Mahindra & Mahindra’s Old, Humble Logos Give Us A Small Peek Into the Company’s History

Mahindra and Mahindra is a leading UV manufacturer in India, known for its robust SUVs and MPVs, like the Scorpio, XUV500, Marazzo, XUV300, and Bolero. Mahindra’s automotive department isn’t just limited to UVs, but also includes Motorcycles, tractors and farm equipment, and small passenger cars as well. Other than that, the Mahindra group is also present in various other fields, like aerospace, construction equipment, finance and insurance, industrial equipment, defence, energy, logistics and IT, travel and hospitality, and even real estate. That is quite an impressive portfolio, right? Well, you’ll be surprised to learn about the humble origins of the company.

In 1945, Jagdish Chandra Mahindra, Kishore Chandra Mahindra, and Malik Ghulam Muhammad founded a steel trading company in Ludhiana, Punjab. The name of the company was Mahindra & Muhammed. In 1947, the partition of India caused Muhammad to migrate to Pakistan, where he later became the country’s first finance minister. The Mahindra brothers had started the manufacturing of Willys Jeep under contract the same year. In 1948, Kishore Mahindra changed the company’s name to Mahindra & Mahindra.

The Mahindra logo you see above is quite an old one, more than half a century old. Sadly, the exact dates aren’t available though. The logo is quite smartly designed; we see a fist holding a tool, a nod to the company’s workmanship. The fingers of the hand form the two ‘M’s of Mahindra & Mahindra, which is a brilliant detail.

Image Credit: Mahindra Official Website

There is another logo that was previously employed by the company. The timeline of its usage is also unclear, but the design of this logo, compared to the older one, is quite different. Instead of a hand holding a tool, we see a wheel with multiple spokes and the ‘Mahindra’ lettering in the middle. This particular photograph is of an old Mahindra tractor (575 DI).

At last, we see the modern iteration of the Mahindra logo. This logo is quite different from the ones before but has quite a deep symbolic meaning behind it. The ‘M’ is formed by three red strokes rising upwards and meeting at an apex near the tip. These three strokes represent the three pillars on which the company stands - products, services, and possibilities.

That concludes our article about the history Mahindra logo. If you have some interesting photographs of old cars, company logos, original brochures, advertisements, or news cutouts, share them with us and we’ll feature them on our website! To read more interesting car stories, please visit us at IndianAuto.com.

Source: Motorbeam