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    Like any other form of branding, car badges are an important way to present the product in a certain light. While most badges are either just last names in fancy fonts or focus-grouped buzzwords guaranteed to get a response from the car-buying public, some of them have a lot of history behind them, and the images they’re based on can range from Persian mythology to pictures of children being devoured by gigantic snakes. Here’s a selection of car badges from manufacturers you can still find in the USA.

    SAAB

    SAAB (originally an acronym of Svenska Aeroplan AB, in all caps to designate the defense contractor) started out in 1937 as an aeronautics and weapons firm supplying the neutral Swedish government with the fighter and bomber planes they needed to remain neutral during WWII. After the war, SAAB expanded into the design and production of quirky but fun cars that ended up being enormously successful in rally races, gymkhanas and all sorts of motorsports based on cheap, small cars, while simultaneously being Sweden’s primary designer of advanced jet fighters. Saab (in lower case to designate the producer of zippy hatchbacks) used the same badging and graphic design as SAAB the aerospace company until their merger with truck manufacturer Scania. They then adopted the “crowned eagle” symbol of the city of Malmo where Scania trucks and Saab cars would eventually be built.
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    FIAT

    Like Saab, Fiat's name began as an acronym (Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino). Fiat is one of the largest companies in Italy and one of the largest car companies in the world, with percentages in or partnerships with Ferrari, Maserati, SEAT, Lada, and most recently Chrysler, which is how they regained their foothold in the U.S. after considerably more reliable Japanese cars chased “Fix It Again, Tony” out of the American market. Fiat’s badge has remained almost unchanged since 1901, when an unknown Turin typographer first laid out the distinctive high-capitaled letters and the unique “Fiat A” which has persisted through nearly every iteration of Fiat’s marketing material. Unfortunately, Fiat electrical systems have also remained essentially the same since 1901, so bring a fire extinguisher.
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    ABARTH

    Karl (or Carlo to his friends at Fiat) Abarth was an Austrian engineer who came to Italy in 1947 to work on a Porsche-funded racecar design. When that foundered due to cost overruns, he decided to stay and tinker with the numerous tiny cars post-war Italy was designing. He wanted to see how much performance could be wrung out of their teensy-weensy Fiat engines. When Abarth’s tuner shop became a company unto itself, he chose the distinctive scorpion insignia for two reasons: one, he was a Scorpio, and two, he believed the design was so strikingly ugly that nobody would try to copy it.
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    MAZDA

    Formerly the less-than-sexily named Toyo Cork Kogyo Co. Ltd. of Hiroshima, Mazda has been selling Mazda-branded cars since 1931 under a variety of different badges. The name Mazda has two meanings. First, it is a sort of pun on the name of founder and chief engineer Jujiro Matsuda, and second, it is a reference to chief Zoroastrian god of wisdom Ahura Mazda and Matsuda’s hobby of studying obscure ancient religious. This most recent Mazda badge plays down the ancient Persian god-king stuff and represents an “M” for Mazda, the outstretched wings of a bird flying towards the future, and (because today’s Mazda leadership still shares Matsuda’s fondness for wordplay) a stylized tulip as an inside reference to the Mazda tulip varietal. Most people in America look at it and just think “owl,” however.
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    VOLVO

    The name of famously tank-like car company Volvo may sound Swedish to the unenlightened ear, but it’s actually a Latin word meaning “I roll.” While today’s hyper-safe, low-center-of-gravity Volvo sedans and SUVs are as difficult to roll over as a sumo wrestler, the original parent company of Volvo manufactured high-quality ball bearings presumably well-known for their rollability. The big “Mars” symbol on the Volvo badge wasn’t an attempt to establish a reputation for super-butch masculinity for men driving family-oriented station wagons, but is actually a reference to the old alchemical symbol for iron, as Sweden’s massive iron and steel industries were a huge part of the original cars. If you’re feeling insecure about driving a Volvo, however, you can still pretend it symbolizes being a big manly man-man.
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    CADILLAC

    Cadillac is named for the founder of Detroit, Antoine de la Mothe, Sieur de Cadillac. The original Caddy badge was a faithful reproduction of the Cadillac coat of arms: a complicated heraldic mixture of French land and bloodline symbols, military honors gained during the Crusades, and for some reason, cute little duckies. When Cadillac decided to reinvent itself in 2000 as a maker of BMW-style luxury sport sedans, the logo came in for a little reinvention as well. Designer Anne-Marie LaVerge-Webb redid the logo along the lines of Cadillacs CIEN concept and CTS production cars: sleek, angular, and devoid of cute little duckies.
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    MITSUBISHI

    Founded in 1870, Mitsubishi is the oldest company on this list, and one of the biggest. While Americans typically think of Mitsubishi as the company behind the Lancer Evo-series rally cars and a bunch of other cars nobody cares about, the Mitsubishi Group in Japan is actually responsible for the production and sale of advanced optics, textiles, glassware, insurance, plastics, real estate, chemical plants, banking, airplanes, oil refineries, chemical reactors, and nuclear reactors, in addition to the Lancer Evo-series rally cars and a bunch of other cars nobody cares about. Mitsubishi’s iconic logo (unchanged since 1914) represents a union of the family crests of founding clans Yamauchi (three oak leaves joined at the center) and Iwasaki (three diamond-shaped water chestnuts), and the name Mitsubishi is basically the Japanese word for “three diamonds.” It's an interesting fact to ponder the next time you’re looking at a Galant or a Highlander for sale and wondering why anyone would ever buy one.
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    ACURA

