(first posted 1/10/2017)
I’m starting the new year with a new edition of an old series. Click the links for Parts One, Two and Three.
Very few automakers can afford to be jacks of all trades. For smaller companies, there are often market segments where they have little expertise or experience and where they must enlist rival automakers to provide them with product. Daihatsu, Saab, Alfa Romeo and Innocenti have all done just this, selling others’ product with a new badge and occasionally a new grille. Here are some examples.
Innocenti Regent
The Austin Allegro is perhaps one of the most maligned English cars in automotive history. Indifferently assembled, inelegantly styled and unnecessarily strange, the Allegro is a frequent fixture on lists of the worst cars ever made (although one would argue its in-house rival, the low-tech Morris Marina, was worse).
As was the norm in the bad old days of British Leyland, there was a rebadged version. The Allegro’s styling was pudgy and almost universally unappealing, and the Vanden Plas edition’s nauseatingly gauche grille further upset the aesthetic applecart. What was unusual about the Allegro was that there was only one rebadged (or rather, re-grilled) version in the UK. A trip to Italy, however, revealed another Allegro: the Innocenti Regent.
Innocenti and British Leyland’s relationship dated back to the 1960s, when the former had built cars of the latter under license. Ties continued to strengthen until British Leyland ultimately bought the Italian outfit for £3 million in 1972. At the time, Innocenti had a decent amount of market share in Italy and manufactured a derivative of BLMC’s Mini. It was decided they needed a larger model, and with its front-wheel-drive and somewhat avant-garde design elements, the Allegro appeared to be a good fit.
The Regent was launched in 1974 and was offered with a choice of 1.3 and 1.5 four-cylinder engines but only the four-door body. Every Regent, like the early Allegros, had the controversial quartic steering wheel, an ungainly, squared-off looking piece of polyurethane. There was some differentiation from the Allegro but little that was immediately clear: some Italian-made interior components and electricals and a different grille. Top-spec Lusso versions also received a two-tone paintjob, with the roof painted black to resemble a vinyl roof treatment. The four-cylinder engines were more powerful than their UK counterparts thanks to twin carburettors, but what was even more powerful was the sudden price hike shortly after the Regent’s launch. That, and the arrival of the conceptually similar and instantly popular Alfa Romeo Alfasud.
Despite its flaws, the Allegro was a strong seller in the UK. The same could not be said for the Regent, whose disastrous sales led to it being yanked from the market after just 18 months. By then, British Leyland was being nationalized and offshore holdings were being either shuttered or sold off. Innocenti was snapped up by Alejandro de Tomaso, and the Regent was promptly forgotten about by everybody.
Alfa Romeo Dauphine
Speaking of Italy, here’s another Italian rebadge that you may not be aware of: the Alfa Romeo Dauphine. Retaining the name of the Renault on which it was based, the Alfa Romeo Dauphine was the fruit of an agreement between Alfa Romeo and Renault. This allowed Renault to build and sell the Dauphine and its plusher Ondine variant in Italy through its own network, retaining exclusive rights to spare part sales.
Production commenced in Alfa Romeo’s Portello factory in Milan in 1959, where the Dauphine was manufactured next to Alfa’s own Giulietta. There were only minor differences, such as different lighting and electricals.
The Dauphine’s rear-engine layout and poor roadholding made it an odd fit for the Alfa Romeo lineup. This awkward rebadging proved to underscore the fundamental differences between the Italian and French companies, whose working relationship quickly became tempestuous. Renault, bizarrely, continued to import French-made Dauphines into Italy and was reluctant to uphold their end of the bargain and sell Alfa Romeos in France. To further undermine this uneasy partnership, Fiat started rattling cages with both the Italian government and Alfa Romeo’s owners. The Italian giant threatened layoffs, claiming the Dauphine was a direct competitor to its own vehicles.
Despite being scarcely smaller than the Giulietta – a couple of inches shorter and one inch wider – the Alfa Dauphine sold relatively well at first. However, sales collapsed after just a few years – a direct result of new tax legislation supported by Fiat – and production ceased in 1964; leftover examples continued to trickle out of showrooms until 1965.
Saab-Lancia 600
The best-known fruits of the collaboration between Saab and the Fiat Group were the Type 4 vehicles: the Saab 9000, Alfa Romeo 164, Fiat Croma and Lancia Thema. But there was another product of that collaboration, sold only in Scandinavian countries: the Saab-Lancia 600.
