(first posted 6/4/2015) A couple years ago I shared some photos I’d taken of the typography on classic cars. It seems like such a minor detail, but obvious design work went into a lot of that lettering. Here’s another crop of interesting car badges, from the 2015 Mecum Spring Classic.
Chrysler could be very creative with the badges on their Dodge and Plymouth muscle cars. The lettering here is typical of this era of Plymouth, but arranging it in a circle around this logo was interesting and creative. This badge sits right in front of the hood of a 1971 Plymouth GTX.
I’ve always been a fan of this badge, and its placement on the sail panel of the 1969 Dodge Charger creates this interesting photo angle. I’ve shot this over and over again on various Chargers.
Sometimes a badge identifies the engine underhood. It often means that the engine is something special. The 428 cubic inch engine inside this 1967 Pontiac Grand Prix was Pontiac’s biggest and most powerful engine that year.
In the ’60s, Pontiac led the way in automotive design — right down to their badging. This typeface girded the flanks of all full-sized Pontiacs in the late 60s. It’s hard to get individually affixed letters to always be straight, but only the o is off, and then just slightly, on this 1967 Pontiac Bonneville.
Early imported Japanese cars had badging that looked just weird to American eyes. These badges from a 1967 Toyota Crown Deluxe are a clashing mashup of styles.
So let’s take comfort in the strong, purposeful lettering on this 1965 Ford Custom. The car is just as square-jawed as these letters.
Sometimes you even find interesting lettering inside a car. This is the steering wheel hub of a 1958 Dodge Coronet Super. In those days, power steering was kind of a big deal.
Here’s a badge on the outside of that 1958 Dodge Coronet Super. Notice that lowercase e, styled like the lowercase Greek letter epsilon.
You see it a lot in 1950s typography, and not just on Chrysler products like this 1950 Plymouth Belvedere. My mom, a child of the ’50s, liked this lowercase e so much that she adapted it into her handwriting. I’ve seen few others write their small e that way, but when I do encounter someone who does, he or she is always of my mom’s generation.
A selfie! From the wheel cover of a 1936 Cadillac Series 75. Cadillac lettering always tries to express elegance and exclusivity.
These letters flanking a 1940 Buick Roadmaster express a modern style at the end of the art-deco era.
Look: there’s that epsilon-styled lowercase e again, but this time on the running board of a 1922 Overland.
To see many, many more photos like these, check out my Autotypography set on Flickr.
That Art-Deco Roadmaster badge is beautiful! I’ve always been a huge fan of cursive-script badges too.
Definitely my favorite of the bunch–Art Deco/Art Moderne is a favorite style of mine.
BMW put an art deco icon – a stylized comet – in the taillights of the circa 2005 5 series, although it was not obvious unless the brake light was illuminated. It was part of the “flame” style of that era. As a big fan of art deco myself, I spotted it almost immediately.
Another good reason to hate the acronym soup names of today, modern badges all end up looking identical to each other since there’s only three letters or numbers. And don’t get me started on Corporate logo badging! If it were up to me the Blue Oval on a Ford would only be found on the cover of the owners manual.
No kidding. Either Ford needs to revamp its logo or stop putting it on its cars. It’s easily the worst automotive logo, even worse than Hyundai’s off-kilter “H.”
I kind of like Hyundai’s “Santa Fe” text with the sun emblem next to it that looks like a chrome taco.
As growing up three blocks from Ford headquarters, and therefore extremely bias-I whole hardheartedly DISAGREE!
The blue oval is the most iconic symbol…as described here.
http://www.allcarbrandslist.com/ford-logo/
You are aware that there was no prominently placed Blue Oval to be found on domestic Ford cars between the 50s and 80s right? That includes the legendary Thunderbird and iconic Mustang the article mentions.
And make no mistake, I’d like to see corporate logos disappear (or at least become marginal) period, Ford is but one example. Blue oval, Bow tie, whatever the Toyota and Lexus symbols are supposed to be, ect. Whenever I’m driving a newer car I feel like I’m driving a rolling billboard.
