Ford

The Ford oval trademark is one of the best-known corporate symbols in the world and has been in regular use for more than 50 years. The script trademark dates back to the very beginning of the company when Henry Ford's engineering assistant developed a stylised version of the words Ford Motor Company.

Ford logo.

1903 - Letters and logos.
The script lettering was first used on company communications in 1903 but the first production car, the Model A, received special treatment. Ford produced the first logo for the car, complete with an art nouveau border, very fashionable at the time.

1906 - Script with wings.
By 1906, a more developed form of script appeared with long-tailed "F" and "D" letters and known as the "script with wings". This logo was used on all Ford cars up to the end of 1910 when the lettering was revised again in the form that is still in use today. The Ford script trademark was registered at the United States Patent Office in 1909.

1907 - First oval.
The first Ford oval was first used in 1907 by British agents Perry, Thornton and Schreiber - the forerunners of the original Ford Motor Company Limited of Great Britain. This oval was used to advertise the Ford as the "hallmark for reliability and economy".

1911 - Definitive oval.
By combining the script and oval, Ford created the definitive logo in 1911 and used it primarily to identify Ford dealers in the UK. However, the Ford vehicles and company communications continued to use the script lettering until the late 1920s.

1912 - The Universal Car.
For a brief time, Ford did move away from the oval design and used a winged triangle design on their cars. Originally designed to symbolise speed, lightness, grace and stability, the logo was produced in orange or dark blue and carried the words "The Universal Car". Henry Ford disliked the design and it was swiftly discontinued.

1927 - Ford oval Badge.
The new Model A for 1927 was the first Ford vehicle to carry the Ford oval as a radiator badge. With the familiar deep royal blue background that we know today, the logo was used on many cars until the end of the 1950s. Although used consistently on company communications, the Ford oval badge was not used on Ford vehicles again until the mid-1970s.

The Blue oval today.
Since 1976, the blue and silver Ford oval has been used as an identification badge on all Ford vehicles to provide an easily recognisable and consistent branding for all the company's plants, facilities and products around the world.

(source: Ford Motor Company)

In 1903 Henry Ford's engineering assistant and right-hand man, Harold Wills, who in his teens had earned money by printing business cards, learned that Henry was looking for a logo for his new company. Using his old John Bull printing set and a typeface he had used for his own visiting cards, he came up with the above.

Ford logos.

1906 Ford logo.

Ford Motor Company logoscript.

1912 Ford Universal Car logo.

1975 Ford logo.

Proposed Ford logo by Paul Rand in 1966.

Ford's "Bold Moves" ad campaign tagline. In 2006, Ford rolled out its "Bold Moves" marketing communications platform to urban customers with its newest Ford Fusion and F-150 commercials and advertisements. "Bold Moves focuses on the choices people make every day about how to live their lives," said Marc Perry, multicultural marketing manager for the Ford brand. "In order to target the urban marketplace and immerse our brand into the lifestyle of these key customers, Ford developed some very distinctive advertising. These advertisements showcase Ford's new way of thinking in delivering its marketing."

All the Ford factories have used the same oval badge but the Germans had an additional double oval (mostly on their commercial vehicles) which didn't have the Ford text but the letters F and K instead.

For decades coins have been found stamped with the trademark of the Ford Automobile Co. While it is not know the original purpose of these coins, the 1958 "Numismatist" reported that "The tale of the Ford Company offering a new car in return for certain specified coins is an old one that crops up periodically..." Hank Thoele has noted that the Ford marks are of two sorts.

Those with a broken flourish to the "F" in "Ford" were struck c1963, and five years after the "Numismatist" report. It has been speculated that someone took a broken Ford stamp from a trash bind, and used it to stamp coins sold to collectors at car shows, but the precise origins of this variety are uncertain.

There is a relatively large number of these broken "F" coins, mostly on the silver half dollars that were common in circulation in the early 1960s. In contrast, the various stamps that do not have a broken "F" are "originals". They often are in thick script, are deeply struck, and are worth more. This is an "original" Script "Ford", bold XF, on obv. and rev. of Good 1904 Indian Cent. $50.00-$60.00.

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