Saab lacked the capital to replace its dated 96 with a modern rival to the Volvo 300-Series, a product of Volvo’s acquisition of Dutch automaker DAF. The Fiat Group had a more than satisfactory product to offer Saab: the 1980 European Car of the Year, the front-wheel-drive, Giugario-styled Lancia Delta.
While the Delta is best known for its later, legendary, turbocharged HF and four-wheel-drive HF integrale models, the early years of the Delta were lacking in such hot models. The Delta was a humble family hatch, available with a choice of naturally-aspirated 1.1, 1.3 and 1.5 four-cylinder engines. Saab received only the largest of those engines, offering a choice of GL, GLS and luxurious GLE trim, although the GLE was later discontinued due to slow sales.
With its crisp styling, good handling and efficient packaging, the Saab-Lancia 600 was a much more compelling offering than the rather stodgy Volvo 300-series. As the Delta’s development was well underway when Saab called Fiat for help, little was done to make the Saab-Lancia 600 more Saab-esque and therefore the 600 and Delta differed only in minor trim details. All promotional material and badges retained the Lancia name, further underscoring the fact this wasn’t a real Saab.
Although the 600 was launched to slot under the 99, keen pricing of the latter hindered the 600’s sales. Early 600s also suffered from quality issues that tarnished the car’s reputation. After three model years, the 600 was quietly dropped from the Saab lineup. Just a few years later, the real jewel of the Saab/Fiat partnership was launched: the 9000.
Daihatsu Altis and Mebius
When Daihatsu axed their ageing Applause, a ‘hidden hatchback’ slightly smaller than a Toyota Corolla, they had a gaping hole in their lineup. See, Daihatsu’s specialty had always been minicars and microcars and Kei cars, and the Applause and its predecessor, the Charmant, had always been somewhat of an anomaly. Evidently, they still saw a need to satisfy these buyers but they didn’t have much experience making larger cars. Their corporate parent, Toyota, found them a replacement. No, it wasn’t the Corolla, or any JDM C-Segment model. They replaced their small Applause with the jumbo-sized, made-for-America Camry.
Considering the narrow roads of Japan and their vehicle taxation system, not to mention Daihatsu’s relatively downmarket positioning, it was a puzzling choice. And yet, each subsequent generation of Camry has had a Daihatsu Altis clone.
For many years, there was an immense gap between the subcompact hatches and Kei cars in Daihatsu’s lineup and the large-for-Japan Altis. This has been remedied somewhat by the arrival of another rebadged Toyota, the Mebius. This time, Daihatsu rebadged the Prius V.
The Altis nowadays is available only as a hybrid, priced identically to the Camry Hybrid. As the Prius is currently Japan’s best-selling car, Daihatsu’s offering of these hybrid Toyotas makes a little more sense.
The Mebius is simply a Prius V with a different logo. But while the Altis may look quite different from the North American Camry, it is still a simple swap of logos away from being a Camry—specifically, the ‘prestige’ Camry sold in Russia and Asia. This variation on the Camry is similar to the Australian-market V6 Aurion, which did not receive a redesigned body like its North American-market and Australian 4-cylinder Camry counterpart.
In the next instalment, we shall take a look at some cars that were rebadged for entirely different reasons.
Curbside Classic: 1989 Daihatsu Charade – Treat And Retreat
Carshow Classic: 1975 Austin Allegro – Another Great Unfulfilled Hope From BLMC
Curbside Classic: Innocenti Turbo De Tomaso – The Anglo-Italo-Japanese Mini
Curbside Classic: 1995 Lancia Dedra – The Name Tells You Everything
Another clue the 600 wasn’t a real Saab: it’s the only Saab whose model designation didn’t start with a “9”.
Saab loved nines.
From what I’ve read, the Saab-Lancia 600 was best known for rust.
It works if “On the roof” Erik Carlsson is driving it…:-)
Yeah, I remember the Saab-Lancia 600. A short term quick fix that really fooled no-one. It was a seemingly win-win as Saab would gain a new small car and Lancia would gain access to Saabs vast nordic dealer network. These were in the times when most car makers were huge in their domestic markets and really not anywhere else, and it would’ve been close to impossible for Fiat/Lancia to develop that kind of dealer infrastructure on its own. Most 600:s were sold on the strength of Saab being a guarantee of quality, though most rusted away just within a few years.
