Taxonomy
Badge or emblem
4 entries
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Book IV
Alfa Romeo — the Biscione
A serpent with a human being in its mouth, on the nose of every car the company has ever built
Since 1910 every Alfa Romeo has carried, on its grille, a crowned serpent from which a human figure is emerging. Whether the figure is being eaten…
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Book IV
SsangYong — Twin Dragons
The company was literally called two dragons and nobody in Europe ever noticed
쌍용 means “twin dragons”. For thirty-five years a company named after a pair of mythological serpents sold diesel estate cars in Britain, and the…
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Book VI
Wiesmann — the Gecko
The closest miss in the entire book. A genuine cousin, refused at the door on a technicality.
Wiesmann puts a gecko on every car it builds, because a gecko sticks to things. Geckos are squamates. Snakes are squamates. This is the nearest…
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Book VI
Abarth — the Scorpion
Venomous, arachnid, and chosen because of a birthday
Carlo Abarth was born in mid-November and was therefore, by the reckoning of newspaper astrology, a Scorpio. He put the animal on the badge and it…