Chevrolet is one of the biggest and most recognizable brands in automotive history. Under the umbrella of General Motors, Chevrolet has created some memorable cars through the years. Its logo is the highly recognizable golden bowtie and just like with every other logo, there is a story behind it. This article will tell you the truth behind the Chevrolet logo.
The Chevrolet logo was created by William C. Durant, the co-founder of Chevrolet, in 1913. According to Durant, he was inspired by a wallpaper design he found at a Parisian hotel back in 1908. He was amused by the wallpaper’s bowtie design that seemed to stretch to infinity. He tore a piece of the wallpaper to serve as inspiration for the logo. This company would later turn out to be Chevrolet, and that piece of wallpaper served as his inspiration to create the now-legendary bowtie logo. This story was published in the 1961 book “The Chevrolet Story”, an official company publication that chronicled the first 50 years of the company.
Most may think that the story of the logo should have ended there, but there are other alternative stories on how the logo came about. One of the stories came from William Durant’s daughter Margery. In her book that talks about the life of her father, Margery claims that the logo was created out of the many doodles her dad created on their dinner table. Another alternative story comes from Durant’s wife Catherine. Catherine said that during a holiday spent by the Durants at Hot Springs in 1912, William showed her a design found in a newspaper which he thinks will be a fine design for a car brand logo.
These alternative (yet somewhat plausible) stories meant that now, the history of the Chevrolet logo is not as straightforward as it was before. This has led some historians to seek out the truth once and for all. Historian Ken Kaufmann discovered a product, a fuel product named “Coalettes”, that has a logo very similar to Chevrolet’s bowtie logo in a newspaper dating back to 1911. Even more interesting is that the date of the paper was just 9 days before the Chevrolet logo was officially released. Another theory is that the Chevrolet logo was a product of co-founder Louis Chevrolet’s imagination. Chevrolet, a man of Swiss origin, might have crafted the logo using the Swiss flag as an inspiration.
No one can really tell what the true story behind the Chevrolet logo is, which adds to its mystique. Regardless, the bowtie has become synonymous to the car brand, which has released all kinds of classics in the automotive world for more than a century. The bowtie logo has remained largely unchanged since it was first introduced, with changes done being mostly minor. The Chevrolet logo is one of the most recognizable logos in the industry, which is a testament to both its effective design and Chevrolet’s contributions as an automotive company.
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