If you thought BMW’s emblem was reminiscent of its days as an airplane manufacturer—you're wrong. If you thought the logo's “Roundel” portrayed a spinning airplane propeller—you're also wrong. Luckily, the Munich-based automaker recently shared a “BMW Explained” column outlining the history of the Roundel and the myths of its provenance. “Many people believe the BMW logo is a stylized propeller,” Fred Jakobs of BMW Group Classic said in the article. “But the truth is a little different.” So how did the Roundel come about? Well, according to the historical finding, the company’s iconic blue-and-white inner circular quarters originated as a representation of the State of Bavaria’s official colors. However, the pattern within BMW’s logo displays those colors in an inverted order because back when the logo was first created, the local trademark law of the era banned the use of the state’s coats of arms and other related “symbols of sovereignty” in commercial insignias.

BMW AG

As a result, BMW’s solution was to simply flip the colors to circumvent the trademark law.

BMW first registered as a company on October 5, 1917, with the German Imperial Register of Trademarks after originating as Rapp Motorenwerke GmbH in 1913. Originally, BMW had no emblem, so its creators simply took the former founding company’s original badge, retained its circular form with the outer black ring, and simply replaced the horse head silhouette with the inverted colors of the state and the letters, BMW, for Bayerische Motoren Werke or Bavarian Motor Works.

BMW AG

So where does the common misconception that BMW’s logo is an airplane propeller come from? This ad from 1929:

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