100 years on, the story behind Chevrolet's bowtie

In Thailand, the Chevrolet bowtie was seen on a locally produced vehicle – the Zafira – for the first time in 2000. The Zafira, the first MPV in Thailand, has since seen sales of 11,500. 

The next vehicles to sport the Chevrolet bowtie were the Optra Sedan and Colorado pickup, which featured a new golden bowtie. Two generations of the bowtie has been seen in Thailand, the latest (since 2010) being on the Cruze, Chevrolet’s first global vehicle. 

Chevrolet has 99 dealerships nationwide. 

The history of the bowtie dates back to 1913, when Chevrolet co-founder William C Durant introduced the signature Chevy bowtie on the 1914 Chevrolet H-2 Royal Mail and the H-4 Baby Grand, centered at the front of both models. The bowtie has adorned 215 million Chevrolets over the last century, 60 million of which are still on the road. A Chevrolet car, crossover or truck is sold every 6.39 seconds in one of 140 countries, and the brand has set a sales record of 2.5 million vehicles in the first six months of the year. The bowtie’s centennial is marked by new entries, such as the Cruze Clean Turbo Diesel compact sedan in the United States and the Trax small SUV in 40 other nations. 

“The Chevrolet bowtie is recognised around the world and has become synonymous with American ingenuity,” said Chevrolet chief marketing officer Tim Mahoney. “Whether you’re pulling thousands of pounds through rocky terrain in a Silverado pickup or commuting in a Spark EV, Chevrolet’s bowtie will always be at the very front of your travels.” 

While the bowtie has been present for 100 years, the details surrounding its origin are still uncertain. Stories range from Durant being inspired by the wallpaper design in a Parisian hotel to a newspaper advertisement he saw while vacationing in Hot Springs, Virgina. Durant’s widow and daughter each had an alternative explanation. In her 1929 book “My Father”, Margery Durant says he sometimes doodled nameplate designs on pieces of paper at the dinner table. “I think it was between the soup and the fried chicken one night that he sketched out the design that is used on the Chevrolet car to this day,” she wrote. 

But in a 1968 interview, Durant’s widow Catherine said the bowtie design originated from a Hot Springs vacation in 1912. While reading a newspaper in their hotel room, Durant spotted a design and exclaimed, “I think this would be a very good emblem for the Chevrolet.” Unfortunately, Catherine Durant never clarified what the motif was or how it was used. 

But that nugget of information inspired Ken Kaufmann, historian and editor of The Chevrolet Review, to search out its validity. In a November 12, 1911, edition of The Constitution newspaper published in Atlanta, an advertisement appeared by the Southern Compressed Coal Company for “Coalettes”, a refined fuel product for fires. The Coalettes logo, as published in the ad, had a slanted bowtie form, very similar to the shape that would soon become the Chevrolet icon. Did Durant and his wife see the same ad – or one similar – the following year a few states to the north? The date of the paper Kaufmann found was just nine days after the incorporation of Chevrolet Motor Co. The first use of the bowtie by Chevrolet appeared in the October 2, 1913, edition of The Washington Post with the words “Look for this nameplate” above the symbol. 

This year Chevrolet has redesigned the Chevy Bowtie with a new dynamic and powerful design of the classic image. Rather than using a computer rendering as in years past, a photograph of the bowtie was taken (from a 2013 Malibu). The photo was clicked from a slightly lower angle to create the impression that the bowtie is on a pedestal. This photo also portrays the bowtie as aspirational, high gloss, close to the ground and fast.