Electra appeared. The Skyhawk line with a hawk perched on block letters of Buick was introduced in 1975, but it was abandoned in 1980 in favor of return to the tri-shield. Today a modernized version of tri-shield is the focus point of Buick marketing and advertising.
Cadillac
Le Sieur Antoine De La Mothe Cadillac was born in Gascony on March 5, 1658. He was of a prominent family since he earned a comission in the Royal Army. He founded Detroit in 1701, as well as the governorship of Mississippi. King Louis XIV awarded him the rank of Chevalier of the Military Order of St.Louis. The crest was adopted for Cadillac cars logo in 1905. It was registered as a trademark on August 7, 1906.
Citroën
Citroën was founded in 1919 by André Citroën. He was the first automaker outside the United States who used moving assembly lines to mass produce cars. He traveled to United States and explored the production assembly of Henry Ford, and later transformed his workshop in Paris. Collaboration with Edward Gowan Budd, an American engineer, Citroën built the first European cars using steel for their bodies.
The minimalist and elegant logo of Citroën was ahead of its time.
Ferrari
In fact, the prancing horse was originally the emblem of Francesco Baracca(1888-1918) who was Italy's leading fighter pilot during World War. His first victory came on 7 April 1916 when he successfully brought down an Austro-Hungarian aircraft. Operating exclusively on the Italian Front Baracca notched up an impressive tally of 34 enemy aircraft, becoming his country's most successful airman of the war.
Having established himself as an accredited ace Baracca painted an image of a prancing horse upon his aircraft.
According to Enzo Ferrari:
The horse was painted on the fuselage of the fighter plane of Francesco Baracca - a heroic airman of the First World War. In '23, I met count Enrico Baracca, the hero's father, and then his mother, Countess Paulina, who said to me one day, 'Ferrari, put my son's prancing horse on your cars. It will bring you good luck'. The horse was, and still is, black, and I added the canary yellow background which is the color of Modena.
The prancing horse symbolizes speed, passion, courage and victory.
Ford
In 2003 Ford released the blue oval in honor of 100 years of the Ford Motor Company, and it was named the "Centennial Blue Oval".
Childe Harold Wills who was employed by Henry Ford as a metallurgist and chief engineer and inventor of Vanadium steel, which was used on every model of Ford's cars created the Ford logo that has withstood the test of time. In 1907 Ford placed the Wills' logo on the first 1928 Model A. Harold Wills, printed business cards to earn money as a teen, and he used his old printing set and a font that he had used for his own cards. The oval was added in 1912, and blue was added for the Model A in 1927.
The first Ford Mustang was introduced on April 17, 1964. The logo is a galloping horse that originally designed by Phil Clark. The galloping horse logo was presented in New York in 1964 together with the launching of the first generation Ford Mustang. Before this, Phil Clark drew around nine different designs of the emblem before he came to the last one. The galloping horse logo was re-designed in 1974 by Hungarian Charles Keresztes in conjunction with the launching of the second generation Ford Mustang or Ford Mustang II. Since then, the Ford Mustang Logo was used for third generation (1979-1993), fourth generation (1994-2004), and part of fifth generation (2005-present) until the recent change in 2010.
Fiat
Fiat was founded on 11 July 1899 at Palazzo Bricherasio, the company charter of Società Anonima Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino, more commonly known as Fiat S.p.A. , was signed.
The old Fiat logo had the letters F-I-A-T inscribed with a silver line between each letter, using a blue background. The new shield-like Fiat logo is the company name in white on a red background, surrounded by laurel leaves. Fiat first used the five-bar logo on the Uno in 1982, after the company's design chief Mario Maioli - driving past the Mirafiori factory at night after a power cut - saw the giant FIAT logo on top of the plant, set against the fading light of the sky. He did a quick sketch - five bars represented the spaces he could see between the letters.
Honda
The Japanese manufacturers not only have been imitators of the western technology but also imitators of western logos. despite having a rich and elegant heritage of calligraphy, most either using the Latin alphabet letters, like Honda, or Nissan, or using tasteless and imbalanced designs like Toyota and Mazda. The most successful of these logos, that of the Honda appeared in 1947, when Soichiro Honda, inspired by the Greek goddess Nike, whose name appeared on the first Marathons in Athenes, and later was represented by the Roman goddess Victory, used the Victory wings to reinforce the symbology of the Honda brand.
