Filed under: Trends, China, Government/Legal
Ripped-off automotive logos lack innovation
Automakers worldwide spend millions of dollars perfecting and updating their logos. Study groups offer input to help capture that timeless design and color that precisely represents their product. Once approved, the automakers drop tens of millions of dollars into promoting the new look in product and advertising. What happens when another company arrives with a mildly-modified copy-cat version of the same logo? Apparently, if the country is in Asia, not much.
A reader tipped us off to a site loaded with proprietary logos from some well-know automotive corporations, and their not-so-original Chinese, Philippine, Korean, and German... well, look-alikes. Sure, they aren't exact copies, but some of them are close enough to be kissing cousins.
Thanks for the tip, Alex!
[Source: Cartype]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Matt Keller 7:27PM (2/21/2008)
OMG! The Chinese COPY people? I never knew! Thanks AB for letting me in on this industry secret!
Also, the Genesis logo is hardly copying. They have wings. Wheeee.
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geo.stewart 9:33PM (2/21/2008)
I think rubberbandman was stretching for an article and he REALLY stretched this time. While Jeep and Geep is pretty obvious, i'm not sure the logos are.
Kumail 7:28PM (2/21/2008)
they're all from china. i cant believe that they tried to copy jeep! oh, and they spelled infiniti wrong.
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Big Rocket 7:50PM (2/21/2008)
12 are from China, 3 are from elsewhere: Korea, the Philippines (the Jeep example you cited), and Germany.
Quattroporte 7:34PM (2/21/2008)
The Changan badge looks more like a Star Trek badge than Toyota's.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:WilRiker.jpg
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BowserUSC 9:41PM (2/21/2008)
thats exactly what I was thinking
Zlimness 7:42PM (2/21/2008)
Changan has the friggin' Star Trek symbol. How cool is that?!
BYD is probably my favorite. Both Toyota and Inifinity have fairly generic designs, so the BMW-ripoff is in a whole other league of obviousness.
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DesiAuto 7:47PM (2/21/2008)
"Apparently, if the country is in Asia, not much..."
Why is it so difficult for you to understand that Asia does not mean China, Korea and Japan?
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siddharth s 8:08PM (2/21/2008)
Second that.
Continental Asia also includes Russia, India, Pakistan along with a bunch of other countries. Geography isn't that difficult ... not all asians are Chinese or Koreans... I mean its not like you have to remember 10 or 20 continents ... there are very few continents, learn at least those?
FYI, political map of asia: http://www.mapsofworld.com/asia-political-map.htm
i just hit your wife 7:49PM (2/21/2008)
the chinese will copy anything. ip is not in their vocabulary.
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DesiAuto 8:00PM (2/21/2008)
ip is in their vocabulary. What they lack is ip protection, which is present in most of the Asian countries.
MK 8:03PM (2/21/2008)
Those logos had a vague resemblance at best. Somebody got paid to write that?
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Chaz 8:22PM (2/21/2008)
Agreed, maybe 2 are really similar enough to be considered knockoffs IMHO. With some, they only really share an oval frame (with Toyota), which could be said for Kia or Subaru as well.
JMC 3 8:12PM (2/21/2008)
The chinese manufacturers are like the borg from Star Trek everthing just keeps on getting copied until it's exactly the same.Resistance is futile
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jsjs 8:31PM (2/21/2008)
Gee, the Genesis logo has wings so it must be a copy of Aston's logo (sic).
So did Chrysler, Austin-Healy, Bentley, etc. copy Aston as well (or was it the other way around)?
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Evander O. 9:38PM (2/21/2008)
little or no respect for intellectual property, little or no respect for consumers as demonstrated by unreliable knockoffs..
too many coincidences, how can anyone argue defend the obvious imposter
i'm inclined to accuse china as well cuz the government allows (defends) that sort of stuff
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chungdaniels 9:57PM (2/21/2008)
hyundai est 1947.
Honda est 1948.
hyundai came into the car building scene late. why is it so hard for people to understand this concept.
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Carl 10:54PM (2/21/2008)
Anyone ever seen this one before?
www.sulmw.com
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Craig 10:56PM (2/21/2008)
It seems that the big car companies supposedly being ripped off don't really care because most of them have joint ventures with the chinese carmakers.
For example, BYD sells licensed copies of Daewoo vehicles. GM gets income from that deal. Changan motors (the Star Trek logo) has joint ventures with Suzuki, Ford and Mazda. Xiali is currently in a joint venture with Toyota (the company whose logo the supposedly ripped off). GM dropped its court case against Chery as long as Chery don't export them. First Auto Works has joint ventures with Toyota and VW.
If the big car manufacturers were so concerned about the Chinese companies ripping them off, why do they sell them licenses or go into joint ventures with them? You can't complain about it, yet at the same time support and get profits from the industry in China.
Plus, most of the logo rip offs aren't even close enough to worry about. Get over it.
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James 1:21AM (2/22/2008)
China requires all foreign car companies wishing to do business in their country to partner up with a domestic car company. So, this way, the copycats get to learn all the hard stuff about building cars without doing much heavy lifting.