Car logos

What the three ovals really mean according to Toyota, how Toyoda became Toyota after a 1936 logo contest, and the main versions of the emblem.

The Tesla T is more than a letter: Elon Musk says it is like a cross section of an electric motor. The company itself is named after Nikola Tesla, inventor of the AC induction motor.

Tatra grew from an 1850 carriage workshop in Kopřivnice. Its name came from a snowy 1919 test drive below the Tatra mountains, and its logo is the TATRA name framed in a circle.

Tata Motors began life in 1945 building locomotives, and its first trucks carried the Mercedes-Benz star. Here is how the T in an oval took over.

Suzuki started out making looms in Hamamatsu in 1909. Its sharp S emblem was adopted in October 1958 and got its first redesign in 22 years in 2025.

The Subaru badge shows the Pleiades, the star cluster Japan calls Subaru. Here is how an aircraft maker’s heirs turned it into a name and an emblem.

SsangYong began as a bus workshop in 1954 and took its twin dragon name in 1988. Here is the story of its three circle emblem, its export wings and the switch to KGM.

The Spyker emblem shows an aircraft propeller crossing a spoked wheel, born after the Dutch carmaker merged with an aircraft factory in 1914. Its Latin motto dates from the same year.

smart began in 1994 as a joint project of Daimler-Benz and Swatch, and its name stands for Swatch, Mercedes and Art. Here is the story behind the brand and its lowercase logo.

A rejected complaint letter led to Slavia bicycles, Laurin & Klement and, after a 1925 merger, the Škoda winged arrow. What the circle, wing, arrow and eye mean, and why the badge turned green.