I’m curious whether the introduction of the SAAB 90 was a factor in the demise of the SAAB Lancia? I’ve only encountered the 90 through Wikipedia, but it appears to have been a cheap and expedient way for SAAB to introduce an entry level model.
Laugh at the Allegro/Regent as much as you like, looking at it from the lofty heights of 2017, surrounded by current cars on their rounded, high belt-lined forms, you can say it predicted modern styling trends. Even if it happened by chance (it was not supposed to look like that actually)…
True. It’s sort of ended up chubby cute.
That has, to me, a bit of a Scirocco vibe…
Agreed. On paper the Allegro has more sophisticated surfacing.
Way cool. Had no idea about the delta saab. Michelotti, after he finished doing Alpine shapes for Jean Redele, did a one-off based on the Alfa version of the Dauphine in 1962.
Thanks for this, a fascinating read. But where did you put the ignition key in the Saab-Lancia?
I remember seeing the Allegro Regent on European holidays in the 70s. The Innocenti variants of Leyland models always had that tinge of familiar-but-a-bit-more-exciting. The tagline on the double page that you’ve shown is sublime:
Italian Creativity…
English Robustness… (what?!)
…and Scottish [fuel] consumption
Brilliant. And a shout-out to an old stripper Studebaker too.
Maybe English robustness was pretty good by Italian standards.
I didn’t know that model about Daewoo, I heard mainly of the Arcadia who was a rebadged Honda/Acura Legend.
The third picture Lancia, looks like a micro Bentley. I also like the dash layout in the picture, it looks very comprehensive and organized correctly.
I do not have a in depth knowledge about the Lancia, but I will research more about this little speedster. At first I assumed that it was like a little GT VW Rabbit slight upgrade. However, after seeing how the hood opens, engine, performance stats, and driving experience reviews. I now think this car was more in line to compete with lower tier Porsche (924), Masarati Bi-Turbo, BMW 3-series etc, early-mid 80’s Audi Quattro.
Sure it looks bland, and even cheap from the rear. With modification and sports models, this model was a rally sport competitor it seems.
One thing that the new cars lack (judging from the pics under the Lancia). Newer cars lack character, boldness, and pretty much all look the same today. Just shiny oval shapes with chrome grills and fancy L.E.D. lights. There is just something about the 80’s and early 90’s cars that just seem to seperate them from other brands, models, etc more clearly than cars today.
when I’m on the road, I never know what kind of car is in front of me until i get close up to the rear at a stop light and see the brand badge, Sad but true.
Look up Lancia Delta S4 to see the ultimate incarnation of the Delta and how it was poised to dominate Group B rallying. There are some great videos on youtube by “Marvdogger”.
Then look up Lancia Delta Integrale and you’ll see the commercially available car that definitely brought the fight to Audi Quattro, BMW M3, Porsche 944 Turbo and more.
The Delta lived a very long life in many different forms and evolutions and has a very storied history.
Jim Klein
I looked it up and you are correct.
The Delta Lancia reminds me of the fate the Masarati Bi-Turbo of the 80’s. At a glance the Masarati Bi-Turbo looked like a rather bland, too conservative, and even an almost cheap version of the Chrysler K-car in design.
However, it was an ultra premium (About $40K in the mid 80’s) true sports car-with sports stats to prove it . It went under the radar though in the face of the competition (M3’s, M-Benz AMG 190e-Class etc). I think this is the same situation with the Delta Lancia. The competition (M3, Porsche 944, Audi Quattro) were just so much more flashy and established brands that not many noticed the Delta Lancia at all. One day it may gets it’s due credit within it’s category rank. But if you tell someone you have a 80’s Delta Lancia, most people response will be “what is that”- sadly!
I think the Lancer of today will fall into this forgotten category as well. With only true fans knowing it’s potential and racing pedigree.
Outside of North America the Delta is EXTREMELY well known, certainly more so than the unlamented Biturbo. The main reason it’s not familiar to most here as opposed to the others you mention is that it was never sold in North America, not that it wasn’t any good. It’s a different story in Europe where the Lancia Delta has a well established pedigree and a loyal following. The Biturbo wasn’t really known for much besides being expensive and unreliable, if even that, ever.
