Today's Motorhead Pet Peeve is "Badge Engineering". Specifically, the act of slapping a higher-end plastic badge on a vehicle, charging $15K more for it, and finding some stupid vain schmuck to fork over the extra $15,000 clams for it...
I mean, really. It's not a Cadillac. It's a Chevy Suburban with different plastic emblems. That's all. $50 and 20 minutes and I could turn a Suburban into an Escalade. Ditto Lincoln Blackwood - dude, you just spent an extra $20K on an F-150 fer crissakes...
I think the penultimate sin in badge engineering has got to be the Acura SLX. In the 1990s, Honda didn't have anything with which to compete in the exploding SUV market, so they bought Isuzu Rodeos and slapped Honda badging on them. For the Acura end, they wanted something bigger, so they used an Isuzu Trooper. Yes, you got that right, an Isuzu Trooper. The same vehicle that was prone to leaking 2+ quarts of oil in between oil changes, or whimsically seizing up the engine at odd intervals...
Of course, for sheer chutzpah in badge engineering it's hard to beat Toyota. They offer the Landcruiser at an insanely inflated price to begin with, then tack on an extra $20K+ for the privilege of having a "Lexus" plastic badge rather than a "Toyota" plastic badge...
Quick note to clarify: I don't begrudge the automakers for doing this, mind you. I want to slap the shit out of the imbecile, "image isn't just everything, it's the only thing" mindset of the automatons that buy these re-badged cars and trucks...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
13 comments:
Hehehehe! You so crack me up. I love your attitude.
Don't forget, just because of that excellent plastic badge, they get to pay a lot more in repair and maintenance costs too.
Being stupid has it's price tag.
I work at the plant that makes Saab 9/7's, one of the most ridiculous versions of this trend, completely losing track of the market niche that Saab traditionally filled. Who would have imagined a Saab with a 325 cubic inch pushrod V8?
As far as I know, the Escalade has a different (better) interior than the Suburban does - much like the Lexus SUV is a bit more than just a Landcruiser with a L rather than a T-oval logo.
The egregious stuff is on the low-end domestics. (Is that a Crown Vic or a Grand Marquis? Can anyone tell? Does anyone care?)
Isn't a H2 Hummer just a Chevy 'Burban in drag? And the H3's a Blazer?
knit,
Heh, thanks!
And yes, they get to tack on extra $$$ for having a Caddy tech work on it vs. a Chevy tech. Go figure...
sevesteen,
Oooooh, good one. The 9-7, which I believe is a re-badged Trailblazer, is an excellent example of this trend.
The other one that bugs the SHIT out of me is what GM is doing to Saturn - they're simply slapping a Saturn badge on every piece of shit GM model and hoping that the Saturn reputation sells it...
sigivald,
The interior might be slightly different, but not $15-$20K worth. IMHO, of course. That and $2.50 will get you a cup of coffee... :)
At least the low-end stuff has been going on for decades, though. The "badge engineering" seems to be a fairly recent (< 20 years) trend. Even back in the 1980s when the Cadillac Fleetwood was a differently bodied Olds 98 there were at least some sheetmetal differences...
dirtcrashr,
At least with the Hummer they're offering SOMETHING different. With the Caddy, frex, it really is little more than a new grill and badges.
I don't mind if they redesign the sheetmetal and upgrade the interior - hell, that's all ANY of the big Three and most Japanese companies do it. But when they just get lazy as hell and figure all they need to do is put a different nameplate on, well...
The consumer should demand better...
The smart Japanese car makers are moving away from this gimick. The Acura TL is now far more than a dressed-up Accord.
Two words:
"Cadillac"
and
"Cimarron"
"completely losing track of the market niche that Saab traditionally filled."
"The other one that bugs the SHIT out of me is what GM is doing to Saturn"
GM is about three years away from destroying both these marques.
Saab was never a megaseller and stayed afloat on the fanatic brand loyalty of a core group of customers, customers that GM has driven off by turning the brand into just another ordinary car brand in a market crowded with ordinary car brands. Did anybody ever comparison shop a 99 Turbo with an Accord? No.
And poor Saturn. The clean-piece-of-paper division. The "even our switchgear will be new" division. The "We learned our lesson from our late-'80s pounding at the hands of Ford and Roger Smith so no more badge engineering" division. It's been reduced to... just another badge engineered division. That's some big irony right there...
Dumbasses.
Ooooooh, good catch with the Cimarron, Tam.
Need to recalibrate - they've been doing this shit since the early 1980s.
For those who have taken heavy duty psycho-active drugs to forget this travesty, the Cadillac Cimarron was a re-badged Chevrolet CAVALIER.
The only, and I do mean only, redeeming factor here was that the Cimarron offered a (sickly) six-cylinder engine when the Cavalier only offered the 2.5L "iron duke" engine that had powered the S-10 pickup and the Chevette...
I absolutely CRINGED when Cadillac came out with the Catera a few years back. Gee, they re-badged a Malibu as a Caddy. Never would have seen that coming...
Oh, yeah, my 2000 Isuzu Rodeo comes off the same line in Indiana as the Honda. Only difference is at the end of the line one go left and gets the Isuzu badge and one goes right and gets the Honda badge (+ ann extra $3K-$5K tacked onto the MSRP.
Actually, the original Catera (featuring Cindy C and a cartoon duck pimping "The Caddy That Zigs!") was a rebadged RWD Opel Omega (which, via an Australian detour, then morphed into the GTO.)
As a former owner of a 1986 Saab 900 3 dorr hatch back with the H engine and and a 5 speed manual that would hold me the missus and 4 kids, AND a weeks worth of groceries and STILL get 45 MPG I lust for an old old mid 80's Saab again. My newest Idea though after buying my second suburban merely to have the room for my 7 kids plus groceries is to re-invent the SUv. My idea is simple, the "Ugly" truck. a simple chassis 4 wheel drive, room for 9 passengers plus baggage and groceries, 6 speed manual transmission, an actual transfer case with a shifter not one of those push button thingies, a simple naturally aspirated inline 6 engine miccing out around 300 CID, with Points and Condenser distributor you can actually reach, AC, cruise control, power sterring and power brakes would fill it out. Plain simple, oh and a good Stereo. the total thing should cost less than 15k, you can do all the work on it yourself. No computers, parts easy to replace, the body should be made so it doesn't rust out at the wheel wells and under the doors, plain simple no frills. but no one will make that because the auto manufacturers don't think there is a market or they don't want to make a market for it. but if they built one I"d buy it.
The rot is spreading.
I read that the '08 VW van is going to be a rebadged Chrysler minivan.
Grotesque.
Post a Comment