    Before 1985, there was no such thing as a Japanese luxury car in America. Japanese cars were efficient, reliable and often fun cars, but everyone thought of them as small and cheap more than anything else, and if you were looking for big comfy excess or sleek sporty expense you bought either American or German luxury brands respectively. After a year of combined engineering and marketing research, Honda decided to flip the script by opening 60 new Acura dealerships across the country stocked with the now-classic Legend sedan and Integra compact, selling 109,000 units during its first year of sales. Part of their success was due to branding. Selling what would normally be top-shelf Hondas under a new and different name disguised their car’s supposedly low-rent origins, and the name Acura itself was chosen to reflect Honda’s chief advantage over its competitors: a maniacal attention to engineering accuracy and mechanical detail. Acura’s famous “A” logo was in fact designed to resemble an engineer’s caliper, a tool used for precision measurements on blueprints and on production cars.

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    BMW

    Bayernische Motor-Werken (Bavarian Motor Works) started in 1916 as a joint project between German engine company Rapp Motorwerken and aircraft manufacturer Bayernische Flugzeug-Werken. The company nearly ended just two years later with the signing of the Treaty of Versaille banning Germany from designing aircraft engines. After that, the company meant to design and produce aircraft engines (the blue-and-white “crosshairs” of the logo are meant to represent a blurred set of propellers at speed) found itself expanding into motorcycle and car design, often with quite impressive and race-winning results.
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    PORSCHE

    Another German engineer that made his mark in World War II, Ferdinand Porsche went from developing tank transmissions and Jeep-like Kubelwagens to sitting in prison wondering if he was about to get shot for his role as Chairman of the Board of Volkswagen. During this time, his other company (the awkwardly named “Dr. Ing. h. c. F. Porsche GmbH”) was being run by his son, Ferry, who among lots of other pressing concerns, was annoyed that there were no sports cars available that he was interested in buying. With his father’s designs and engineering staff, Ferry went ahead and built a rear-engine prototype sports car that he presented to Porsche Sr. upon his release from prison. Delighted with Ferry’s work and also the news that he would not be executed, Porsche had his company reorganized and given a much shorter name as well as a new badge combining the coats of arms of Weimar-era German state Wuerttemberg and the bucking horse of his home town of Stuttgart. The horse motif was particularly apt given that Stuttgart’s historical occupation (and literal translation of its name) was as a stud farm, hopefully putting customers in mind of famous racing stallions and not  horses constantly having sex.

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    FERRARI

    The black stallion of Ferrari originates from the personal symbol of Francesco Baracca, top-scoring Italian fighter ace of World War I. As a daring young race driver and engineer for Alfa Romeo in 1929, Enzo Ferrari was granted the use of Baracca’s sigil by the pilot’s mother as a gift to a fellow citizen of Modena. Ferrari transposed the horse onto a golden field representing Modena’s heraldic colors. The Baracca/Modena symbol combination first appeared on Scuderia Ferrari race cars in the early ‘30s, then on Ferrari-designed race cars and sports cars after he broke away from Alfa Romeo. The symbol now can be hafoundd on a wide selection of obscenely overpriced “collectors” sunglasses, polo shirts, sneakers and umbrellas.
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    CHEVROLET

    Louis Chevrolet actually had little to do with the early marketing of the cars that ended up bearing his name. Chevrolet, a Swiss immigrant of French descent, was an accomplished race driver for Alfa Romeo and Buick, as well as a brilliant, self-taught engineer. But the brains behind the business and marketing end of the early Chevrolet Motor Company was legendary businessman William C. Durant, who had both founded and then been kicked out of General Motors. Durant was looking for a smart, young designer to work with/exploit the hell out of. While Chevrolet busied himself with engine and chassis design, Durant was looking for graphic-design inspiration, finally finding it in the unique bowtie-shaped logo of a tiny Atlanta-based coal company. After convincing Louis that it was in fact a super-stylized Swiss cross as a nod to Chevrolet’s nation of origin, Durant started advertising with the now-famous bowtie in 1913, and the only major change to the design since then has been the deletion of the word "Chevrolet" from the center in 1985, which is somewhat fitting as Louis Chevrolet actually left his own company in 1916, citing differences with Durant’s leadership.
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    ALFA ROMEO

    Alfa Romeo has been heavily involved in racing since 1911, a year after they were founded. Some might chalk their success up to a deeply ingrained motorsports tradition and Italian attitudes towards car design, but a more interesting theory is that each Alfa Romeo is granted terrifying occult powers by the picture of a child being devoured by a gigantic snake that appears on each of their badges.

    A Milanese company, Alfa sports two traditional symbols of Milan on its badge: the red-on-white cross of the city coat of arms, and the somewhat less traditional “biscione,” a heraldic symbol of the noble Visconti family that ruled Milan in the 1200s. Believed to be a depiction of Jonah being swallowed by the Leviathan from the earliest days of Christianity, the description and symbology mutated over time to depict the rather unsettling image of a crowned serpent eating a screaming child. Is the modern Alfa Romeo best represented as the voracious mythical serpent beast destroying and devouring all in its wake, or by the tiny screaming person possibly reacting to a bill from their mechanic? We’ll only know for certain when the first Americanized Alfas show up in Chrysler showrooms this fall.