I think the Ford and other logos are here to stay–they’re entwined with the company’s branding, and branding is more important than ever, as cars become less distinctive. So the simple “FORD” and “CHEVROLET” block letters of the ’80s are probably done. The brands that don’t have a consistent logo will be looking to get one settled (e.g., Dodge–they have one but it’s not familiar enough to be recognizable). You may not like the Toyota logo, but you know it’s a Toyota without even thinking.
Re: whatever the Toyota symbol is supposed to be – the best explanation I’ve heard is a turd in a fishbowl.
Viking with a cowboy hat. Or maybe cowboy with a Viking helmet. Whatever, like the recent Mazda and Hyundai logos, these are modern corporate branding exercises. Like them or not, at least the Blue Oval and Bow Tie, along with the VW logo, BMW roundel and Peterbilt red oval, are permanent parts of automotive history.
I like it! “the Pillsbury Doughboy scoring a touchdown” was one description that stuck in my mind
The days of spelled-out company names on cars are long gone, mostly because no company wants their customers to drive a FO D or a TO TA after a few of the letters fall off. (Although, the model names are still individual letters; it seems driving a L CERN or an IMPAL is A-OK.)
Very little can be done by complaining about it over the Internet, but if it really grinds your gears, you can always contact the company directly and make your opinion known.
I’ll give the blue oval a pass, but the ones that really annoy me are the “we have to update our logo!” jobs that end up looking terrible. Did anyone, ever, like the “waterfall M” AKA “three hockey sticks” logo that Mercury cooked up in the late 80’s? I’d have preferred that they kept the old god’s head logo, though modern consumers who have forgotten their Greek mythology would probably have had no idea what it was supposed to be. (Trivia: the only modern appearance of that logo was in the wheel centers of the 2003-04 Marauder.)
On the flip side what about iconic model logos? i.e. “The Sign of the Cat”, the ‘Vette’s crossed flags, the galloping Mustang, etc? Those seem to me an indispensable part of brand identity for the model.
Your mentioning “The Sign of the Cat” gives me a chuckle, because if anybody didn’t have a strong logo that etched itself in the public memory over a long period of time, it’s Mercury.
You started with the god’s head, went to a big blocky “M” in the latter half of the 1950’s (radio advertising pushed “the big M line” very heavily back then), the Cat is entirely a 70’s thing, probably as meaningless to some millennial as the “big M line” is to you (I remember it very well).
And that’s the problem. You change the logo or ad focus every few years and the public remembers nothing. The blue oval and the bowtie mean something because they’ve been around for generations.
Then again, I could just see some of the car manufacturers trying to keep their original logo for decades. Dodge, for example, was a Star of David.
It looked like a Star of David, but it was actually two intertwined Greek Deltas symbolic of John and Horace Dodge.
One little detail that I always liked about my ’88 T-Bird (and any T-Bird from 1958-88) was that it didn’t have the word “FORD” or the blue oval anywhere on the exterior. It was something that told the world you were driving something that was just a little cut above a mere Ford even if it was in reality just a glorified Torino or Fairmont. It wasn’t until the MN12s that the Bird finally went “corporate”, and even that was just a small oval on the trunk lid.
“Ford” was also nowhere to be found on 1968-73 Mustangs.
That was a trick that was used off and on until the present day, as you said to differentiate the car from the rest of a manufacturer’s particular lineup. The1st-gen Oldsmobile Aurora did the same thing with no Oldsmobile badging anywhere on the car. And there was an option at launch, probably still available, for the Hyundai Equus to replace any Hyundai badging with Equus-specific logos.
That’s like claiming that the Disney logo needs to be updated.
The vintage charger badge should be an option on the new charger ,just as the vintage challenger badge is an option on the new challenger
I could stare at these for hours. Even the smallest details on most of these cars involved hours and hours of design work and probably some heated discussions somewhere along the line.
