Sunday, March 22, 2009

What kind of Chevy?

Rex writes: "I was wondering if you could help me id an old Chevy emblem. Stamped on the backside are the letters HURD or HURB."

Badger: I don't have any certain ideas, although I would guess it looks like it might be found on a 40's vintage Chevy product. If you recognize this emblem, be sure to post a comment below. What sort of vehicle, car or truck, what year, what model and the location of the emblem would all be great helps!

Monday, March 9, 2009

Significance of the Dodge Star Emblem

Dr. Yo See writes; "Can anyone tell me the significance of the six pointed star (star of David) on the emblem of the '39 Dodge ?"

Badger: I'm not sure I can picture which '39 Dodge emblem you are referring to, but early Dodges did use a 6 pointed star as a logo. This picture of an unrestored original, dating from the '20's is a classic example of the Dodge emblem, used with styling changes through 1938.

Over the years I have heard various explanations from my customers. The one that seems most likely to me, is the one that says the Dodge brothers used 2 Greek letter Deltas, which translates into the letter "D." They interlocked the Deltas to form the Star. The Dodge brothers were not Jewish. However, their arch-rival Henry Ford was a notorious Anti-Semite, so some have conjectured that this star would further antagonize Ford. In any event, Chrysler bought the Dodge Brothers company around 1928, and maintained the logo through 1938. 1938 is an interesting year however, as Dodges (especially trucks) that were sent over to Europe as export models, had their own version of the famous Dodge emblem. In the revised emblem, the star was converted to a single triangle by the deletion of the downward pointing triangle. Of course one can't help remembering that Nazi Europe would have found the regular Dodge Star unacceptable, and so is most likely the reason for this export only edition of the emblem. (I've restored a couple of these anomalous '38 Dodge emblems.) But the issue was obviated in 1939 when Dodge adopted the Ram symbol in their emblems.