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Behind the badge: the evolution of the Fiat logo

By Luca de Ruiter · · 4 min read

Few car badges have changed as often as Fiat’s. Since the company was founded in Turin in 1899 as F.I.A.T., Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino, the badge has been a brass plaque, a blue oval, a round shield, a laurel wreath, four slanted rhombuses, five chrome bars, a red shield and, most recently, just the letters. For anyone restoring a Fiat it matters: the right badge is one of the quickest ways to tell whether a car has been put back together correctly.

This is the Fiat logo history, era by era, as Fiat itself tells it.

1899: a brass plaque with a parchment scroll

The very first mark was a brass plaque in a rococo style, with the company’s initials on a small parchment scroll. It came from the artist Giovanni Carpanetto, who had been commissioned to make an advertising poster for the young company.

1901–1926: enamel and the blue oval

In 1901 the plaque became enamelled brass in the Liberty (Art Nouveau) style: a rising sun, two shrubs and the acronym in a rectangle inside a shield, gold-yellow on light blue.

In 1904 came the shape most people picture when they think of an early Fiat: an oval with a rising sun on a Prussian blue background, again in Liberty style. From 1912 the oval was made slightly convex so it would sit properly on the pear-shaped radiators of the time. The oval stayed in use until 1926.

1921–1931: round shields

From 1921 Fiat started using round badges. The first, red lettering on a white background, appeared on the Superfiat 12-cylinder and the 519. The 509 got a round shield with a white acronym on blue in 1925, the 514 a similar badge with a different blue in 1929, and in 1931 the 515 carried a round shield with silver lettering on a red background.

1931–1968: the rectangle and the shield

Also in 1931, the Fiat 524 introduced a vertical rectangular enamelled plaque, the first Fiat badge that merged into a shield-shaped grille. The 1932 508 Balilla used an almost trapezoidal version with slightly rounded corners, the 2800 of 1938 a shield-shaped one, and in 1959 the 1800 and 2100 got a larger, more rounded redraw.

This rectangular red shield, with tall, narrow letters, is the badge of the 600, the Nuova 500 and much of Fiat’s post-war boom. Keep it in mind: it comes back in 2006.

1965: the laurel wreath for sporting models

From 1965 a round badge with a laurel wreath, white “Fiat” lettering on red, was used only on sporting models. It became the badge enthusiasts associate with the fast Fiats of the period, and Fiat later borrowed from it twice.

1968–1982: four rhombuses

In 1968 Fiat introduced a completely modern logo: four rhombuses tilted at 18 degrees, each holding one letter of “Fiat” in italic Univers, on a blue field (black on early cars). It was both the marque logo and the logo of the Fiat group until 1982, and it is the badge of the 124, 127, 128, 131 and many others of that era.

1980s and 1990s: the five bars

The rhombuses were followed by five diagonal chrome bars, which became the grille badge through the 1980s and much of the 1990s. On the 1991 Cinquecento, for example, the five bars sat on a blue background at the front while the four rhombuses were still used at the rear.

1999: the centenary badge

For Fiat’s hundredth birthday in 1999 the five bars were replaced by a round shield, 72 mm across, with a silver frame and silver lettering on a matte, dotted blue background, designed by Fiat’s own Centro Stile. Its laurel wreath and round shape were a deliberate nod to the badges of the 1920s and to the sporting badge of the 1960s.

2006: the red shield returns

In October 2006 Fiat announced a new badge, first fitted to the front of the new Bravo. Designed by RobilantAssociati together with the Fiat Style Centre, it brought back the 1931–1968 shield: tall “FIAT” letters on a ruby red background in a chromed frame, with a three-dimensional look. Fiat explicitly described it as a past idea updated for the present.

2020: just the letters

With the electric 500 in 2020, Fiat dropped the chrome ring and the red background altogether and put only the “FIAT” wordmark on the car, keeping the same tall, thin lettering with its curved A.

Why it matters when you restore a Fiat

Badges are reproduced in large numbers, and a wrong-era badge is a common mistake on restored cars: a 1999 round badge on an earlier car, or a shield where the rhombuses belong. When in doubt, check period photographs or the workshop and parts documentation for your exact model and year, and look for original (NOS) badges rather than reproductions if originality matters to you.

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