I remember in the late 90s, I was excited to see Chrysler bringing back individual chromed letters on some of their model nameplates, like the Town & Country. Unfortunately, the plating used on the plastic letters soon gave up and went away, leaving yellowish plastic letters instead. Not these!
Unfortunately, the plating used on the plastic letters soon gave up and went away, leaving yellowish plastic letters instead.
My parent’s 56 Commander had nice chromed pot metal castings on both front fenders. Somewhere, before my memory kicked in, the passenger side badge must have snagged on something, because I always remember that badge reading “Comm”
The badges on my Taurus X’s hub caps were decals. All were present in 2011. By the start of 2014, three had mutinied. I later found one laying on my garage floor.
Plymouth decals faded away probably decades ago back in Arizona on my Volare, and I have extra spare part for the side badge too just in case it fell off during a car wash.
A badge being a metal (or later plastic) unit casting certainly doesn’t preclude losing letters. My Malibu’s trunklid badge somehow lost the “ET” off the end of it, despite being one piece, so it was a “CHEVROL” until a repaint removed the badge. And the trunklid badge on my Crown Victoria has snapped in half, so the “toria LX” portion is now at a jaunty angle and will probably fall off if I don’t do something about it. However, considering everyone calls the car Crown Vic anyway, and that’s what the truncated badge would read, maybe it’s appropriate.
I have quite a collection of similar shots myself. Most of the older ones are on film, including an Avanti, a ’54 Chrysler Windsor Deluxe, and an uncommon sight…the Russian script from a 1986 GAZ Chaika limo. Time to buy a scanner.
here is a shot from the passenger side dash of my car
Individual chromed letters look good but if the template for the holes isnt used accurately it becomes a mess, same with stainless trim used on 50s cars, My pet car is an early build as evidenced by poor quarter panel alignment as that was the only change to the bodies and its restamped chassis number and the fact that none of the trim lined up properly, it does now I redrilled all the holes and spent a lot of time making it all fit as per the brochures of the time, I’m still looking for an A for the bonnet Rootes helpfully changed lettering style & font on previous and subsequent models just to make that search easier.
In America they didn’t drill the hole for the badging and trim with a template they were stamped in as part of the manufacturing process.
Some were stamped as part of the manufacturing proccess but some were obviously done during assembly on my car as not all models that used those panels used the same trim.
Interesting stuff., some better than others.
That Plymouth badge reminds me of the current Vauxhall emblem, the Ford Custom badge was copied over here too.
And when you look at details like these, you realise how much there is to design,and that it isn’t all done in a day.
Cool typefaces were not exclusive to cars as this shot of a heavy duty Mack’s hood side panel demonstrates…
Gold Comet refers to the engine in a Reo truck from the early 1950’s…
The B-series Macks did have great details. Lots of chrome on that hood panel! Diamond T’s tend to have nicely rendered badging also.
Yeah Chris, they did. How could I forget this one that I saw just last month on an immaculately restored ’38 Model 401? It’s the equal of that Roadmaster piece in every way, IMHO.
The big round 1971 Plymouth logo looks just like the manual handle for the pod bay door in 2001 A Space Odyssey. Wish I could find a picture but if you’ve seen it as often as I have you know how it looks. That Apollo 11 / 2001 style was big in early seventies industrial design.
I went outside and took a bunch of pics
dat dere radio
ever so classy
I like the different logos on vehicles – I even miss the branding on the inside. The older Fords/GM trucks even had the trim level if I recall correctly. I can remember seeing F-Series, Custom, XLT, etc in the fords, and Custom Deluxe, Scottsdale, Cheyenne, etc on the Chev trucks on the passenger side. It’s just something neat, I guess.
The square body Chevrolet/GMCs had it on the dashboard in front of the dashboard. In 1988, they put it on the insides of the doors for a while- we had a 1989 Scottsdale that had the badge below the window, by the handle.
