USA Today discovers the poseur art of rebadging
In his article entitled "Car owners can fake it with add-on luxury emblems," USA Today's Chris Woodyard tells us all about how people will buy items like AMG or M badges to try and pass off their cars as something they're not. Now, before jumping all over Chris for reporting news that we already know, keep in mind that the average USA Today reader sitting down with his complimentary paper as he digs into the free continental breakfast at the Day's Inn is probably not as attuned to the trends as we enthusiast-types are.
Sadly, this business of highlighting your inferiority complex by trying to pimp your vehicle as a better model than it is is really nothing new. Over the years, I'm certain that I've seen more standard-issue BMW's wearing the M badge than actual bona-fide M cars. And it's not just BMW. It happens with everything -- AMG badges on stock Benzes, 5.0 badges on 4-banger Mustangs -- the list goes on (and on and on). I've even seen a GT-R badge off a Skyline on a 1st-gen Altima. it was very jarring.
One of my favorite repositories for this kind of thing is the BMW Nightmare page, where the host, Jimmy540i, captures some particularly horrifying examples of rebadging and posts them for the world to see.
I always had more respect for the debadgers, myself. These are the people who would (usually) buy a lower-end version of a car -- a 320SL, for example -- and then remove the identifying badges completely, eliminating their identity concerns without sacrificing the classiness of the vehicle itself.
As for those who try to transform their car into a completely different vehicle, well, you ought to be ashamed of yourselves.
{Source: Chris Woodyard, USA Today via Luxist]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
Mike K. 10:42AM (11/15/2006)
I've seen the M/// badge on a Taurus even...
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Timon 11:01AM (11/15/2006)
Some high-performance companies, however, draw the line at helping people fake the credentials of their wheels.
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Paul 10:53AM (11/15/2006)
I'm a debadger... but only because i think badges are almost universaly ugly. I know what kind of car i have - anyone that is interested can tell what kind of car i have - i dont care if mom in the van doesnt.
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TheChaz 10:53AM (11/15/2006)
One thing with AMG badges is that Merc offers sport packages on several models that come with AMG accessories (wheels, body skirts, etc.) that all have the AMG logos. So they're contributing to the problem.
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Bill 11:00AM (11/15/2006)
This is done with old cars too.
My dad has a 1953 Chevrolet "Impala". I don't even know much about the car, but IIRC, the Impala model did not come out until later, so his car is a stylistic interpretation of what a 53 Impala would look like if such a thing exisited (paint scheme, badges, other things).
This type of thing can go two ways. Either a "tribute", or a "mockery".
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UpIrons 11:07AM (11/15/2006)
I bought an 86 Iroc-Z Camaro back in about 1991 and someone had actually stolen the badge that goes on the glove compartment - I guess to make their standard Z28 look like an Iroc to all their passengers. This almost kept me from buying the car because I started to wonder if it was not really an Iroc at all. Luckily I was able to look up the VIN number and a quick call to GM and they confirmed it really was an Iroc.
Then after I bought the car I actually had a GM parts guy give me a hard time when I went to replace the Iroc-Z badge for the glove compartment. He said "Is that really an Iroc or are you just making it look like one"?
My answer to him was that it had better be an Iroc since I just bought it from your dealership! No reply.
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XJ 11:12AM (11/15/2006)
I own a 2nd gen Eclipse GS-T and I see debadgers of these cars all the time because the non-turbo versions look nearly identical to the GS-T and GSX. In fact, I'd say 1 out of every 3 non-turbo Eclipse owners are debadgers.
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BartMack 11:24AM (11/15/2006)
Seems to me that Detroit has been doing this same thing for many years now... one of the latest examples being an attempt to pass off a Chevy Trailblazer as a Saab....
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Matt 11:28AM (11/15/2006)
The best was the episode of Entourage where Ari changes his wife's Merc from a 500 to an 600... classy, gotta love that guy!
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blurger293 11:29AM (11/15/2006)
USA Today "reporting news that we already know"?
Try at least six to 10 years old--so old car folks hardly even talk this any more.
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J. Kyle 11:32AM (11/15/2006)
My favorite is how people take creative license with Honda's VTEC badges. I've seen them everywhere. The latest was on (no joke) a new Dodge Ram. I guess I missed that press release.
You know what they say... badges give you at least 10 extra horsepower.
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Green Lotus Elise 11:41AM (11/15/2006)
The general public (outside the automotive scene) really will find this interesting. Most folks don't really care what a car is aside from the manufacturer and maybe a well known variable, like AMG or //M. If I had thrown some Mercedes badges on my Subaru I guarantee my neighbor (mid 30's woman) wouldn't have known the difference and would have been more impressed when I brought it home. Her husband might have caught the prank but even then I think he'd have to research it.
Eh, I guess my point is that while stunts like this are almost always blatantly obvious to us car folks they are easily passed off on most of our friends/family.
The best rebadging I've seen is a ISUZU Vehicross in Louisville KY with Maserati badges. The guy did it as a joke but had some of us wondering about it for a bit since the Vehicross was already kind of oddball. Well look at the time, I gotta run out to the mailbox and see if the Lotus' new Ferrari badge has shown up yet ;)
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Riker 11:44AM (11/15/2006)
I hear in Europe the trend is actually the converse of this - someone might buy a BMW M5 and debadge it or 'downbadge' it, to make it a less-likely target for vandalism/theft.
I'm personally a fan of sleepers anyway, so I think that's more the direction I'd go if I'm ever in a position to own a car like that.
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Spaceweasel 11:55AM (11/15/2006)
I've always prefered the de-badging, myself. But it's not just the average idiot on the street puffing up his ego. Dinan won't give you a badge until you buy enough "points" worth of stuff to qualify. On it's face this sounds great - You have to buy enough real performance parts to earn it, the guy with just the aftermarket windshield wipers doesn't get a badge. But dig a little closer and the biggest points earner isn't a supercharger or autocross-spec suspension upgrade - it's a set of rims. Bling your car, get a badge that suggests you can actually drive.
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Mike 12:09PM (11/15/2006)
I'm a big fan of "down badging". I like making my car look slower or less luxo than it really is.
But if others want to "up badge" I have no problem with it. After all the world is full of posers in all aspects of life, not just cars. When I find a poser, I laugh to myself and go about my day.
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sth 12:27PM (11/15/2006)
"downbadging" is much cooler, right... I have a Mercedes C230 Kompressor but ordered it with the "C180 Kompressor" badge. 50PS more power, 40Nm more torque, quite a surprise :)
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BobMac 12:22PM (11/15/2006)
What I always found funny was that people who know what an "M" on a BMW means also knows that a 325i with an "M" isn't an M3.
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editblog 12:22PM (11/15/2006)
Long before my 97 Integra Type R was stolen by a coward drug dealer I would see Type R badges all over Civics and Accords and everything else that wasn't a real Type R. And I still see them to this day. A Type R sticker does not a Type R make!
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Rmi 12:21PM (11/15/2006)
It's like the giant ''Viper'' sticker that I saw in the rear glass of a stock Neon 2 or 3 year ago :)
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Kansei 12:31PM (11/15/2006)
I have my mazda Protege5 downbadged to the european "323" model Mazda sold it as. You could buy a 323 hatchback equivalent to the Protege DX with no power windows, sound system, crap suspension, steel wheels, whatever.
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