In 1947, Soichiro Honda made, manufactured and sold his first complete motorbike bearing the first Honda logotype. In 1948, the B-type was the first that saw Victory wings figure. In 1953, Honda produced one four-stroke motorbike, known as the Benly that in Japanese means convenience. The bike was a great success and were sold as a rate of a 1.000 units a month. At this time The Benly model used a two wings logotype. In 1968, Honda introduced the new one wing logotype with the letters HM . The logo had small modifications on the next years. In 1973, the wing drawing incorporated the complete HONDA word, outline was enlarged and the yellow Honda colour was also introduced. In 1988 and coinciding with the 40th annyversary of the Honda brand, a new design for the Honda wings logotype was created to commemorate this special event. Honda automobiles use ‘H’ logo, appearing wider on the top in a simple, roman style font.
Maserati
Maserati was founded in 1914 in Bologna by Alfieri Maserati, born into a family of seven brothers (brothers Maserati), five were involved in the development of automobiles. Like Alfa, the Maserati logo - trident is the traditional symbol of Bologna. Mario Maserati, the brother who created the Maserati logo was a painter; who was inspired by the traditional symbol of Bologna-Neptune's trident; based on the Neptune's statue at Bologna's Piazza Maggiore, he composed the logo by a red trident above a blue base, which symbolizes the vast power of Neptune.
Tesla
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Tesla Motors was founded in 2003 by a group of engineers in Silicon Valley who wanted to prove that electric cars could be better than gasoline-powered cars. Tesla's chief designer Franz von Holzhausen, commissioned its logo to prado studio in California. |
Mercedes Benz
Gottlieb Daimler and Carl Benz, independently of one another, and with the help of their financial backers and partners funded Benz & Cie. in October 1883, in Mannheim; and Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft (DMG) in 1890, in Cannstatt. The two companies trade marks bear the name of the funders.
Mercédès, which means ‘grace’ in Spanish, was the name of the daughter of the Austrian businessman, Emil Jellinek, who in 1897, visited the Daimler factory and placed an order for his first car. Jellinek was well connected with international financiers and the aristocracy and became increasingly involved with the company. In 1898, he began to promote and sell Daimler automobiles. From 1899, he began to race under his pseudonym Mercédès. In April 1900, DMG decided to cash in on the publicity and to use the Mercedes as a product name. This first ‘Mercedes’, developed by Wilhelm Maybach, the chief engineer at DMG, caused quite a stir at the beginning of the new century. In 1902, ‘Mercédès’ was registered as the trade name.
Early in his youth Gottlieb Daimler 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. He died in 1900, and nine years later Paul and Adolf Daimler his sons proposed the DMG board that the company should adopt a three-pointed or a four-pointed star as its logo. The board immediately accepted the proposal and registered both versions as trademarks, but only the three-pointed star was used. The three-pointed star was supposed to symbolize Daimler’s ambition of universal motorization – “on land, on water and in the air”. In 1916, a circular band was added to surround the tips, in which four small stars and various inscriptions including Mercedes, the DMG plants at Untertürkheim or Berlin-Marienfelde were placed.
After the First World War DMG and Benz & Cie., formed a syndicate in 1924 to be able to survive the difficult economic conditions. They marketed their products jointly, but under separate trademarks. In 1926, they merged to form Daimler-Benz AG with a new logo combining the three-pointed starand the name ‘Mercedes Benz’, surrounded by a laurel wreath.
Peugeot
Peugeot entered the industrial era in 1810 during Emperor Napoleon I who needed to clothe the soldiers of his Grand Army. Later the company funded the steel industry, and manufacturing of saw blades. In 1842, Peugeot partnered with the Jackson brothers, four Englishmen from Lancaster, and produced band saws , tools, Stays whales and umbrellas under the name "Peugeot seniors and Jackson brothers".
