Car re-badging, euphemistically known as badge engineering, is one of those things that tends to baffle me, like using a yo-yo without getting a fat lip or the continued popularity of circus peanuts. I’m never exactly sure how money gets made by offering basically the same car with slightly different trim and a different name, but hundreds of thousands of Ford Pintos/Mercury Bobcats and Dodge Omnis/Plymouth Horizons and Volkswagen Sharans/SEAT Alhambras and other badge-engineered wonders are surely proving me wrong. Most badge engineering efforts either re-badge a car on roughly the same level of status or take a lower-tier car and upgrade it to a higher tier, like, say, a Toyota Land Cruiser becoming a Lexus LX or a Chevy Cavalier becoming a Cadillac Cimmaron. Very rarely do we see a premium marque re-badging a car as a budget brand. But there have to be a few of those, right? I can think of a few, but I wonder if there are more?
First, let’s just think about the low-to-high status rebadges we know about. There are many, once you start to think about it.
In fact, many carmakers have entire separate brands that are about doing just this sort of thing, like Lincoln and Mercury to Ford, or Lexus to Toyota, Acura to Honda, Infiniti to Nissan, Audi to Volkswagen, and so on. This is really quite a common practice, taking one car and up-contenting it, making a few design and detail changes, and calling it a whole new, fancier name. Oh, and then selling it for a lot more money.
But the opposite direction, that’s a lot more unusual! Probably because it’s a lot harder to make money by taking a car sold as a premium brand and making it cheaper. And, my sources in the industry have told me that this “making money” business is a big deal to most, if not all, automakers. And yet, this premium-to-basic re-badging has happened a few times! Here’s the best examples I could think of:
So, these three basic examples were all I could come up with for a universally-accepted premium carmaker re-badging a car that they initially designed and sold under the nameplate of a clearly more downmarket brand. They include the most obvious one, I think, the Kia Elan, a re-badged Lotus Elan, the Mercedes-Benz G-Wagen, which was also sold as a Puch G-Wagen (Puch did the engineering of the four-wheel drive system), and the Peugeot P4. Then we have the Land Rover Discovery, which was sold for a period in the ’90s as a Honda Crossroad.
There’s one other example that I’m not quite sure how to classify:
In non-American markets, the Porsche 914 was sold as the VW-Porsche 914. So, here, Porsche just said what the hell and put both up- and downmarket brands on the car! Does that qualify or not? I’m not really sure, and I can’t think of another example like it.
Am I missing some examples of this rare and beautiful riches-to-rags sort of badge engineering? Is it really just those three cars? I bet there’s a few more, and if there’s any group of car geeks who can figure it out, they’re right here, all you Autopians. So if you know of any, please, shove them in the comments!
VW rebadged a Dodge minivan, Honda had a Passport SUV that was a rebadged Isuzu. The Geo metro was an Isuzu as well
Geo metro was a Suzuki Swift. The Chevrolet Spectrum was an Isuzu I-mark, itself a replacement for the Chevette. Geo Storm was a rebodied Isuzu Impulse.
Dodge Dakota—>Mitsubishi Raider
Hyundai Accent->Dodge Attitude (Mexico)
Ford Probe – Mercury Speculum
Ford Contour – Mercury Mistake
The Mercedes/Puch G situation is more complicated than the drawing suggests.
The car was designed and (initially) produced by both companies. they even created a joint-venture for that.
Until 2000., it was impossible to buy a “Mercedes G” in Austria, Switzerland and some other territories, as both companies had an agreement giving them exclusive rights to sell the car under their own brand there.
Does the Lamborghini Urus>VW Atlas count? Every time I see an Urus, I can only see an Atlas.
Or what about a Chevy Traverse>Buick Enclave>Cadillac XT7?
https://media1.tenor.com/m/q9crr_x6HLYAAAAC/princess-bride-you-keep-using-that-word.gif
PSA: “Rebadge” means to take a vehicle and replace its badge with that of a different brand. If you change all the sheetmetal (eg, the Infiniti Q30) then it’s not a rebadge.
OMG the arcana in these comments! The makes and models known only to a few pale monks who emerge blinking into the light from Plato’s cave! Illuminati expostulating on the Kabala!
No kidding. After reading through these I feel like I’d never have a chance in hell of winning a trivia night at the tail-light bars.
My dad had a couple of Volkswagen Sharans, and while they were rebadged as the SEAT Alhambra, they were also sold as the Ford Galaxy (just to confuse people I think). More importantly, my dad worked out that it was slightly cheaper to buy parts from Ford than VAG, which worked great for the 90% of common parts.
Opel Kadett and Moskvitch 401? Does stealing count? Sorry, negotiating.
Export models of Soviet cars: e.g. Vaz —> Lada? As in, premium in SU, elsewhere – not quite.
Questionable: some Ford and GAZ products. BMW/EMW.
Some of these are a bit niche… Mercedes S class to Daewoo Chairman, BMW 5 series to Vinfast Lux A, X5 to Lux SA, Opel Senator to Vauxhall Senator when Opel left U.K. market, various Fiats to FSOs or Ladas, (puts tin hat on) Holden Monaro to Pontiac GTO.
1995 Chrysler Cirrus/Dodge Stratus sedans
1996 Plymouth Breeze, base 2.0 four cylinder only engine available, no center console like the Chrysler/Dodge versions, basically the base bottom feeder model below the base Dodge model.
Mercedes W176 A-Class —> Infiniti Q30
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infiniti_Q30
Given that all the sheetmetal, all the glass, and much of the interior was different, this is pretty clearly not a ‘rebadge’ but a ‘hey, can I borrow your platform?’
Similar to the G-Wagen.
