GTPNewsWire
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This is the discussion thread for a recent post on GTPlanet:
This article was published by Joe Donaldson (@Joey D) on August 26th, 2018 in the Car Culture category.
Badge Engineering: The Good, the Bad, and the Downright Weird
- Thread starter GTPNewsWire
- 24 comments
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- 1,998
- Ontario
- bloodyboyblue
Props to being the first badge engineering article ever not to mention the Cadillac Cimarron or Aston Cygnet.
The G3 was called the Wave in Canada and was at least as if not more popular than the Aveo, and there’s still a ton on the road. We loved our Pontiacs here.
The 80’s and 90’s were the golden age of badge engineering (the Isuzu/Honda/Acura and Toyota/Chevrolet tie-ins were the best) but it’s amazing how much of it still goes on.
The G3 was called the Wave in Canada and was at least as if not more popular than the Aveo, and there’s still a ton on the road. We loved our Pontiacs here.
The 80’s and 90’s were the golden age of badge engineering (the Isuzu/Honda/Acura and Toyota/Chevrolet tie-ins were the best) but it’s amazing how much of it still goes on.
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- Here and there...
- SUBMANIAC
Correct me if i'm wrong, but isn't the V35 Skyline basically a 350Z that redesigned? So wouldn't that make it a double internal rebadging? In any case, even though I like the car, I never could think of it as a Skyline. As for the Q50 being its "next gen" I didn't know that and i'm floored lol. Good bye Skyline spirit. Nice car though.
- 24,425
- United States
- GTP_Jordan
- GTP_Jordan
The 350Z/G35 are closely related and share engines, transmissions, and suspension, but they are two different cars (the G is also 10 inches longer and has a back seat).
- 241
- Arizona
- MACHINE1121
My favorite example was the Isuzu Hombre, which was a rebadged Chevy S-10. It provided an American truck from a Japanese company with a Spanish name that is an absolutely terrible car name when translated to English.
- 4,089
- Utah
Ah yes! The S-10/Isuzu Hombre. I do recal the Isuzu truck was also available as a Holden in Australia. So was the Isuzu Rodeo, which it's "GM" counterpart was the Opel/Vauxhall Frontera and it's Honda version, the Passport. So confusing!!!
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- St helens, merseyside, England.
- crazybuttocks198
- Crazybuttocks19
It's just basically a whole load of vans in Europe are like that. Nissans, Renault and Vauxhall all share the same models. As do Peugeot, Citroën and Fiat.
- 1,299
- So. California
- UnkaD
I was curious to see the current model Skyline so I tried a search. After getting nothing but R35 GTR's in the results(don't they know?) I finally went straight to Japan's Nissan website and noticed they're Skylines have Infiniti badges. When did they start doing this, and are there any differences between the Skyline and Q50 outside of where the driver sits?
- 40,757
Also, now that I actually read this, come on.
It certainly was a pretty dumb vehicle for sure if only because Volkswagen was trying to force their way into a market segment that was already shrinking without actually putting any effort into it, in the process forcing minivan buyers to deal with VW dealers; but was GTP so hurting for news yesterday that they had to rush out something about a bunch of 10+ year old cars so fast (on a topic that already was on GTP anyway) that no one actually checked if the stuff on Wikipedia was accurate?
Also:
Nissan didn't sell the Skyline in North America because it was a Skyline in Japan and they thought by selling it in America (under a different name, under a different brand, with a car quite a bit different from any of the previous Skylines GT players would maybe recognize) they would get some of that sweet Gran Turismo cachet. They sold it in America because it was a car they had already developed that could be adapted to a market segment they desperately wanted to compete in to maintain relevancy; just like they did with the larger Nissan Gloria/Cedric for the Infiniti M45 the same year, and several times in Infiniti's past.
Chrysler would have to keep the Grand Caravan on the market for five more years before it hits 15 years old. Since the Sienna isn't much newer and they have the Pacifica to counter the new Odyssey, that's maybe feasible; but I doubt it will actually make it that long.
The platform it rode on had debuted all of one year prior.
