Sulu

The brand is named after Mercedes Jellinek, the 10/11-year old daughter of Emil Jellinek, an Austrian entrepreneur who ordered a custom-made car from Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach. It was Emil Jellinek who suggested and named Daimler cars after his daughter.

Source

mmarshall

OK, Thanks.....my (partial) bad LOL. I thought I had remembered the Mercedes name as being that of Gottlieb Daimler's (the co-founder's) daughter, not Jellinek's. I knew that the name Mercedes itself was not the name of either of the company's two founders (Daimler and Benz). In America, Mercedes is a relatively uncommon (but not necessarily rare) name for females. I've only known one or two women in my life with that name.....one of them was our office secretary for awhile.

Aron9000

Post war American Cars, I don't know much about pre-war cars, so I'm not going to discuss them.

Chevrolet- if they'd just drop that big obnoxious gold bow tie, the shape is great, but that gold color is rather obnoxious and clashes with a lot of different paint colors. I've seen a lot of late model Chevys with the bow tie blacked out, completely chromed, highlighted in red, blue, outlined in chrome with a black insert, those all look great IMO.

Buick- Always thought the tri-shield, with its 3 different colors looked great. I know on vintage models they stood alone with no circle around them like the modern version, either way it looks great.

Cadillac- Always had a great logo, even in the malaise years when the built absolute ***** cars, at least the logo looked proud. Not a huge fan of the current widened shield though, feels like it needs the big, wide V underneath the shield, like in classic 40's/50's/60's Cadillacs.

Desoto- Love the hood ornament, looks like Desoto's face. Some years even lit up lol

Imperial- The golden wings of the Eagle look really cool, I always loved that 1950's font as well, the cursive spelling of Imperial just really captured the time period the cars were built in.

Lincoln, the old cross hairs were always a simple logo, but something I really admired. They had a certain "mid centruy mod" look about them, I loved both the vertical(for hood ornaments) and horizontal(for trunk ornaments) versions of the logo.

Japanese:

I always did like the old Toyota trucks that had TOYOTA spelled out in the grill and on the tailgate in all caps. The new emblem(late 80's to present) is rather blah. However, I do love the badging on the Toyota Century, with its golden eagle/bird, its freaking awesome and way over the top.

The badging Nissan used over the years on its Z cars, along with the GTR logo.

The red H badge used on various JDM high performance Hondas.

All those goofy graphics some JDM(and USDM) cars came with, I really love the 1980's stripes and tape graphics on some Toyota and Nissan trucks/SUV's

European:

Man all of their logos are kind of classic and instantly recongnizable, Mercedes Benz 3 pointed star, Audi's 4 rings, BMW's blue and white proppeller, Porsche's coat of arms, Jaguar's "leaper", Ferrari's prancing horse, Rolls Royce "Spirit of Ecstasy", Lamborghini's raging bull, Alfa Romeo's weird logo of a snake eating a man, all instantly recognizable.

And you know why they're instantly recognizable??? Because they haven't changed in decades, some of them have never changed since the company was founded over 100 years ago.

Tketrns

I think that the Aston Martin Logo is the best. I also like the Bentley logo as well. The car logos with animals are also pretty cool from Lamborghini and Alfa Romeo. The Subaru logo that depicts a star constellation is also unique, and well thought out.

bagwell

Coleroad

I'm partial to the old Mercury logo and emblems.

jadu

iTrader: (42)

the corvette ones are classic, so are the mustangs.

I always liked the soarer and celica logos:

Aron9000

I forgot about Subaru, their logo is unique and interesting. Probably the most interesting thing from a design perspective on their cars.

bagwell

mine is backlit.....

mmarshall

The tri-shield is the family-clan/coat-of-arms symbol of (founder) David Dunbar Buick's old Scottish family.

Here's the history of the Buick logo before the recent switch back to the tri-colors:

ragingf80

Agreed, Ferrari get's my vote. Nothing is as iconic as that yellow shield on red. The VW logo is also a classic that will never die and I enjoy the BMW logo's aesthetic connection to it's aircraft roots.

Hoovey689

iTrader: (16)

That is a believable Snapple fact, but it is a myth. The blue and white represents the Bavarian flag.

ragingf80

Believe it or not, I knew that fact and TOTALLY FORGOT ABOUT IT! Interestingly enough, I think the propeller imagery is lasting:

http://bmwmcmag.com/2013/01/origins-...ropeller-myth/

I think that the myth is part of what makes it interesting.

mmarshall

Yes, Ferrari's prancing-horse is nice (and the Ford Mustang logo seems to have borrowed at least some of it)...but don't you think that Alfa's logo is even more classy? I'd rate it the best of the European logos....at least among those available in the American market.

ragingf80

I absolutely love the Alpha logo, but to me, the racing heritage behind Ferrari has it beat!