Obviously, the bumper sticker did not exist before the car bumper. The first cars did not have bumpers, so there were no bumper stickers. The older Ford Model T, for example, had no bumpers where you could attach a bumper sticker. It’s likely that car owners did not want to destroy the elegance of these fabulous cars with stickers displayed on the body of the vehicle. The first car with a bumper was the Ford Model A of 1927, and that was about the time that bumper stickers came into being.

A Kansas City based silkscreen printer named Forest P. Gill is known as the originator of the bumper sticker. In the early 1930′s, he came up with the idea of producing stickers that could be attached to car bumpers using metal wire. In a couple of years, the innovation became widely popular. Gill formed the Gill-Line business and worked from his basement. Soon, he came up with the idea of replacing the metal wire with adhesives. This made it easy to use the stickers, and the concept caught on among car owners.

Just before World War II, politicians came up with the idea of using bumper stickers to promote political campaigns. Soon, commercial businesses caught on to the idea, and came up with bumper stickers for advertising purposes. A few years down the line, personalized custom sticker printing developed, creating bumper stickers for private use, often just for laughs.

Today, the bumper sticker industry is a million dollar business, and millions of bumper stickers are produced and sold every year. It is possible to order custom bumper stickers online, where you can design and add custom messages to your sticker. You can even use your car’s bumper as a platform to promote world peace, the environment, or anything else you want.