BNC Logo: Meaning and History

The BNC logo is a shield-shaped radiator badge in red enamel with the letters BNC across the top. BNC, short for Bollack, Netter et Cie, was a small French car maker based in Levallois-Perret, near Paris, that built cyclecars and larger cars in the 1920s.

BNC Logo

The BNC emblem is a pointed shield with a chrome rim and a glossy red field. The three letters BNC stand large across the top in pale metal, and a dark medallion edged in chrome sits below them, with small lettering around its lower edge. The image on this page is a photograph of the badge as it was fitted to the cars, so the chrome edges, the gloss of the paint and the fixing bolts are all visible.

It is not a flat redrawing: the BNC symbol was a metal radiator badge, and this BNC car logo is shown the way it looked on the car. This page offers the BNC logo PNG with a transparent background.

BNC Logo History

The BNC logo history is short, because the company built cars for only about eight years. The shield badge shown here is the BNC badge used on the cars.

BNC History

What does BNC stand for? The letters are the initials of Bollack, Netter et Cie, the company named after its two founders, Lucien Bollack and René Netter.

The company, also written B.N.C., was founded in January 1923 by Lucien Bollack, an engineer who had also worked for Hispano-Suiza, and René Netter, a banker. The company stood at 39 Avenue de Paris in Levallois-Perret, and Jacques Muller was its technical director. His earlier J.M.K. cyclecar was the basis of the first B.N.C. car, the DZ.

B.N.C. was a successful maker of cyclecars and won many rallies, although it did not sell many cars. In the late 1920s it tried to move into larger passenger cars, but demand for large cars and for ultra-light racing cars was low.

Bollack and Netter were forced out in 1928, when the business was bought by Charles de Ricou, who also took over Lombard and Rolland-Pilain. The large eight-cylinder Aigle came out in October 1929, just before the stock market crash, and the company closed shortly after the 1931 Paris Motor Show. The driver André Siréjols, who had built special bodies for B.N.C., took over the remaining parts and went on assembling cars into the fifties, known as B.N.C. Siréjols.