Flag ID

[Johnny_L.A]

My Herald has these badges on the rear fenders. What flag is the one with the blue rectangle on the white field?

[Scruloose]

If they’re signal flags, the white/blue is “S”. The other would be “V”.

[Q.E.D]

I don’t think they are associated with any particular country. The white one with the red saltire is similar to the state flag of Alabama or the flag of Luqa in the country of Malta, neither of which seems likely. The white and blue flag doesn’t seem to represent anything, as far as I can tell, and is not in any national or state flag database I’ve looked at. They could be signal flags, as Scruloose suggests. Does “VS” mean anything in connection with the car or the company?

[Johnny_L.A]

@Scruloose

If they’re signal flags, the white/blue is “S”. The other would be “V”.

I had a feeling they might be signal flags, but I kept thinking the red cross was the Flag of St. Patrick. IIRC the Herald was named after someone’s sailboat, so signal flags make sense. I have a very good book on the Herald/Vitesse series, but it doesn’t say what the flags mean. Anyway, it’s not accessible now. I can’t think what ‘V-S’ would mean. ‘S’ might be for ‘Standard’ (as in ‘Standard-Triumph’), but in that case I’d expect it to be ‘S-V’ with the ‘V’ standing for something else.

[tomndebb]

Does the Herald have problems with reverse gear?

The signal flags V S would indicate V/“I need help” S/“going astern”

[Scruloose]

I Googled up TRIUMPH HERALD “VICTOR SIERRA” and found this:

-----Original Message-----
From: {REMOVED - SCR}

So we’re at a club show recently, looking at a couple of the members
Heralds that display a badge made up of a pair of crossed flags. The
question of course arose as to the signifigance of the flags. The
gathered wisdom in our club (which seldom fails to resolve an issue)
couldn’t come up with an explanation, so I’m turning to the collective
wisdom of THE LIST. The flags are, I belive, the signal flags for the
letters Victor Sierra (also, and hopefully of no signifigance signals
for: I am reversing engines, I need assistance).

I vaguely recall this being discussed before, but my feeble search
capabilities didn’t find it.

==AM==
Nautically, you are correct. I’ve also seen those two flags described,
respectively, as “I am going full speed astern” and "I require
assistance (but not of an emergency nature).

More appropriate to the car badges, though, the “S” flag (blue square
on white background) is for Standard[-Triumph], whil the “V” (red
diagonal cross on white background) is for Vignale, the Italian studio
for whom Giovanni Michelotti worked before ultimately branching out on
his own while doing so much work with Standard-Triumph.

–Andy Mace

That’s from Google’s cache of the original page which no longer exists: http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:2mEaIGAgOpwJ:www.team.net/html_arc/triumphs/200608/msg00476.html+TRIUMPH+HERALD"VICTOR+SIERRA&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1

[Johnny_L.A]

That makes sense! I’m familiar with Michelotti, but if I’ve ever heard of Vignale it was only a mention.