I was cleaning out my room when I came upon my old collection of car badges! Whenever I would visit the local junkyard with my father, I would bring along a spatula-like tool to scrape off the car names and logos from the trunk lids and fenders of cars. Eventually I had enough badges to create a collection! It is interesting to note that I do not have any Ford Taurus badges, as the junkyard had plenty of them, but they were impossible to get off the cars! Next time I go I wil get one, even if I have to use a flame torch to pry it off
Anyway, have a look!




A few of my favorites:

National flags badge from a 1992 Oldmobile Cutlass Ciera "International" Edition




The oldest badge in the collection, "Custom 500" from a late 1960s (1967?) full-size Ford sedan




A Crystal Chrysler "Pentasar" hood ornament from an upscale 1990s Chrysler, possibly New Yorker or Imperial.




Nice views, huh?




And lastly, a hood ornament from a 1984 Toyota Camry (who knew Camrys came with hood ornaments??)



Maybe next time I'll get a Cadillac hood ornament too. That is, if they're not all gone already.

I have somewhere Renault Espace badges, and probably some others that my father removed from his cars (he does not like to keep the badges on his cars )

I like these Oldsmobile flags. I was wondering why was the Belgian flag selected, but it seems that they took flags of US+Canada+CEE+Switzerland. Now why is Belgium in 3rd position in the list, that's a mystery
Also note that the Dutch flag is wrong: they made it like the French flag (vertical stripes) instead of like the Luxembourg flag (horizontal stripes).

As long as you don't pinch them from non-junkyard cars (cars that belong to people) I remember when kids used to pinch badges off cars and trade them with their friends (some kids probably still do this), my dad has had badges pinched off his cars in the past.

Antp, that's one of the most peculiar things I've ever heard.
Why ever not?





No, no of course not. I am not that type of person
I fact I am the exact opposite. When I see a car without a badge, I feel bad that it doesn't have it, as I want cars to be intact.

I have been known to go through a parking lot and straighten out crooked hood ornaments on cars, however
It just bothers me to see them not aligned right, I guess it's an OCD thing of mine.
I paticular hate the hood ornaments with circular bases, as is on the 1985-1991 Buick Lesabre. They get crooked so easily since they can be turned any which way (360 degrees)

Yes, I'm sure you're not



I know, it's like when I see a BMW with the engine size badge (eg. 520i) fixed too high up on the boot lid, I don't think it looks good, I mean if that was my car, I'd have it fixed in the correct place. And sometimes I see a Merc with AMG badges, yet somehow it doesn't look like a real AMG model. Some people even have the gall to stick an AMG badge on when the engine badge already reads something like E240 (definetely not an AMG!)

Oh nice collection! i just have the badge of Ford from my dad's old car well, and a hubcap

What was his car?

MKII Ford Orion

I see. So that basically the sedan version of the euro-spec Escort from the late-80s?



By the way, is that pronounced "o-ree-on" or "o-ry-on"?

On older cars he was doing that because the badges are one of the places where rust starts: drops of water stay there longer.
On recent ones (or on the Espace which has a plastic body) it is not really useful, he just does not like to have badges, writings, etc. on his cars. On his Peugeot 106 Rallye he removed the colored stripes too.



On top-of-the-range BMWs, Audis, etc. it is not uncommon to remove the badges, often this is asked by the owner when buying the car.



In French it is the 1st one, but the "on" is a different song hard to explain as it does not exist in English.
I guess that in Spanish it would be also the 1st one.

taxiguy-you are just like me! Whenever I vist the car wreckers, I always try to grab at least one badge. Unfortunatly, the BMW's, Merc's and Audi's never have their badges. But Commodores, Falcons and Toyota's are plentiful. Because we don't see Mustang's at the wrecker's in Australia, I ahd to purchase some of eBay!

Oh, you didn't have to do that! I could have gotten one for you at my junkyard and sent it to you
By the way, if anyone wants a specific badge, I'd be willing to get one and send it to you
I have an extra "Caprice" badge if anyone wants that. I also have about five "Plymouth" badges if anyone wants one of those.
Hey, I could even make a business of it, "Max's Badge Boutique" (but I would not charge of course)

Well, if you say so... A Chevrolet badge (seeing we don't see and Chev's at wreckers here, even if they were purchased at Us wreckers!), anything from an 'upmarket' car, like a Lincoln would be nice, and any Mustang badge, as you can never have to many. By the way, do you want me to get any badges for you?

