Tuesday, October 29, 2024

THE WRONG CAR FOR ANTI-SEMITES


The Dodge automobile emblem was not always a ram's head--it once was what appears to be a bi-colored Star of David over a map of the Western Hemisphere. This symbol was used on the first car produced by the Dodge brothers (John and Horace)  in 1914 and was continued after the brothers died and even after the company was eventually acquired by Chrysler.

The brothers never revealed how they came up with the emblem. They were not Jewish. One of several theories holds that the brothers wanted to spite Henry Ford, who was a notorious anti-Semite. However, at the time the emblem was designed, the brothers were good personal friends of Henry Ford and were in a profitable business arrangement providing Ford Motor Company with various car parts. Another hypothesis was that the brothers liked law enforcement and were modeling the trademark after a six-pointed Sheriff's badge. Still another unproven explanation is that the brothers, who were very close (rumor had it that if a letter was sent to the company addressed to only one brother and not both, it was discarded unread), coincidentally used double deltas (the Greek letter for "D") in the emblem without even knowing about the existence of the Star of David.

By another strange coincidence, Chrysler dropped the "Star of David" trademark for Dodge products in 1938--perhaps in deference to a desire to sell its cars in Nazi Germany, or perhaps not. I simply do not know.

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