Land Rover Defender —> Santana PS-10 / Iveco Massif
https://www.classic-trader.com/uk/cars/listing/santana/ps-10/ps-10/2005/365054
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iveco_Massif
Lancia Dedra -> Fiat Tempra
Completely different sheetmetal, same platform. Not a rebadge.
Acura Legend vs Honda Legend? Or is that off topic?
We could also then say NSX, Integra, etc. , as well. But I don’t know if anyone put the one I was going to. I believe Acura sold the rights to the Legend and Daewoo was able to make a clone of it.
Well–it’s kind of a regional thing, as that only happened in markets where Acura didn’t exist. You never saw an Acura Legend and a Honda Legend together in the same market.
Not a car, but a tire. Bridgestone Potenza Adrenalin RE002 to Firestone Firehawk Sport 01.
A second life for this tire I guess
The Seat Exeo seems to be a prime example for this. The entry-level Audi became Seat‘s flagship for a few years. It even got the dash from the fancy Audi Cabriolet.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SEAT_Exeo
That is the prime example how you could ruin someone’s savings … oh i bought this Seat Exeo which comes with an Audi repair bill.
I would also add as others say the Passats with longitudinal engines which were downgraded Audis and the third gen Twingo with Smart cars (but they were jointly developed)
Came looking for the Exeo, not disappointed. Technically the Exeo/A4 is quite close relative to longitudal engined Passats, so not sure if there is such a huge difference in repair bills. Maybe multitronic transmission being the biggest exception.
In my eyes the Passat was too different to count as „the same“ car. Also the Twingo and the Smart forfour don’t share that much beyond the platform.
However, I truly hope your savings have recovered since 🙂
Seems like the definition of a badge swap varies a bit. To me, it should be pretty literal. The Chrysler Crossfire/M-B SLK wouldn’t count. There, the entire body is different. Heck, one is even a foldable-metal-roof type of convertible, whereas the other one… isn’t. They do share a lot of underpinnings, but then, so do many cars. In fact, the NA branch of Stellantis, to this date, use some kind of upgraded Mercedes platforms. In the same area, I wouldn’t count Toyota Supra and BMW Z4 as badge engineered versions of one another. They’re twin cars, sure, but sufficiently different to not fall into this category.
Onto actual examples, with my more narrow definition, where more premium brands has been swapped for… less premium ones. I could think of two that hasn’t been mentioned:
-Audi 50 (-74) becoming the Volkswagen Polo (-75)
and
– Renault Kwid E-tech (-19) becoming the Dacia Spring (-21)
The latter of course due to different markets, where the low-cost Dacia brand isn’t sold in India, where the car comes from. India, on the other hand has a lower cost profile in general, making the local Renault variation not fit for the… ehm, slightly less entry-level status it has in Europe.
Some present-day question marks:
– Toyota Corolla becoming the Suzuki Swace
– Toyota RAV4 becoming the Suzuki Across
and
– Toyota Yaris becoming the Mazda 2 Hybrid (in EU)
The last one is particularly confusing, since the regular Mazda 2 is sold alongside it… and since the badge swap has been the other way round in the US. (What the heck?!)
The Yaris/Mazda 2 situation reminds me of the Ford Fiesta Mk IV being rebadged as the Mazda 121 (1996-2002). That one was puzzling. Why would anyone buy a Mazda-badged Fiesta that was itself little more than a refresh of the previous generation (1989-1997) ?
My first car, the Maruti 800, was a rebadged 2nd gen Suzuki Alto, essentially. It was put together in India, but the parts were Japanese.
This led to the strangest mix of reliability and unreliability.
I’d argue that in the 90s Land Rover wasn’t a premium brand- the Disco was marketed as a practical everyday vehicle.
Imagine thinking you’re buying a reliable Honda and instead you’ve just bought a Land Rover
Pontiac Banshee becoming the Chevy Corvette? Pontiac was the sporty GM brand so they should’ve had the Banshee, but Chevy had delusions about being sportier and more important so they stole it and made it the C3 ‘Vette.
Well, given that there were no common parts between Banshee and Corvette (the latter was larger and V8 powered), and the fact that the Corvette was already in market, this is rather a different kettle of fish than ‘rebadging’…
How about when Mercedes rebadged a bunch of Metris vans to just the USPS eagle badge out of fear the American public would be outraged at those postal workers in their fancy-shmancy Mercedes-Benz delivery vehicles?
Honestly I think that counts! But also like, they had to do that. God it’d be such a bad look if they didnt
Imagine the horror those pearl clutchers would experience if they knew common busses and semi trucks wore that very same three pointed star.
(And best not mention the bush taxis).
It’s not pearl clutchers as much as its cultural context. The busses, the trucks, the bush taxis, they don’t exist in this market. The context of the three pointed star is expensive luxury
The context of the three pointed star is expensive luxury
Especially when it’s massive and back lit.
Ideally on a leased FWD CLA
“It is common practice to remove manufacturer’s nameplates as part of the upfit process. The Postal Service does not endorse any vehicle manufacturer or advertise on a manufacturer’s behalf. As part of our decal package we chose to use the USPS trademark eagle symbol instead of the vehicle manufacturer’s symbol. All decal markings are installed as part of the vehicle acquisition contract.”
–https://gizmodo.com.au/2020/10/the-real-reason-behind-the-u-s-post-office-removing-mercedes-badges-from-its-new-vans/
Kind of a different deal but what about cars built under license Yugo built Fiats, Hindustan built Morris’s, I am sure there are others as well, also downscale cars with upscale motors, Fiat with tbe Ferrari Dino V-6, Lancia Thema (?) with a Ferrari V8.
Saturn Sky/Opel GT/Pontiac Solstice —> Daewoo G2X