Those of us from ancient times will clearly recall the point in grade school when we added cursive writing to our thin list of accomplishments in our then-young lives.
Cursive writing was not about laying down a series of profanity on a sheet of paper, it was about conjoined alphabet letters to form a word in a sentence that used to be separately printed alphabet letters to form a word in a sentence.
Jim Sutherland
Masters of print writing would advance to the next level of cursive writing whether they wanted to make the leap or not, consequently we learned how to write and decipher cursive writing in any sentence. However, cursive writing eventually fell by the wayside when younger generations were introduced to keyboards and their use of non-cursive printed material.
Personally, I liked cursive writing–even though I was never able to master it completely and always got poor marks for my crappy penmanship on my elementary school report cards. The reason I liked cursive writing: it was a much faster way for me to record information on paper than print messages.
I still use cursive writing when I interview car owners for the same reason-even though my handwriting is still terrible. Cursive writing gives me an opportunity to keep up with the car owner’s information during an interview. The only complication is the passage of time because my handwriting is so poor I need to work on the story as soon as possible because even I can’t read my chicken scratches if too much time passes.
We are now in our 16th year here at MyStarCollectorCar and I learned time was definitely of the essence by Year 2, so I no longer wait several months because my hieroglyphics may be past the translation stage.
Nevertheless, I have nothing but admiration (and unchecked envy) for people with great handwriting and suspect the best of the best were hired by car companies who chose to use cursive writing in their product’s badges. There are many examples of stylish cursive badges on retro rides, and I would like to list five of my personal favorites.
The first very stylish logo on my list adorned the side of the 1957-58 Chrysler Imperial and showcased an exaggerated “I” that swept over the rest of the cursive letters in the name. It was a bold logo style that reeked of success and defined the large-and-in-charge luxury barge as the pride of the Mopar fleet.
The second memorable cursive badge on my list is the 1966-69 Corvair, a car doomed to face the wrath of Ralph Nader and crash into a wall of bad publicity. But not before Corvair used a clean cursive style in their name badge.
The third addition to my list is the 1967-73 Mercury Cougar logo. The Cougar emblem was a classy cursive combination of simplicity with a large C to shout out the name to potential buyers. It was a subtle but effective game plan for Mercury in my opinion.
The fourth notable cursive car logo on my list is the 1964 Ford Galaxie 500 nameplate. The highly stylized “G” set the tone for the rest of the cursive writing in the name, so there was nothing understated in the logo. It was a masterful stroke by the Ford boys.
The fifth and final esteemed member of my cool cursive writing car logos is the 1963-66 Sport Fury emblem. The Sport Fury emblem was joined at the end of the Sport and start of the Fury by a sweeping flare design on the “F”. It was a creative move for Plymouth to cross its “T” with an “F” and it was a home run of an idea in my opinion.
There are plenty of other good examples of cursive script to identify retro rides, so I will revisit the topic at a later date. I promise not to write the article in cursive script.
Jim Sutherland
BY: Jim Sutherland
Jim Sutherland is a veteran automotive writer whose work has been published by many major print and online publications. The list includes Calgary Herald, The Truth About Cars, Red Deer Advocate, RPM Magazine, Edmonton Journal, Montreal Gazette, Windsor Star, Vancouver Province, and Post Media Wheels Section.
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