Even Chevrolet can't say for sure where its bowtie came from. Durant spoke of hotel wallpaper in France, his widow remembered a newspaper ad, and his daughter said he sketched it over dinner.
- Country
-
United States - Active
- Since 1911
- Founded by
- Louis Chevrolet and William C. Durant
- Website
- Official website ↗
A racer, a dealmaker and a car called Chevrolet
Chevrolet carries the name of a man who mostly wanted to build fast cars. Louis Chevrolet was born on Christmas Day 1878 in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland, to French parents. By 1909 he was racing for Buick, and in two seasons the Buick team won half of America’s road races, according to GM Heritage.
That is how he met William C. Durant, the restless founder of General Motors. In 1910 Durant had lost control of GM to the bankers. He wasn’t finished. “Durant told me, ‘We’re going to need a car,'” Louis Chevrolet later recalled. “So I built it.”
The two men founded Chevrolet Motor Company in Detroit in November 1911, and the first Chevrolet rolled out of the factory in 1912. Then came the twist. Chevrolet sold so well that Durant used it to win back GM. He offered GM shareholders five Chevrolet shares for every GM share, and on 2 May 1918 Chevrolet joined General Motors. Chevrolet had helped Durant get GM back. Now it was part of GM itself.
The bowtie nobody can quite explain
Here is the strange part. Chevrolet itself says the bowtie was introduced by Durant in late 1913, but admits that how it came about “is open to wide interpretation.” There is no official meaning. Instead there are stories, and Chevrolet has published several of them.
Story one: the Paris wallpaper
This is the version Durant himself told. According to The Chevrolet Story, a company book published in 1961 for Chevrolet’s 50th anniversary, Durant saw the pattern “marching off into infinity” on the wallpaper of a French hotel in 1908. He tore off a piece and kept it to show friends, thinking it would make a good nameplate for a car.
Story two: a doodle at dinner
In 1929 Durant’s daughter Margery published a book called My Father. She remembered him sketching nameplate ideas at the dinner table. “I think it was between the soup and the fried chicken one night that he sketched out the design,” she wrote.
Story three: a newspaper ad
Durant’s widow, Catherine, told a different tale. In an interview later reported by Chevrolet Pro Management Magazine in 1986, she recalled a 1912 holiday in Hot Springs, Virginia. Reading a newspaper in their hotel room, Durant spotted a design and said, “I think this would be a very good emblem for the Chevrolet.” She never said what the design was.
Ken Kaufmann, historian and editor of The Chevrolet Review, went looking. In the Atlanta newspaper The Constitution of 12 November 1911 he found an ad for Coalettes, a fuel sold by the Southern Compressed Coal Company. Its logo was a slanted bowtie, very close to the shape Chevrolet would soon adopt. Whether Durant saw that ad, or one like it, nobody knows.
A theory: the Swiss cross
One more explanation says the bowtie is a stylised version of the cross on the Swiss flag, a nod to Louis Chevrolet’s birthplace. Chevrolet mentions it as one of the possible origins, nothing more. As the company put it, the mystery may never be solved.
What is certain is when it went public. An ad in The Washington Post on 2 October 1913 is, according to Chevrolet, the earliest known use of the symbol to advertise the brand. “Look for this nameplate,” it said. Colours and details have changed many times since, but Chevrolet says the basic shape never has.
Gold for the world, black as an option
In 2004 Chevrolet began phasing in the gold bowtie that became the brand identity for all its cars and trucks sold around the world. That is the badge most people picture today.
You may also have spotted black bowties. Chevrolet sells bowtie emblems in black through its own accessories catalogue. According to SlashGear, the black version has no deeper meaning: it is a style option, not a sign of a particular model.
What wore the bowtie
Early Chevrolets went after Model T buyers, and the badge went on to front everything from family sedans to race winners.
Landmark Chevrolets, decade by decade
- 1912: The first Chevrolet. Durant and his team celebrated it outside the factory, a year after the company was founded.
- 1914: Two new models. Both had a valve-in-head engine and, says GM Heritage, drew many buyers who might otherwise have chosen a Model T.
- 1953: Corvette. First shown as a Motorama show car at the Waldorf Astoria in January 1953. The first production car was built in Flint on 30 June 1953, and only 300 were made that year.
- 1955: Small-block V8. Chevrolet’s first modern-era V8, the 265 cubic inch small block. GM says it has won more NASCAR races than any other engine.
- 1957: Bel Air. “Chevy puts the purr in performance,” the ads promised. GM calls it an icon for a generation.
- 1967: Camaro. Chevrolet’s entry into the pony car class. It paced the Indianapolis 500 in its first year, and again in 1969.
Within General Motors, Chevrolet sits alongside Buick, Cadillac and GMC. Its sports car has a badge story of its own on our Corvette page, and its oldest rival is right there in the story: Ford.
Frequently asked questions
What does the Chevrolet bowtie mean?
Chevrolet has never given it an official meaning. The company says the logo was introduced by William C. Durant in late 1913 and that its origin is open to wide interpretation.
Was the Chevy logo inspired by wallpaper?
That is Durant’s own story, repeated in Chevrolet’s 1961 anniversary book: a wallpaper pattern in a French hotel in 1908. His widow Catherine remembered a design in a newspaper instead, and his daughter Margery said he sketched it at dinner. Chevrolet publishes all three.
When did the bowtie first appear?
According to Chevrolet, the earliest known use in advertising is an ad in The Washington Post on 2 October 1913, which told readers to “look for this nameplate.”
When did the Chevrolet bowtie turn gold?
Chevrolet began phasing in the gold bowtie in 2004 as the brand identity for all its cars and trucks worldwide.
Who founded Chevrolet?
Racing driver Louis Chevrolet and General Motors founder William C. Durant, who set up Chevrolet Motor Company in Detroit in 1911. It became part of General Motors in 1918.
Wallpaper, ads and a Swiss racer: the facts
- Founded
- 1911
- Founder
- Louis Chevrolet and William C. Durant
- Country
- United States
- Headquarters
- Detroit, Michigan, USA
- Parent company
- General Motors
- Current emblem
- The bowtie, introduced in late 1913; the gold bowtie phased in worldwide from 2004
- Known for
- The bowtie, the Corvette, the Camaro and the small-block V8
- Website
- Official website ↗
