Emblems of cars and laws of automobile heraldry

Paraphrasing a proverb about the name of the ship, we can say that as a car will be called, so she will go. The founders of the firms that have today become whole auto empires have always been very concerned about such issues, at first glance, as secondary from the engineering point of view, like badges on the hoods and other attributes-ornaments. The brands of cars, emblems and names have long become an important element of marketing and the same asset of any company as production facilities, trained personnel or technology.

Car heraldry and its laws

Coats of arms of cities, countries and ancient noble births are created not only for beauty. Each of them includes symbols, the meaning of which requires interpretation, the color of the field also speaks about something. In general, this is a whole science. It is not easy to create car emblems. They should be remembered, be elegant, pleasing to the eye and express the essence of the basic ideology that follows this or that automaker. Most of these conditions are met, and leading car manufacturers have been able to achieve recognition of their brands in all corners of the planet. Some of them even had their own fans, merging into clubs.

Ford's simplicity

The simplest approach in the matter of choosing a trade mark in the history of the world automotive industry was applied by Henry Ford. Its emblem is simple, it can be understood from it that cars of this brand are made for ordinary people, workers, farmers, clerks and other ill-starred people, to whom every aristocracy is alien by nature. The vehicle is what "Ford" is. The same jeans, only with four wheels and a motor. The logo is an oval with four-letter letters that make up the coveted name of the great standardizer, conveyor and price controller, conquering the whole world with his "Lizzy Tins".

The old emblems of the cars of the Gorky Automobile Plant geometrically repeat the Ford logo, only three letters, and they are Russian. There is nothing surprising in this, after all, "Emki", and the famous frontline lorry by origin - American, a license for their production was purchased together with the plant. Later on the hoods of "Volga" appeared handsome deer, who decorates modern products produced in Nizhny Novgorod.

German brevity

The simplicity of the pattern is typical for German automakers such as Daimler-Benz, BMW, Opel and Audi. The emblems of the cars of these brands are so simple that they can be depicted by a child. However, these icons can not be called primitive either, their geometric accuracy, rather, causes associations with an ideal crystal, in which there is not a single superfluous line.

Horses

Many car emblems look more complicated and contain images of animals. Favorite symbol in animalistic heraldry is a horse. Horse continuity of vehicles was noticed long ago. The first taxi drivers were former cabmen and bandyuzhniki, in place of draft horses came steel trucks. The cars themselves are often called "iron horses". The most famous horses prance on the logos "Porsche" and "Ferrari". Despite the general ideology of the company "Ford Motors", aimed at the democracy and accessibility of its products, and it has its own "horse" - "Mustang".

The firm "Lamborghini" reflects, rather, the tastes of its founder, than some other entity. Most likely, the Italian loved bullfighting, so he portrayed the bull on the logo.

The emblems of the Dodge cars remained the same as they were during the Second World War, when the famous "Three Quarters" transported the troops and ammunition of the entire anti-Hitler coalition. Lamb's head, most likely, was an element of the family coat of arms of Horace and John, the founders of the future auto concern.

MAZ has a Belarusian bison on the hood, and KamAZ has a swift Tatar horse.

A separate line is the jaguars and lions. The emblems of cars depicting predators are designed to express the indomitable power and swiftness characteristic of the technical characteristics of the cars of the British manufacturer and the French Peugeot. The figure of the jaguar jumped appeared on the hood relatively recently, after the war, as the old name Swallow Sidecar at a cut reminded the inhabitants of Albion of the hated abbreviation SS.

Other symbols on car hoods

The fantasy of developers of trade logos of automobile companies is truly unlimited. Represented and snakes, and fantastic griffins, and winged angel-like creatures. Sometimes car manufacturers change the emblems of cars for various reasons. Photo of the Swedish car "Saab" in 1946, for example, shows a state symbol, three crowns, and in the fifties the place on the hood was taken by a jet interceptor, which became the company's main product. In the 80s, a neutral fantastic griffin was chosen, the coat of arms of the county, in which the main production areas of Saab are located.

Sometimes the emblems are very complex and repeat the arms of the cities in which the factories are located.

And the symbol of our "Zhiguli" was an Old Russian boat that cut through the Volga waves.