It’s similar to the situation with the Peugeot 205GTI of the ’80’s. Extremely popular, great car, possibly better than VW’s GTI, but never sold here so people don’t know about it. It’s a totally different situation around the world.
Both the Delta Integrale and the 205GTI are legitimate candidates for cars that enthusiasts here would likely love to drive and/or own as opposed to many others cars from distant lands whose only real credentials for some popularity is that they were never sold here, often for good reason.
The Lane Museum in Nashville has a superb example of the Delta Integrale if you ever find yourself down there…
Well said. Something like the Lancia Delta Integrale is a legend, a beast in its days, way beyond any hot hatch GTI-GTi-GSi-you name it. With a cult status now, and highly collectible.
This immaculate Lancia Delta HF Integrale 16v Evo1 is exactly 25 years old, the € 89,500 asking price says it all.
Jim Klein / Johannes Dutch
Gotcha, now it makes sense.
You are correct- now that I know it was never sold here in the U.S. I was thinking to myself what is all the hype about a sports car that I have never in my life seen in person, or even talked about in car magazines (here in the U.S.). So it makes sense the U.S. car magazines did not do write ups about the Lancia since it was never going to be imported here anyway.
It looks like a vicious little monster with the body modifications. So tell me Jim, how does this little beast stand up to the gold standard within it’s competition category. Was this a Ford Escort GT, Volkswagen Jetta GTI, Honda Prelude/Integra fighter.
or did this Lancer out perform the mighty M3, Porsche 924S, M-Benz AMG, Audi Quattro (Turbo), Acura Legend SC Coupe, Saab 900SC Turbo etc. This is some serious competition it was up against. I’m curious if it could beat the gold standards of among it’s peers models (Like the M3 / Benz 190e AMG)
So this little bugger had to be amazing, even flawless…
Mr H, a direct competitor to the white Lancia above in that era was the Ford Escort RS Cosworth. Street legal, AWD, 200+ hp rally cars, that’s what these were. Homologation cars.
Back then a more “civilian” FWD hot hatch had around 150/160 hp. Like the Ford Escort RS 2000 from the early/mid-nineties.
Mr Hatfield:
The Delta Integrale HF cars existed in a strange middle ground for the times they competed in the World Rally Championship. While being based on more mundane machinery, yet having exemplary performance, they did not carry similar cachet of upscale brands like BMW while being similar in cost. The Toyota Celica ST165 and ST185 GT-Fours are likely the closest cars that mirrored the performance aspect of concurrent Delta Integrales in this time period. The Mitsubishi Galant VR-4, original Lancer Evolution, and Nissan Pulsar GTI-R are also close, and of similar humble origins. None of these cars were really meant to sell in large numbers, but realistically hoped to cash in on racing success to boost corporate image.
Mr. Hartfield – The Lancia Delta competed among many price and performance classes during its production span. In order of performance but not necessarily chronologically, there existed very basic spec cars with FWD and naturally aspirated powerplants, a normal competitor to these in the showroom and on the street would be the VW Golf, Ford Escort, and if it were sold in the US, I suppose the Omni/Horizon. The body is about the size of those. That’d be the base car.
Then there were hotter versions that would compete against the typical hot hatches of the day, VW GTI, Escort XR3i, 205GTI etc.
Then they started adding turbos and all-wheel-drive and added the Integrale suffix (representing AWD) of which again there were milder (relatively) to wilder versions, many of which were also raced and rallied in various classes below Group B and in Group B’s successor categories. Now you’re starting so compete against more serious machinery in the showroom, perhaps including some Porsches (944Turbo), Escort Cosworth, certainly the Quattro Turbo, M3 etc. Also Subaru WRX and Lancer EVO of course.
