For So Many Years,

I had always thought that the BMW car or motorbike badge,

 or Bavarian Motor Works, Bayerische Motoren Werke AG, represented a spinning propeller with the blue and white representing the sky and clouds, but I was so wrong and here is why, 

the reason for the aeroplane propeller connection dates back to a 1929 advert in which a picture of the front of a plane was used with BMW written at the top, in fact the blue and white quadrants represent the Bavarian Free State colours, but in the opposite order, because it was illegal to use national symbols in a commercial trademark, 

so on to Alfa Romeo, is the snake on the right of the badge eating the man or spitting him out? to find the meaning of this and 8 other car badges have a look here, but scroll down slowly and see if you can guess how or why the badges are what they are and the thinking behind adopting them.