PAST IMPERFECT: A change in car designs in the 1970s saw the demise of the club badge
EVERY ERA OF transport has seen different ways in which the vehicles of the time have been decorated. The first “badges” were probably the carved figureheads carried on marine vessels since earliest times. These figureheads were at their most popular – and extreme – in the 1600s and 1700s, by which time they had grown in size to the point where they were up to five metres long and weighed as much as two tons.
The figureheads design was usually taken from mythology. Prior to 1830, male figureheads predominated, but by the late 1800s female figures more commonly adorned ships’ bows. The use of figureheads on ships died out around 1900 and soon after the tradition, in a different form, found its way onto the newly invented automobile.
The first decorative badges on motor cars were the radiator caps. Initially, most cars came with plain radiator caps, but before long, enterprising motor accessory manufacturers were offering a wide range of decorative caps for sale.
Many of these early mascots retained a maritime connection but soon a wide range of designs were available to allow owners to personalise their motor car. These ranged from mascots portraying figures from mythology to humorous figures and good-luck emblems such as black cats.
But not all mascots were simply for decoration. With the development of closed cooling systems, it became necessary to be able to read the radiator water temperature. The answer was the Motometer. This was a simple gauge placed on top of the radiator cap which could be read from the driver’s seat. Any increase in temperature caused the liquid in the Motometer to rise, thus warning the driver of overheating.
Early Motometers were plain gauges atop the radiator cap but before long they were incorporated into elaborate mascots.
Motor clubs first emerged in the 1880s and were modelled on the cycle touring clubs which preceded them. All of the earliest motor clubs were local clubs and it wasn’t until 1895 that the first “national” motor club – the Automobile Club de France – was formed.
This was followed by the Royal Automobile Club de Belgique and the Automobile Club of Great Britain and Ireland in 1897. (Incidentally, the Irish Automobile Club, now the Royal Irish Automobile Club, was formed in 1901 and claims to be the fifth oldest national club in the world).
The members of these new clubs wanted badges to signify their membership and to allow them to recognise each other, and so the modern car badge was born.
The earliest club badges replaced the radiator mascots and could be mounted on a car’s radiator cap.
In time, as car styles changed and the radiator cap became more a part of the car’s overall design, it was necessary to find a new place to mount these badges. The badges themselves changed and the most popular place to mount them was on the decorative radiator grille. There they stayed until the 1930s, when badge bars first became popular.
Badge bars allowed several club or association badges to be mounted independent of the radiator, usually above the center of the bumper.
Some of the badges produced for this format were of high quality and they only faded from use when bumpers – on which the badge bars were mounted – became more integrated into the overall car design in the 1970s, leaving no place where the badge bar could be mounted.
Today, one rarely sees a badge bar full of club badges, for club badges, where fitted, usually take the form of an almost anonymous windscreen sticker – a sad end to a long-lasting tradition.
