Your Car Has a Beautiful Logo - What's The History Behind It?

You pull your shiny new car into your driveway. You get out and walk past it, turning back to look at that sweet looking logo. It's recognizable everywhere, but what is the history behind it?

Provided here is a link to an online library of logos essentially covering the era of the automobile to date. Below are some interesting tidbits of information about logos you might not have known.

BMW

Bayerische Motoren Worke traces its roots back to the founding of an early aircraft company, Bayerische Flugzeugworke, in 1916. The logo represents a propeller slicing around through the blue sky, with the letters BMW arcing over top.

Chevrolet

The bow tie logo used by the quintessentially American car company traces back to Louis Chevrolet, the Swiss born auto racer who designed the first car to bear the name Chevrolet, after leaving General Motors. It's not clear, however, if Chevrolet designed the logo, or if it came from William Durant. Durant also left General Motors and ended up owning Chevrolet outright.

Some speculate the logo is a take on the Swiss Cross, while other evidence suggests it was just simply something Durant saw on wallpaper.

Ferrari

Enzo Ferrari was a race car driver before he started the Scudera Ferrari as a racing stable and Alfa Romeo offshoot. When Ferrari parted ways with Alfa Romeo in 1939, the bad blood made him passionate about beating them with a car of his own. The first Ferrari made it to the open road in 1947.

The famous prancing horse logo came at the suggestion of Countess Paolina Baracca. Her son, a WWI ace, had the symbol emblazoned on his plane.

Lada

AutoVAZ was established in 1966 in Soviet Russia in collaboration with Italian car maker FIAT. The company came to be known as Lada.The logo symbol comes from an ancient boat design. Fast sailboats used by pirates on the Volga River, to be precise.

In mythology, Lada is the Slavic goddess of youth, merriment, and beauty.

Mazda

The Japanese car maker traces its roots back to Hiroshima, the first city ever devastated by a nuclear bomb. Mazda used a logo based on the Hiroshima city emblem from 1936 until the early '60s. The current Mazda logo is meant to represent outstretched wings, but many think it looks like a stylized tulip.

Subaru

Subaru is the automobile division of Fuji Heavy Industries, LTD. The logo represents the star cluster Pleiades, which in Japanese is called "Subaru." The cluster is also known as the Seven Sisters, or to astronomers as Messier 45.