Stuttgart, and the Equine Secret Behind the Iconic Porsche and Ferrari Logos

The Surprising Link Between Horse Breeding, a City’s Crest, and the Rise of Two Automotive Icons

Francesco Baracca and the Fighter Plane Emblem That Would Rise to Fame With Enzo Ferrari

By Javier Hernández

This past week, Spain’s national football team was in Germany for the UEFA Nations League Finals. The championship match was played in Munich, but to get there, La Roja had to first defeat France at the Stuttgart Arena—situated on the very grounds that for centuries were home to Germany’s most important royal stud farm.

Even if you’ve never set foot in Stuttgart, the name might ring a bell—phonetics don’t lie. “Stuttgart” literally means “stud farm,” derived from Stutengarten, an old form of medieval German. It’s strikingly similar to the English term “Stud Garden”—which translates, quite directly, to “stallion’s garden.”

The city’s roots trace back to the stables of Duke Liudolf of Swabia, the only son of German Emperor Otto I, who lived between 930 and 957. Liudolf chose the Neckar river valley as an ideal spot to breed warhorses for his mounted troops. It was a decision that would plant the seeds for a city built on horsepower—quite literally.

Stuttgart’s equine legacy stretches deep into history. In fact, just last year, archaeologists from the State Office for Monument Preservation unearthed the remains of over one hundred Roman horses in the district of Bad Cannstatt. The skeletons belonged to a Roman cavalry unit stationed in the area during the 2nd century.

Back then, the city was located near the horse farms of the County of Baden. Today, Stuttgart and Baden-Baden—another famed aristocratic retreat—are just 93 kilometers apart. Baden-Baden’s strategic position near the borders of France, Italy, and Switzerland made it a wartime sanctuary for Europe’s elite. Dostoevsky's The Gambler captures the opulence of its famed casino and high society life during that era.

Over a millennium after Duke Liudolf transformed Stuttgart into a hub of horse breeding—modern-day equivalents include Gestüt Schloss Amerang in Bavaria and Gestüt Röttgen in Cologne—the city has reinvented itself as the “cradle of the automobile.” It now hosts both the Mercedes-Benz and Porsche museums.

And yet, the horse remains at the heart of Stuttgart’s identity—literally. The city’s flag features a two-tone field, black over yellow, with a crest in the center that displays a black rampant horse—commonly referred to as the Stuttgart Rössle.

This same horse features prominently on the emblem of Porsche, the legendary automaker born in Stuttgart. A symbol of power and motion, the stallion connects the brand to the city’s heritage—but what few realize is that Porsche’s crest directly inspired the world-famous logo of Ferrari.

Enzo Ferrari himself recounted the story. The Cavallino Rampante, or “Prancing Horse,” was originally painted on the fighter plane of Francesco Baracca, an Italian World War I ace who was shot down over Montello in 1918. After the war, Enzo met Baracca’s parents—the Count and Countess of Baracca. It was the Countess, Paolina Biancoli, who urged him to use the horse as his brand’s symbol, believing it would bring good fortune. Ferrari, deeply moved, agreed.

Later testimony from Baracca’s fellow aviators revealed an astonishing twist: the emblem on his plane had been copied from a German pilot he had shot down. That pilot, it turns out, was a native of Stuttgart—flying with the crest of his hometown proudly emblazoned on his fuselage.

And so it was that the horse of Stuttgart—the yeguada—galloped from ancient breeding grounds, to the skies of war-torn Europe, and into motoring immortality.