The Subaru Logo: Six Stars From One Merger
Most car badges are a letter, an animal or a crest. Subaru’s is a piece of the night sky: six silver stars in a blue oval. The name and the badge tell the same story, about a company made by joining smaller ones together.
From Aircraft to Cars
Subaru’s roots are in the Nakajima Aircraft Company, which was broken up after the Second World War. In 1953 five Japanese companies that came out of it merged to form Fuji Heavy Industries. The new company went on to build scooters, buses and, from 1958, the small Subaru 360 car.
A Name From the Stars
Subaru is the Japanese name for the Pleiades, a cluster of stars in the constellation Taurus that the Greeks linked to the seven daughters of Atlas. The word also carries the meaning “to unite” or “gather together”. For a company formed by a merger, it was a neat fit, and Fuji Heavy Industries adopted the cluster as the logo for its cars.
What the Six Stars Mean
The badge shows one large star and five smaller ones. The common reading is that the large star is Fuji Heavy Industries and the five small stars are the companies that came together to form it. You will find sources that say six companies merged instead; Subaru’s own history says five, which is the version we use here.
Why Not Seven?
The Pleiades are often called the Seven Sisters, but only six of the stars are easy to see with the naked eye. Six stars also matches the merger: one parent and five partners. A seventh would be one too many.
How the Badge Changed
Early badges placed the stars more like the real cluster, and over the decades the colours and finishes changed many times, from plain silver to gold and coloured versions. The layout settled into today’s familiar shape, a large star on the left and five smaller ones to the right, all inside a blue oval with silver stars. In 2017 Fuji Heavy Industries renamed itself Subaru Corporation, so the badge that once stood only for the cars now stands for the whole company.
What to Take From Subaru
Subaru shows that the best symbols explain the name, and the name explains the company. When the meaning is that tidy, the logo never needs to be reinvented, only cleaned up. See the current badge on our Subaru logo page, compare it with another Japanese mark built from a story in Mitsubishi’s three diamonds, or try a star-based symbol in our free logo maker.