A little under 26 grand versus a little under 24 grand at debut. That extra ~$2000 got you a substantially better engine/transmission combo for the first half of its life (since Volkswagen avoided the Caravan/Town and Country base drivetrain), the suspension from the Grand Caravan's towing package, much better second row seats (that didn't support Stow and Go as a compromise) and somewhat less chintzy interior trim overall. The only time it cost nearly that much more was when Dodge slashed a big chunk off the Grand Caravan in the Routan's final year to try and reposition Chrysler more upmarket.
It didn't have Stow and Go (which was undoubtedly a miscalculation on Volkswagen's part instead of the second row buckets from the uplevel Town & Country being a no-cost option) or Swivel and Go, but since no one bought the latter in the other two anyway that doesn't matter much. Everything else was a mishmash of Town & Country and Grand Caravan option packages.
They absolutely did not, and the only thing in the time zone in Europe was the direct successor to a vehicle that had already been chased out of the US half a decade prior. The fact that they didn't have anything in Europe that was similar and the T5 would have been inevitably just as much of a flop as the T4 was the entire point of them looking for someone with a vehicle already on the US market. Chrysler's engineering was more suspect than usual during the Daimler years, but it was still a market segment that they had controlled (and still do) half of and had the newest product in it.
It certainly was a pretty dumb vehicle for sure if only because Volkswagen was trying to force their way into a market segment that was already shrinking without actually putting any effort into it, in the process forcing minivan buyers to deal with VW dealers; but was GTP so hurting for news yesterday that they had to rush out something about a bunch of 10+ year old cars so fast (on a topic that already was on GTP anyway) that no one actually checked if the stuff on Wikipedia was accurate?
Also:
Decision to what? Not sell the car in the US as a Nissan or a Skyline, but market it instead as a completely unrelated 3-series competitor that the floundering and aimless Infiniti sorely needed to avoid being shuttered when Nissan was still flirting with bankruptcy at the time?
Nissan didn't sell the Skyline in North America because it was a Skyline in Japan and they thought by selling it in America (under a different name, under a different brand, with a car quite a bit different from any of the previous Skylines GT players would maybe recognize) they would get some of that sweet Gran Turismo cachet. They sold it in America because it was a car they had already developed that could be adapted to a market segment they desperately wanted to compete in to maintain relevancy; just like they did with the larger Nissan Gloria/Cedric for the Infiniti M45 the same year, and several times in Infiniti's past.
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- 86,802
- Rule 12
- GTP_Famine
What were the Touran and Sharan (ironically originally a car codeveloped with Ford) then?
I mean, the Touran was certainly smaller, but over here people who didn't buy the Chrysler Voyager/Grand Voyager bought the Sharan. Well, they bought the Ford Galaxy.
The Caravelle too - a lot of mags put the Chrysler Grand Voyager up against that. It was rather a lot more successful as T5 than T4, but was really an MPV built into a commercial van.
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- 29,717
- a baby, candy, it's like taking.
- TexRex72
Aww, for a moment I thought Joey was contributing again.
...
As for weird, could it get much weirder than the Monteverdi Sierra?
It's one thing to drop big Chrysler V8s into your big Swiss GT cars, but to go and rebody, of all things, Dodge Aspen sedans and wagons?
They sure didn't change much. Is the grill shell even any different apart from the badge affixed to it? It's still got the shape of the Renault emblem.How about this one?
Mitsubishi Express
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As for weird, could it get much weirder than the Monteverdi Sierra?
It's one thing to drop big Chrysler V8s into your big Swiss GT cars, but to go and rebody, of all things, Dodge Aspen sedans and wagons?
- 3,719
- Elizabeth, New Jersey, USA
It's quite stylish though, I have to admit. Looks like a cross between an E23 7-Series and Maserati Quattroporte, with a hint of Fiat 130 Coupe.Aww, for a moment I thought Joey was contributing again.
They sure didn't change much. Is the grill shell even any different apart from the badge affixed to it? It's still got the shape of the Renault emblem.
...
As for weird, could it get much weirder than the Monteverdi Sierra?
It's one thing to drop big Chrysler V8s into your big Swiss GT cars, but to go and rebody, of all things, Dodge Aspen sedans and wagons?
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