BTW, rotating the "e" on a large number of faces will produce similar results to the example using Futura.

Right, exactly. You could rotate the "e" on just about any sans-serif face and get similar results. I know it's not a Futura variant because the "a" in futura is single-story, but the "a" in the empeg-car logo is two-story.

Although it's really good to know that the e was originally straight, that makes searching for the font easier. Haven't tried again since learning that information, I'll play with it some more when I get a chance.