Cadillac is quietly deleting an important aspect of its logo
Antoine Laumet was the son of a French lawyer who emigrated to what’s now Canada in 1683. He adopted the fake title, Sieur de Cadillac, likely to hide his identity because he was escaping his family’s debts in France. He even penned a fake coat of arms to go along with his new title. He became an explorer, trader, and military man, eventually named governor of Louisiana. But not before he founded and commanded Fort Pontchartrain du Détroit, which later became the city of Detroit.
When Henry M. Leland was founding a new car company in Detroit in 1902, he decided to name it after the city’s founder. He even based the brand’s logo on Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac’s fake coat of arms. General Motors purchased the company in 1909 and kept the crest to differentiate it from its other automotive divisions.
The Cadillac logo has evolved through the years
Cadillac has tried a ton of different logos over the years. That includes a logo with a set of wings in 1932 and a logo that was just the word “Cadillac” for the 1914 model year. But for the vast majority of its history, the automaker has used a multicolored shield surrounded by a wreath. Laumet likely copied the shield part from Sylvestre d’Esparbès de Lussan, a nobleman his father had worked for. It included two red and blue panes to represent his supposed father’s family and two yellow and black panes (complete with images of birds) to represent his mother’s family.
The automaker kept the four‑panel design, complete with the red, blue, and yellow colors. Until now.
The GM Authority website points out that the majority of Cadillac vehicles now feature a monochrome shield emblem instead of a multicolored logo. Even the Cadillac website features a monochrome logo in its heading.
This trend toward monochrome Cadillac logos began with the company’s EVs. The Celestiq, Escalade IQ, Lyriq, Optiq, and Vistiq EVs all have monochrome logos exclusively. Even the vehicles’ interior badging follow suit.
More traditional Cadillacs, such as the CT4, CT5, internal combustion Escalade, and XT5 still feature a multicolored shield on their grille. But multiple internal combustion models offer popular visual upgrade packages that trade the multicolored badge for a monochrome one.
