Mexico doesn’t really have a rich history in car manufacturing. There are several small-scale brands that mostly produce vehicles for local and regional use. However, there are no big names to compete with the likes of Ford, Volkswagen or Land Rover.
Solana is a Mexican carmaker, founded in 1936. They are a relatively small-scale manufacturer that makes sports and racing models primarily. They didn’t make too many car models in that time, too – it’s a small business. Their logo depicts a big letter ‘S’ with a plaque above it. This plaque is where they usually put the company’s name. The normal color scheme is yellow and black.
DINA is a carmaker from Central Mexico, established in 1951. The company builds buses and trucks, as well as similar products. It’s actually amongst the biggest such manufacturers in the region. Their logo is the company’s name, written in big red letters. The font is a normal sans-serif with some tilt. The only special addition is two parallel lines inside the letter ‘D’, where there would normally be the blank center space. The lines obviously symbolize the road.
VAM was a carmaker, based in Mexico City. The company was founded in the 40s and operated until the 80s. In this time, they’ve made plenty of passenger cars (primarily 2-seat and compact models) and some off-road models. Their emblem showed two grey triangles with identical shapes, but horizontally. To their right, there was a red shape that looked like a red rectangle with a triangle-shaped portion of it cut out from the left. As a result, the blank space resembled something like an arrow.
Ramirez is a historical Mexican automaking company, which was founded in 1946 and became the first company in its country to ever produce vans and pickups. The company produced cars for ordinary people, emphasizing clarity and confidence. This tendency for simplicity was seen even in the names of cars, such as, for example, Rural Ramirez Pick Up. With the visual identity, everything was simple and clear too: a bold enlarged “R” with a truck silhouette coming out of the negative space.
MASA was a prominent bus manufacturer in Mexico. It operated between 1959 and 1998 until its eventual sale to Volvo. MASA buses, trolleybuses and coaches are still used a lot in Mexico. Their logo depicted their name, written in big black letters. The font was a normal style, except the ‘A’ letters looked instead like overturned ‘V’s. They were also titled into different directions. The final touch was a thin line beneath the wordmark – black under ‘M’, red under the rest of the name.
Rebaque was an F1 team and a car producer that made cars for racing and Grand Prix in particular. It was founded in 1977. In total, the company built 2 cars, which used Lotus bodies with Ford engines and some modifications by the team. They didn’t have any logo, except for their name, written in a special way. It depicted the words ‘Team Rebaque’, written in red, italic letters. The wordmark looked hand-written.
Mastretta is an automotive company from Mexico City, founded in 1987. Until 2011, they largely designed bodies for other brands, as well as made cars based off models from other brands. In 2011, they developed their very own Mastretta MXT – a sports car created solely by this maker. The Mastretta logo depicted a white shield with a thin black outline. Inside, they’ve placed bits of green and red along the left and right edges respectively, while the center remained white (after the Mexican flag). There was also a checkered flag in the middle and the company name in the top.
Inferno Exotic Car is an Italian-designed and Mexican-produced car that first entered sales in 2016. It’s a powerful supercar with an aggressive design and a unique design pattern that resembles flames. It was fully developed in Mexico, although the production may move to Italy. Inferno Automobili – the manufacturer – has an emblem they use as a badge. It looks like a little hammer, placed onto a shield with a slim central bit. They also use a wordmark, which just says ‘Inferno’ in wide, strict serif letters.