Cadillac is a luxury vehicle brand owned by General Motors. Its history has begun more than 100 years ago and it is not a surprise that its image has changed since than. You can compare one of its first looks and the modern one.

So it seems obvious that the logo of the car can change together with its outlook. Now I’d like to tell you some words about the Cadillac logo: its outlook and the history of its change.

Cadillac logo history

1906
Though the trade mark of Cadillac was registered only in 1906, they used its logo since September of 1902. The first logo of Cadillac in these years included the shield with “merlettes” or ducks and a tulip wreath round the crown which was of seven teeth.

1920
From 1916 till 1918 Cadillac was using the emblem which involved the tulip wreath (borrowed from preceding variant of a Cadillac logo) and the crown with nine teeth. In 1920 the crown returned to its seven-tooth variant and was connected to the shield. This variant of the logo was alive until 1925.

1933
In order the logo matched a revolution and laconic style of new types of Cadillac, designers began to use one and the same V-shaped element for such car models as V8, V12, and V16, and supplemented it with wings. A new logo stood conspicuously on radiators of all models of Cadillac till 1935.

1947
After-war models of Cadillac showed some remade logos based on a V-shaped element and a crown. The emblem of 1947 – one of the first after-war models which had “V” and the crown.

1957
Since 1956 it was noticed the tendency to reduction of the highs and widening of the “V”-element and thus of all the emblem of Cadillac. The maximum of width reached the models of 1960.

1963-1999
The well-known Cadillac logo with crest and wreath were developed as a result of artistic editing of the family crest of the man for whom the company was named,—Antoine de La Mothe, Sieur de Cadillac (the Gascon officer and minor aristocrat who founded Detroit in 1701).
                    

1999
In 1998, when Cadillac began creating a new design language for its models called “art and science,” graphic designer Anne-Marie LaVerge-Webb of GM’s corporate and brand identity group was called on to rethink the Cadillac emblem. For the new body they needed a new logo. The new design theme aimed to combine suggestions of high technology and elegance. The group of designers decided on main changes to the traditional crest and wreath logo. The shield of the new logo wore the colors from Cadillac tradition: red, silver and blue, black and gold on a platinum background (that suggested high technology). But the pearl-topped crown was gone as well as the merlettes. The wreath was to be faceted, too, its leaves reinterpreted in a mechanical form.