In 1848, the firm changed its name to "Peugeot Frères" , manufacturing steel frames for crinolines, fashion accessories launched by the Empress Eugenie. The first four-speed auto was built in 1890,with the gasoline engine, built under the the license from Daimler.
The "lion" logo was designed by Justin Blazer, a jeweler and engraver based in Montbéliard. In a letter written in 1847, an appeal was made to the "good taste" of the artist to create the best possible layout of the letters and ensure the longevity of the trademarks. They included an arrow that can be seen under the paws of the Lion, created in 1850.
Porsche
In the early 1950s, Professor Ferdinand Porsche and his son Ferdinand 'Ferry' together with their trusted advisers were discussing a company logo for their intended new car design that was supposed to be built in Stuttgart.
Franz Xaver Reimspieß, the Porsche engineer, a man remarkable for his precise work and his wealth of ideas, who had designed the Volkswagen logo, for which had received a one-off payment of one hundred Reichmarks; did a number of various sketches for the new car company. Finally, the company’s logo was created based on the traditional crest of Württemberg-Baden, as the region was still called at that time, stylizing antlers and the state colours of red and black. Stuttgart, a city established in 950 AD as the stud farm of ‘stuotgarten’, has had horses in its coat of arms in varying designs since the 14th century, and Reimspieß placed a rampant black horse at the center of logo, inspired by the Stuttgart's seal, as an expression of forward thrusting power,
After obtaining the city's approval, the Porsche 356 bore the Reimspieß designed logo for the fist time in 1952, where it appeared on the horn in the middle of the steering wheel.
Pontiac
Pontiac is a US car brand first produced in 1926, by General Motors (GM), as the 'companion' marque to GM's Oakland Motor Car line. The Pontiac name was first used in 1906 by the Pontiac Spring & Wagon Works. The name was taken from Chief Pontiac, an American Indian chief who led an unsuccessful uprising against the British shortly after the French and Indian War. The Oakland Motor Company and Pontiac Spring & Wagon Works Company merged in November 1908 under the name of the Oakland Motor Car Company. The operations of both companies were joined together in Pontiac, Michigan (of Oakland County) to build the Cartercar. General Motors in 1909 purchased Oakland.
The original logo was that of an American Indian headdress, which was used as a logo until 1956. The American Indian headdress is obviously connected to Chief Pontiac referenced earlier. This was updated to the currently used American Indian red arrowhead design for 1957. The arrowhead logo is also known as the Dart. The logo has a distinctive Red and a silver star in the middle. I am not sure what the significance of the star is but a lot of the Native American art contains elements of nature such as the sun, moon and stars.
Renault
Louis Renault was raised in a well-to-do French family, and his parents indulged his early interest in mechanical contraptions by allowing him to convert the garden shed into his own workshop. He soon got orders for cars, so in 1898, along with his brothers and friends, opened the company Société Renault Frères 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.
The Renault diamond started out as a bonnet emblem. The horn lived behind it, and from 1922 the centre of the badge was cut out to allow the sound to escape. It started out circular and became a diamond shape in 1924.
Volkswagen
The logotype of Volkswagen which is recognizable all around the globe is simple and elegant play with the typeface V. It is created by Franz Xaver Reimspiess. The simplicity of design together with its rhythmic composition, achieved by the repetition of a geometric V-form inside a circle, creates its striking visual impact . The logo was originally designed in 1938 and modified in 1996 and 2000.
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Volvo
Volvo's predecessor company, formed in 1915, for the manufacture and marketing of bearings, but it went idle after 1920s. In 1926, Svenska Kullagerfabriken – SKF provided finance to turn it into a car company. The SKF chose the name Volvo, for its simplicity and ease of spell and pronunciation, derived from the Latin verb “Volvere” meaning to “roll”. The company choose for its logo the chemical symbol for iron — a circle with an arrow pointing diagonally upwards to the right, which originally stood for the planet Mars in the Roman Empire.The iron logo on the car was supposed to create associations with the the Swedish iron industry: steel and strength with properties such as safety, quality and durability. Each of the first six planets was associated with a metal: Sun=gold, Moon=silver, Mercury=quicksilver, Venus=copper, Mars=iron, Jupiter=tin, Saturn=lead. All in all, this was not a very imaginative logo and appeared somewhat naive application of culture and symbolism.
