Porsche almost replaced its famous logo with these crazy things

Why would Porsche want to replace its logo? The logo is one of the most famous in the world. And yet, in the 1960s, the sports car manufacturer commissioned a designer to develop an alternative. The suggestions he made are bizarre.

In the early years after World War II, Porsche had no logo at all. The first 365s only wore the brand name in block letters. In fact, it wasn’t Porsche who took the initiative to design a logo, but an early fan.

Porsche logo design competition

In 1951, DR. Ottomar Domnick created the Porsche Prize, a design competition from which a logo had to emerge. None of the submissions were approved.

It was the American Porsche importer Max Hoffman who raised the issue again with Ferry Porsche a few months later. And in 1952 there was finally the Porsche logo, designed by Franz Xaver Reimspieß.

Not everyone was happy with the logo

The Porsche shield is a combination of several elements: the prancing horse of the Stuttgart city coat of arms, the red and black of the Württemberg-Hohenzollern flag and the six antlers of the Württemberg-Hohenzollern coat of arms.

Not everyone was happy about that. In the 1950s it was difficult to print the colorful sign on paper and it didn’t look good in black and white. In addition, dealers and salespeople at Porsche complained that the logo was not a coherent whole and made little impression on the road.

Looking for better alternatives

As examples of good design, they presented the Mercedes star and the VW logo (also made from a rhyme skewer). Porsche listened to the criticism and asked the designer Hanns Lohrer to develop alternatives. He drew numerous posters and advertisements for the brand in the 1950s and 1960s.

Its new logo had to be ready for the successor to the 356, but we all know what happened next. None of these strange inventions made it. And they’re weird because there’s even a kind of Mexican wrestling mask between them.