Even though there are many explanations of how the Porsche logo coming into being, there can only be one that is true. Why don’t we delve into the three stories that are out there?
According to a spokesperson from Porsche Cars North America, the Porsche logo was sketched on a dinner napkin! Here is the story: Max Hoffman, a very influential car distributor, met with Ferdinand Porsche to discuss the Porsche logo. They met inManhattan,New Yorkto discuss the future logo in a diner! The discussion veered to Hoffman’s belief that Porsche needed a powerful, but elegant logo. It also needed to be distinctive. So, Hoffman sketched the logo, right then and there, on his dinner napkin.
But, if you go to Stuttgart,Germany, and ask a Porsche spokesperson there, he or she will tell you something completely different: Ferdinand Porsche certainly did ask Hoffman to help him with the logo, but Hoffman flew to Stuttgartto help! They will tell you that the logo was designed by renowned Porsche designer, Franz Xaver Reimspiess, and certainly not drawn in Manhattan!
According to the residents of Stuttgart, the Porsche logo is actually the coat of arms from medieval times, from the city of Stuttgart. Yes, the Porsche logo does have the name of Stuttgart,Germany on it; it is actually referring to where Porsches are made.
What Porsche did was they drew their own logo and threw in the Stuttgartcoat of arms. So, the residents of Stuttgart are partially true.
Does it really matter who is right and who is wrong? Probably not.
Here is the Porsche website, which has a virtual tour of the Porsche museum and factory!
What story do you think is true? You can post a comment with your answers.
The Unmuffled Auto News 
I’m going witht eh dinner napkin. So many famous ideas and inventions started on a dinner napkin. I am guessing the wine with the dinner has something to do with the creativity.
Cynthia
I’m going to go with the dinner napkin one as well, because I was sketched on a dinner napkin!
I vote for the dinner napkin version just because I like it best and it puts the lie to the high priced graphic designers who take a long time and charge a lot of money to come up with a design.
Once the president of a life insurance company mentioned they were struggling to come up with a logo for the company and I just simply said use three trees (which were to resemble strength and growth). He took and used my idea but unfortunately they used a design of three klunky trees and not the three lacy trees of different sizes I had in my mind….but they never asked what I had in mind.
Grandma almost ended up in Stuttgart. When I was in the army they signed the Austrian peace treaty in 1955 and all the US soldiers had to get out of Austria in 60 days. Grandma was working for the US Army Counterintelligence Corps at that time and we wanted to stay in Europe. She asked the officer in charge of her unit if there was anything they could do to help us stay. He made inquiries and told her “I have great news for you….you’re going to Stuttgart” She said what about my husband?
He replied “I have no control of him.” We decided to stay together and we shipped back to the US with our Volkswagon with the mox nix sticks (the directional signals which popped up out of the column behind the driver or passenger seat). Mox nix in german means makes no difference and the soldiers called them that because when the German drivers signaled either left or right it made no difference as to what direction they were really going to turn.
I drove that car all thru the three years of law school and we ended up putting 70,000 miles on the original set to tires. It was truly a fun and reliable car.
Memories.
Thanks for the memories. It’s fun to hear stories of yours.
I don’t know which one is true, but I sure like the story about the Porsche logo being designed on a napkin!
I don’t know which one is true, but I also like the dinner napkin theory.