CHEVROLET | 100 YEARS What’s up with the bowtie? CHEVROLET'S FAMOUS EMBLEM IS AN ICON OF AMERICAN ADVERTISING, BUT ITS ROOTS ARE SHROUDED IN MYSTERY hevrolet's bowtie emblem is one of the CHEVY’S BOWTIE THROUGH THE YEARS most widely recognized logos in the Cworld, but where did it come from? Even General Motors isn't quite the fried chicken one night that he 1916 sure. sketched out the design that is used on The bowtie logo was introduced by the Chevrolet car to this day,” she company co-founder William C. wrote. Durant in late 1913. But how it came to be synonymous with the brand is open to wide interpretation, with four HOTEL STAY IN VIRGINIA versions of the story cropping up. More than half a century later, 1940s another Bowtie origin was recounted in a 1986 issue of Chevrolet Pro Management Magazine based on a 13- IT CAME FROM year-old interview with Durant's WALLPAPER widow, Catherine. She recalled how she and her hus- Durant’s version of how the logo 1957 band were on holiday in Hot Springs, came into existence is well known. The Va., in 1912. While reading a newspa- long-accepted story, confirmed by Durant himself, was that it was per in their hotel room, Durant spot- inspired by the wallpaper design in a ted a design and exclaimed, “I think Parisian hotel. this would be a very good emblem for According to The Chevrolet Story of the Chevrolet.” 1960s 1961, an official company publication Unfortunately, at the time, Mrs. issued in celebration of Chevrolet's Durant didn't clarify what the motif 50th anniversary: was or how it was used. “It originated in Durant's imagina- tion when, as a world traveler in 1908, THE SWISS FLAG he saw the pattern marching off into One other explanation attributes the 1977 infinity as a design on wallpaper in a design to a stylized version of the cross French hotel. He tore off a piece of the of the Swiss flag. wallpaper and kept it to show friends, Louis Chevrolet was born in with the thought that it would make a Switzerland at La Chaux-de-Fonds, good nameplate for a car.” Canton of Neuchâtel, to French par- ents, on Christmas Day 1878. 2000 DINNERTIME SKETCH Whichever origin is true, within a In 1929, Durant's daughter, Margery, few years, the bowtie would emerge as published a book entitled, My Father. the definitive Chevrolet logo. An Oct. In it, she told how Durant sometimes 2, 1913 edition of The Washington Post doodled nameplate designs on pieces seems, so far, to be the earliest known of paper at the dinner table. example of the symbol being used to Today “I think it was between the soup and advertise the brand. .