Subaru is a world-renowned Japanese company manufacturing various models of automobiles. The experienced car manufacturer is known internationally for its uses of the layout design called the Boxer Engine, the latter being similar to the ones from famous cars such as the Volkswagen Beetle and Porche 911. The Japanese giant certainly offered high-quality products during all these years, and meanwhile, its logo went through many iterations. Let’s take a closer look at what they are and what they represent.
What does the name Subaru mean?
Subaru means “united” in Japanese. The Subaru logo has six stars that represent the different companies that came together to create Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd (FHI). They have been using the six stars as a symbol of their unification, which reminds us of a star constellation. Indeed, the logo was inspired by the Pleiades Star Cluster in the constellation of Taurus, which has 7 stars with one of them being barely visible. Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd is currently in partnership with Toyota Motor Corporation which in fact owns 16.5% of the company.
The Astronomy within the Stars of Subaru’s Emblem
The Pleiades comes from the Greek language meaning the seven sisters. This group, or rather, this cluster of stars can be seen clearly at night. It is actually one of the closest clusters of stars that can be seen from Earth, from pretty much anywhere on the planet. These stars were formed at least 100 million years ago. In Greek ancient mythology, the shiny sparkles were named “Pleiades” and represented the seven daughters of the Titan God Atlas and the Ocean nymph named Pleione.
The seven daughters were named:
- Alcyone (the biggest star in the constellation and often interpreted as the Queen who wards off evil)
- Asterope (which translates into lightning is a double star in the constellation)
- Merope (who was the least shiny star in the constellation and the only Pleiad to marry a mortal)
- Maia (who was the eldest and most beautiful daughter. She was the lover of Zeus and gave birth to their son Hermes)
- Electra (which means “shiny” and who also gave birth to Dardanus the founder of Troy)
- Celaeno (which means “Darkness” as it is the hardest star to spot in the constellation. She was also the wife of the God “Poseidon”)
- Taygeta (she was defiled by Zeus and is the least shiny star in the constellation)
The history behind the different iterations of the Subaru Logo
The Subaru group of star constellation is an indication of the brand’s global unity as the logo has been around since 1958 without going through any major changes or modifications. The six stars are surrounded by an oval-shaped circle with a blue center, which coincides with the blue color that the stars emit in the night sky. Astronomers have estimated that the cluster of stars should remain for another 250 million years, thank god! Subaru’s logo is safe for now!
The largest star in the Subaru emblem represents Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd, and the remaining five stars represent the other companies that came together to form the company and that have merged with FHI. The logo has been changed a few times throughout the emergence of the company in the automobile scene. The stars have been moved around and a few minor changes to the color scheme have been made. For example, some versions of the logo have gold stars instead of the current silver stars that we are all familiar with.
Famous Subaru automobiles
In this day and age, Subaru is especially known for its rally cars, following the Impreza design which has long been famous in the rally world. This all began to shine through in the 90s on the WRC stage (World Rally Championships). The signing of Colin McRae and Richard Burns was a big wave of recognition for the company and inspiration to push further. The Impreza designs are famed all around the world and have great recognition amongst car enthusiasts. Along with the rally cars, we also have the SVX which is a more standard road car, used more as a family vehicle. Additionally, we can mention the BRZ which is a coupe version that came out in 2012 and was pretty popular.
Below we gathered a top 10 list of some of the best Subaru cars that came out until this day:
- Impreza Series McRae
- Impreza P1
- Impreza 555
- Impreza 22B
- Brat
- Impreza RB320
- Impreza WR1
- Impreza WRX
- Cusco Racing GT3000 Impreza WRX
- Impreza WRC
To conclude we can see that the simplicity of the Subaru emblem originates from a simple idea that was well executed. The beautiful, yet minimalist logo, resonates with its original owners, on top of having a nice mythological history representing the stars in the Taurus constellation. Even though slight changes have been made over the years, the Subaru logo remains significant and is easily spotted all around the world.
