Established by General Motors in 1908, Buick is a division of the automobile producer. In fact, General Motors founder William C. Durant served as Buick’s general manager and major investor before he established General Motors. Buick is known to be the first car manufacturer in the world to equip their cars with overhead valve engines in 1904. Buick is one of GM’s premium automobile brand because they sell upscale, large, and luxury cars. Aside from having wealthy customers, Buick is also famous to older buyers. In 2015, Buick has set its own record by selling a total of 1,231,941 cars.
Over the century, Buick’s logo underwent some major changes but it nevertheless, it has remained sophisticated and it never failed to attract car lovers who have a keen eye for luxury. In this article, we’re going to find out the story behind Buick’s iconic emblem.
History
The roots of the current Buick emblem originates from the Buick family’s coat of arms. It has a red background that has a stag on the top and a cross at the bottom. It also has a checkered and diagonal stripe between the two. The Buick’s coat of arms was first introduced in the automobile emblem in the 1950s. Since then, the coat of arms has been a great part of the company. And Buick Motor Company built a brand and reputation around the coat of arms that demands respect.
The Design
The first Buick logo was introduced in 1092. It is a simple logo that has the word Buick in cursive and legible font in honor of its founder. This very simple emblem helped their name to infiltrate the car industry. But the company decided to change when their brand started to gain influence. In 1937, Buick started to put the family’s coat of arms in the emblem and it marked the beginning of a more royal looking and sophisticated design. The first version of the emblem that has the coat of arms featured an angular shield that has a checkered diagonal line above it was a deer head that symbolizes the same majestic nature of their automobiles. They used it until 1959 until the circle that featured the three slender shields, same as the emblem we see today, came into use.
In the beginning, Buick’s emblem was in solid gold. But when the coat of arms became their emblem in 1937, it featured the colors black, red, and gold. In 1942, Buick decided to change the colors of the emblem and it featured a black background with silver details around the shield and the diagonal and checkered strip was changed into a blue and white harlequin design as well.
When Buick decided to change their emblem into the three shield design in 1959, each of the shied has its own color which is red, white, and blue. The color remained until 2002 where the entire logo was changed into an oblique silver.
Buick’s logo started out with a very simple and clear name of the brand but when they started to use the family’s coat of arms, they also established a powerful branding that shows their customer how much they value honor and reliability.