The simple Blue Oval symbol, which has the word “Ford” written in script, has been a part of the auto business for more than one hundred years. A lot of people think wrongly that the badge isn’t important and doesn’t require much work or thought. It turns out that the badge goes through a lot of horrible things, like being taken to a deep freezer by itself and with other cars. We all know that Ford puts their cars through a lot of stress tests to make sure they are ready for the market. The Mach-E was put through this test to see if the paint could last 300 miles of highway with small rocks without getting worn down. In addition, it washed 60 times with regular brushes and went through a strong wind tunnel. Pressure washers with 1,700 psi were used to test the labels, adhesives, headlights, and door seals from a foot away. When Ford tests trucks, they sometimes drop 55-gallon barrels at an angle so that all of the force is on the rough edge. Engineers set up acid baths and sent hordes of robots to attack the cars, damaging the symbol in the process. A strict freezing method is used by the company to make sure that the Blue Oval design stays the same no matter what. It is first put completely in water for twenty minutes. Ford calls this building the “Freeze Chamber,” and it looks like a shipping container with a window. The car is then pushed into it. Mr. Freeze from the comic books might like this kind of situation. The deep freezer was set to drop as low as -40 degrees Celsius, or -70 degrees Fahrenheit, to make it feel like it was really cold outside in the winter. Weather.com found that the coldest temperature ever recorded in the United States was -80 degrees Fahrenheit in Alaska in 1971, in case you were as interested as I was. Besides the freezing test, Ford reattaches the badge many times and sprays high-pressure water on the Blue Oval to make sure that not even car wash fans can damage it. The front badge is made of clear acrylic polymethyl methacrylate and is 244 millimeters wide. Three different molds with four cavities are used to make it: the blue mold is for regular cars, and the black mold is for special vehicles. Be careful with their qualifications; they’ve been through worse.