A tempting offer.
Hmmm... let's see
Well, definitely a Falcon and Commodore badge since they are not available here. Oh, and a LTD and Caprice badge too (although I imagine there's not too many of those in junkyards) A Holden Apollo badge would be nice
Oh yes, and a Ford "Laser" badge, but the one based on the US Escort not the Mazda (I bet there's a lot of those things going to the crusher)
That's all I can think of really...

So you just want a badge that says "CHEVROLET" not a specific model?
Also I could definitely get a Lincoln badge, plenty of Continentals and Town Cars in there. Cadillac badges too, if you'd like. Maybe even a hood ornament (although I doubt there'll be many of those)

I'll try to get my dad to let us go the the junkyard this weekend, but I can't promise anything

I should be able to get most of them taxiguy. By Chevrolet, I mean the logo badge, but anything would be nice thankyou. The Commodore and Flacon badges would be older models (newest around 1995 at most). I'm on school holidays's for the next 3 weeks, so I'll try to get to the wreckers then. Also, could you please get me (if possible) logo badges. But anything would be nice.

That is, except that one is a Ghia while my dad's wasnt, that's not the hubcap that i have, also i just remembered that i have the hubcap of a Seat 600

As for the pronuntiation it is "O-ree-on", at least in Spanish, you know that we read phonetically.




Shame, i have never really seen any cars with rust in there

And why does he not like writings on cars Antoine? any special reason? being a car lover it surprises me, like Max says i too find it sad when i see a car missing its badges, do you agree on removing them too by the way? or you like to keep them? (this is for Antoine)

Ah so you can do that when buying a BMW? ive actually seen that many times on BMWs and always wondered why the heell some models would have badges and others not, youve solved my doubt




How tempting...




mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...!!!!

In the English-speaking world, Orion is pronounced "O-ry-on".

Yes but even if it is phonetic, you still have to know how to pronounce each letter, this is not always obvious for non-Spanish speakers (e.g. the "ll" vs "l" in French makes no difference)



You're in Spain, cars rust quite less there as it rains less, the climate is not the same. And this was especially true for 70s/early 80s, not for 90s/current cars which rust much less.



I do not know



I like also when the car has the badges, they are still on my car. However, mine does not have the trim level "enfant terrible" on the fender (I already saw that one on other 206). I do not know if it was removed by the first owner or if not all of the cars of that series had it. Or maybe my car was not of that series, but just with the same equipment as that series.

I found two adverts of the Orion

English, pronounced O-ry-on finally: http://es.youtube.com/watch?v=C221Rq7ChkM

Spanish pronuntiation: http://es.youtube.com/watch?v=iGqn2Fb1JNU

When I was a small boy and strolling around with my bicycle, I always had looked for abandoned cars (to wrecking small parts of them).

If a car in Germany is standing on the public street without license-plates, it will get sooner or later a big red (somewhere green or yellow) sticker on the windshield from the authority, that it must be brought away, otherwise it will be wrecked by them. These stickers
are inofficially named "Take-what-you-need-sticker"

For that I always had two tools in my jacket or my school-bag: a small screw-driver (for the badges) and an original VW-tool (a small bended "U") for pulling off hubcaps.

Later on, when I was older and have visited junk-yards, I still had these tools with me. After 3-4 years of "active junkyard travelling" I had a quite big box full with -mainly metal- badges (the size of this box was like one for an actual fax-machine).
Later, when the cars on the junkyards were getting too modern for me, and when the badges were mostly from plastic and fixed with glue (so ugly to dismount), I stopped that hobby.

In the following years I've sold them on flea- or classic-car-markets.

Easy earned money, because I must admit, that i've never paid money on the junkyards for them - I've always stolen them


One time, the junkyard-guy didn't want to give me one badge, even not for money. It was in Denver/Colorado on a yard, specialized on European cars - and the badge was from my one and only top dream-car: a "6.3"