Ford put it above the passenger from 1987-1991, and on a strip that ran widthwise from 1992-1996 (1997 for F250 and F350).
My 1986 Dodge Ram has a “Custom” badge on the glovebox door. I believe that all of the badges said “Engineered Ram Tough” on them. I can’t remember if they had a badge for the Miser or not….
Awesome collection of badges and your shots of them. A lot of thought went into both car names and typography, as you pointed out. I love script-font badges and wish more of them (like the new Challenger’s) were around.
The Ford blue oval badge is one of the most recognized emblems on any product in the world. Any other company would kill to have such brand recognition. It will be around as long as the company itself.
A favorite of mine:
These really bring some smiles. More, please.
I find the discussion of whether logos belong on cars very curious, if not specious. It’s one thing to find the constant barrage of images by the electronic media to be a visual (and audio) assault, and it’s quite another to extend that reaction to a simple graphic device that is relatively small and innocuous, doesn’t flash or make loud noises, and has no smell.
Nowadays, logos are as important as ever on cars, as the product’s shapes don’t vary much. This has actually been the norm over the history of the automobile. The only era where the logotype could have been considered nearly redundant was the late ’50s, when cars were instantly identifiable from afar, becoming, in effect, their own logos at the expense of efficiency as vehicles.
The Ford oval, while not exciting, is immediately recognizable, and therefore priceless in terms of branding. The shield shaped Ford mark of the 1950s was good in its day, but it dated quickly, as coat-of-arms identifiers for various companies lost their punch in implying “upper class quality” due to overuse. As for the other Ford identifiers in between the original oval and its rebirth on models like the original Taurus, who can remember any of them?
If there is a bone worth picking here, it lies in the application of the logo where it becomes a major design element on the car, and draws undue attention to itself. That first gen Taurus, actually, fell victim to this misapplication, if only mildly so (with its oval placed on an island in the center of the grille opening). As in most things, it’s all about the degree of the crime. Two egregious examples that come to mind are both on luxury coupes, where body panels seem to be shaped to accommodate the mark, as if it’s an acceptable way to sell a rakish model to people with more money than taste. Might as well go the whole route and fit these cars with speakers that blare out the car’s model name and salient bragging points when it senses a person within earshot.
Today, some of the Mercedes badges will actually light up at night. I saw one last week- it looks tacky to me.
Oh, Jeez… I hope that was an ad on!
Nope- it was a factory option:
http://blog.caranddriver.com/mercedes-benz-gets-its-shine-on-introduces-dealer-installed-illuminated-three-pointed-star-emblems/
Nothing new. Wolseley badges were illuminated from the thirties (I think) up until the brand’s demise in the BLMC consolidation of the 70’s.
…and Pontiac hood ornaments lit up in the 1950’s.
And they were Indian heads. Maybe GM considered that a line of cars named after a Native American chief wasn’t too fashionable these days when they considered which middle level lines to eliminate.
I wonder what the next Jeep Cherokee will be called.
The script and placement of the Charger emblems on the ’68-’70 cars is yet another example of how everything just fell into place on what many consider the best styled car to come out of Detroit in the sixties (and possibly ever from Chrysler). The location on those tunnel-back sail panels was perfect, with the only engine call-outs being the small front fender ‘HEMI’ badges when that particular engine was installed.
It must have eaten up Dick MacAdam (Chrysler’s head of styling at the time who absolutely ‘hated’ the cartoon Road Runner) something terrible when the Road Runner turned out to be such a huge success and, suddenly, Chrysler’s tape stripes and engine call-outs went to extreme levels in the early seventies.
My favorite on those chargers was the R/T on the headlight cover. Their was a scene in Blue Velvet where the bad guy is leaving and turns on the headlights and you see the R/T disappear with the headlight cover. A cool effect.
