What’s Your Favorite Car Badge? Autopian Asks

Badge Aa Ts
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As car enthusiasts, we love cars—that’s a given. But it goes so much deeper than that. We love race tracks, we love old gas pumps, heck—some of us have a jonesing for taillights. And yes, some of us go crazy for badges. So what’s your favorite?

I’m not immune to this. I’ve always had a taste for good design, though unlike Adrian, I’m not particularly good at it myself. I like typefaces and logos and nice swooshy lines. More than all that, I like it when they’re used tastefully to perfection. I’m detail-oriented. The little flourishes on a car can make it or break it for me.

My favorite badge is a classic of the Rad era. It’s from the Volvo 740 Turbo, of which I was lucky enough to own one myself. It was a beautiful wagon with exquisite proportions and clean lines. But more than that, the badges were absolutely on point. 

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My favorite of all time. And I owned one!

Just look at these things! A sleek, modern typeface that said this thing was from the near future. A great number paired with the best automotive word of them all – TURBO. When that wasn’t enough, they slapped INTERCOOLER on there as well so you really knew this car had the works.

It wasn’t just limited to the rear end, either. Volvo scattered additional Turbo badges around the body, on the fenders, and on the front grille to boot. Hilariously, the model is joking referred to as the Jurbo, because of the shape of the T used on the script-format badges.

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Awesome badging.
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Still awesome. Still Jurbonic.

If you asked me for my favorite brand badge, though, I certainly wouldn’t say Volvo’s. It always came across a bit old-hat to me. Instead, I’m a fan of the lions. I dig the Holden roundel, but the marching lion of Peugeot really does it for me.

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I’m pretty sure that neither European medieval heralds nor the French artists at Peugeot have ever seen a real lion. Yet still, I rate the badge.

I’ll also give honorable mentions to the griffin of Vauxhall, and the scorpion of Abarth. Carlo Abarth chose the yellow field for the Italian town of Merano, and red as the traditional color of Italian motorsport. The scorpion was because that was his Zodiac sign, and because it fit the brand’s philosophy—”small but mean.” That’s just rad to me.

Abarth Logo

Of course, this isn’t Autopian Tells. It’s Autopian Asks. We want to know what your favorite badges are. Maybe you love Skoda’s little round thing, or the way Nissan puts that special S on the Skylines. Sound off, and lament the fact that you can’t post images in the comments. We’ll use our imaginations. Go!

Image credits: Lewin Day, Peugeot, Abarth

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114 thoughts on “What’s Your Favorite Car Badge? Autopian Asks”

  1. Now the *worst* badge had to be D I N A N. The real ones are so bad they look like counterfeits Bubba put together from random junkyard badges.

  12. I love the Subaru Baja badge. Subaru is normally very sedate, clean, tastefully blocky and modest, and the Baja badge has some real panache. The red border around the chrome pops it even more. A funky badge for a funky car.

  13. I love the Subaru Baja badge. Subaru is normally very sedate, clean, tastefully blocky and modest, and the Baja badge has some real panache. The red border around the chrome pops it even more. A funky badge for a funky car.

  20. Saab 99 Turbo’s TURBO badge rules really hard

    Tough to beat the original Bugatti silver badges, they’re just beautiful to look at

    Late 40s-Early 50s Cadillac streamline-design Cadillac side script is so so good, and for that matter the 40s V16 badging is also terrific

  21. Saab 99 Turbo’s TURBO badge rules really hard

    Tough to beat the original Bugatti silver badges, they’re just beautiful to look at

    Late 40s-Early 50s Cadillac streamline-design Cadillac side script is so so good, and for that matter the 40s V16 badging is also terrific

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