Lotus
The first Lotus was built by Anthony Colin Bruce Chapman in a lock-up garage behind his girl friend's house in 1946 or 1947. At the time he called it an Austin Seven Special, and it competed in mud plugging trials in 1948. The first car Chapman actually called a Lotus, at the time, was built in 1949 whilst he was in the Royal Air Force, and was built in the same lock-up garage.
In 1952, Chapman founded the Lotus Engineering Co Ltd, using a small loan from Hazel Williams, his future wife, to buy and sell used cars. Initially he modified and raced these cars himself in trials and hillclimbs, selling each to finance building or converting the next, while working full-time for the British Aluminium Company. In 1954 Chapman was able to take up running Lotus Engineering as a full-time job, and to set up Team Lotus to oversee the racing. By this stage he was already working as a consultant for the BRM and Vanwall Formula 1 teams.
From Lotus' earliest days every car was fitted with a nose badge comprising of Colin Chapman's monogram (ACBC) on a green quadrant background which is superimposed on a yellow circular plaque. However, from the late sixties onwards some cars appeared with mysterious all black nose badges.
The oval Green Gold badge was introduced by The new Chairman and head of BCA, David Wickens, as he didn't want the Chapman association at the time, prefering instead to try and force a new image on Lotus. It was Oval, not round as past badges had been, it didn't include ACBC at all and the Lotus words were in a different font and interlinked. This was brought in 1984, despite the protestations of several Directors. It's said that Mike Kimberley nearly quit because of it.
About 18 months later Mike Kimberley added in the ACBC part at the top of the logo. This again nearly ended MJK's career as it was done on his authority, wanting, quite correctly, to use Lotus's Chapman heritage and the racing implications associated to it . The logo was still, however, BRG and oval. It wasn't until 2 years later that they managed to change the Oval logo back toits original, with the approval of GM.
Lamborghini
Ferruccio Lamborghini was born in Italy in 1916. He was fascinated with engines from an early age. During World War II he joined the army and was stationed on the island of Rhodes. Fortunately there was little going on there during the war. The island was essentially isolated from the rest of the world. Any cars, trucks or motorcycles that broke down had to be repaired on the spot with reused parts. Lamborghini became known as a wizard at mechanical improvisation and became very much in demand at fixing engines.
After the war he returned to his home near Modena in northern Italy and setup a small car and motorcycle repair shop. He soon realized that there was a desperate need for tractors in the agricultural area in which he lived. He found he could build about one tractor a month from derelict military vehicles. As Italy's economy grew demand for his high quality tractors started to grow. He began building his own tractor engines. His tractor business became very successful reaching a rate of over 400 a month in 1960. He soon looked at expanding the business and in 1960 began manufacturing heaters and air conditioning units for buildings as well as maintaining the tractor business. This too became very successful.
About this time Lamborghini started to get interested in developing a high performance car. He had owned Oscas, Maseratis and Ferraris but was always disappointed with them. Particularly their engines. There is a now famous story about how he was frustrated with problems he had with a clutch in a Ferrari (a Ferrari 250 GT), and went to visit Enzo Ferrari who's factory was nearby. Enzo had no time for a tractor manufacture and simply dismissed him. Lamborghini decided there was nothing Ferrari was doing he could not do better. He decided too build his own car with a V12 engine. For the design he found a very talented engineer named Giampaolo Dallara who had previously worked on a Ferrari V12 engine.
The oil crisis of the 70's made sales of high performance cars difficult. Production was plagued with budget and parts supply problems. People gave up waiting for cars with two year back orders. In 1978 the company declared for bankruptcy. The Mimran brother's, a Swiss based group, were able to save the factory, but after making it profitable again they sold it to Chrysler Corporation. The new Lamborghini Diablo got rave reviews, nut in 1994 Chrysler fell upon hard times and had to sell the company. It was bought by an by Tommy Suharto, the well known Indonesian dictator's son. Fortunately, after the demise of Suharto, in a complex series of transactions Audi AG became the sole owner of Automobili Lamborghini on August 4 1998.
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