I never noticed those “E”s before. Thank you for a great writeup on a small detail.
I would have to say my favorites are the devil trident “M” in Dodge Demon and the Shaker font under the hood of ‘Cuda’s with said hood.
Badges? We have badges.
And the back side communicates important information to the driver.
Isn’t that a 1966 hood ornament? Seems like they changed the engine call-out the following year to a smaller, but more easily read horizontal orientation, located at the base of the rocket. It was also stamped into the metal (as opposed to a plastic insert). Imagine having one with a small ‘426’.
Geez, those were the days.
Isn’t that a 1966 hood ornament?
Yes, it is. Off of a 66 Belvedere II sedan.
The view under the hood of that 66 did not look like this 66
And solidly mounted, perfect for tearing an unwary pedestrian apart effectively.
Keep it cool.
One of my favorites for many years, 8 big letters V make it a V8.
And a nice corresponding badge on the grille.
These are beautiful. Thanks for sharing.
The large round emblem on the front of the GTX reminds me of the one on the trunk lid of the 1966-67 Charger, which is a “Fratzog” Dodge logo in a stylized chromed circle, with the words “DODGE DIVISION” around the perimeter. There is a similar smaller one in the center of the grille.
I really wish Dodge had brought back the Fratzog as their logo after they split-off the trucks as RAM.
I don’t know. The fratzog was used from 1962-1976 (although Wikipedia claims it went through 1981) so, in a way, a fratzog-festooned Dodge indicates it was from the glory years at Chrysler and maybe it should just remain there as a reminder of some of the great (and not so great) Dodges built during that time.
I’m not particularly crazy about the new Dodge logo with the two red racing stripes. They could have at least used the old, canted font from the late sixties that both Dodge and Plymouth used. It was most notable on the big decals on the quarter panels of the 1970 Plymouth Superbird.
I’ve always had a thing for some of the early 60’s script badges, like the stylized “New Yorker” script. Maybe it’s a mid-century modern thing? (Not my photo, found on the web:)
The first Plymouth emblem photo was also used on the 1971 Road Runner. An interesting comparison would be with the 1972 Road Runner which replaced the Plymouth emblem with a plastic, color, cartoon Road Runner head and the bottom ‘Plymouth’ with ‘Road Runner’.
The 3 hockey sticks Mercury emblem was a dud. If I ran Mercury the new emblem would have been a combination of old and new. The winged helmet of the old emblem on the head of Jill Wagner, the Mercury girl. Had this been done I believe the division could have been saved. It sure couldn’t have hurt.
” It’s hard to get individually affixed letters to always be straight, but only the o is off, and then just slightly, on this 1967 Pontiac…”
If you have to drill the holes individually, or stick on loose letters with adhesive, yes.
Factory adhesive lettering comes temporarily adhered to a clear plastic top sheet. You peel off the bottom sheet, exposing the permanent adhesive. Stick on the entire set of letters while the top sheet holds them in alignment, then once the letters are firmly affixed, peel off the top sheet. Or so it’s supposed to happen. I have had one or two letters come loose with the top sheet and had to put them back by eye. That bothers me as I remember which one(s) they are and keep obsessing over maybe getting them a tiny bit off-perfect.
In the 60s when I first became interested in British and European cars I noticed that unlike most North American cars the Europeans rarely had any lettering or emblems on the sides of the car. Usually they were limited to a crest on the grille and the model number or name on the back, however, I am sure there were lots of exceptions.
The Dodge Coronet from 1958: All I can think of is having Power Steering embossed, in mirror image,somewhere between my forehead and my sternum, after a head-on crash.
Auto makers always tout new features and options. Most cars in the fifties with power steering had that wording emblazoned on the steering hub. Same with “power brakes being embossed on the brake pedal. Cars with factory A/C also had window decals identifying its presence. When these features become more popular these identifiers disappear.
Not’ny more! That’s nifty and I’m adopting it. I don’t handwrite much, but.