Then Lancia’s EVO(lution) versions were more powerful yet and competing against hotter versions of the above-named cars and others. Note though that it’s still based on a fairly humble hatch, and not really luxurious a compared to the Audi, BMW and later 944’s. Interior materials quality is not quite up to VW Golf/GTI levels. You were paying for performance (speed, roadholding, handling etc)
In the middle of the 1980’s (with some of the above versions built before and some after) was the ultimate version, the Group B rally car Lancia Delta S4. This was a turbo AND supercharged monster that was a tube frame racer with a kevlar bodyshell, engine mounted amidships, drivers sitting literally on top of the fuel tank and 100% pure race car with very little (nothing?) in common with the base commuter cars that had the same name and a similar shape – Think of a NASCAR Camry vs the Camry you would buy at the Toyota dealer but way more sophisticated than a NASCAR car. Extremely powerful (over 600hp?) very light, and very dangerous. It played a heavy role in the eventual banning of Group B in 1986 as a rally class with the deaths of Henri Toivonen and Sergio Cresto when they went off the road, hit a tree and the car went up in flames with them inside it. The 200+ homologation versions that were sold to the public are not as powerful as that but still extremely fast, light and brutal but finished to a much higher standard than the actual race cars. The racing S4, when put on a racetrack with a Formula 1 car to see how it would do, turned very similar times. Competitors at the time in Group B Rally were the Audi Sport Quattro (see my driving impression of one here: https://www.curbsideclassic.com/auto-biography/classic-drive-1984-audi-sport-quattro-i-drove-my-hero/ ), the Ford RS200, Peugeot 205T16, and the MG Metro 6R4. Overall the Delta S4 is usually considered the ultimate evolution of the Group B rally era cars as a group (mainly since it was pretty much the newest one before Group B was banned and Lancia was determined to reclaim its former glories at any cost) and had Group B continued likely would have dominated for several years.
I hope that helps a bit? The Lancia Delta started as a decent European hatchback but once it went rallying it really cemented its status as a top-line performance icon.
The car that Johannes showed above is now eligible for import into the US with no restriction since it is 25 years old. That price is higher than most but it’s a very rare version. Very nice 16V Turbo Integrales that looks virtually identical do periodically make it over here and generally trade between $25k-$40k depending on condition, version etc. a Delta S4 would nowadays likely trade for around a quarter million dollars and my suspicion is that even at that price will be considered to have been a great value a decade from now. But if you go to Europe and look at their version of Craigslist you can find beater curbside classic Delta’s for well under $1000 all day long, just like over here you can find old VW Golf beaters too all over the place.
Jim Klein
Wonderful write up thanks, you have convinced me to now be a fan of the Lancia Delta. Really appreciate the way you broke it all down in your response.
shame this car never made it to North America. Shame shame shame.
This thing might have given the mighty Corvette a run for it’s money I bet!
You guys have an advantage over me. The only Lancia I remember drooling over was the Beta, particularly the HPE, imported to the US in the 70s.
Now the Lancia brand is almost gone, with only the Ypsilon, a hideously rebodied Panda, carrying the flag.
Yes, the Delta Integrale! If you hadn’t mentioned it, I would have. Great car!
Wild stuff, while being vaguely aware of some of these (mainly through comments on these pages over the years) this is the first time I’ve laid eyes on (pictures of) many of them. Thanks for assembling these in one place, always very interesting.
“…e robustezza inglese”
Poor italian buyers, they must have fount out very early about the “robustezza” of their badge engineered Allegros!
I learned a few new things this morning.
Daihatsu must have a few die-hard fans of big cars, which is odd given their specialization on very small cars. I guess Toyota needed another sales channel in Japan.
We may be in the first half of January, but I think the first and second paragraphs warrant William’s nomination as CC Writer of the Year:
“Indifferently assembled, inelegantly styled and unnecessarily strange …” and ” pudgy … universally unappealing … nauseatingly gauche … aesthetic applecart..” Brilliant!! The Allegro may have been a bad car, but it clearly deserves some credit as a literary inspiration.
Thank you so much!
Of course, it’s all too easy to write about an ugly car. I can only hope I can receive praise for kind words about a pretty car!
Alfa Romeo also built under license, in tiny numbers, the Renault R4.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/alessio3373/9290646987
The deal with Renault also extended to Saviem vans/trucks, some of which were powered by Alfa Romeo engines and badged as Alfa Romeo-Saviem.
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/9b/49/3a/9b493a3d93206781af3fd9f655a5581c.jpg
Years later, Saviem, Alfa Romeo and Fiat jointly built a diesel engine factory in southern Italy, Sofim.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sofim
Possibly the only cool thing about the Innocenti Regent was this Duel-inspired commercial :
Wait, y’all, look at the door handles on the Allegro. This may have been the only car ever to borrow a part from AMC rather than the other way around.
Look up Morris Marina and 1st generation Land Rover Discovery…same door handles!
Very similar, SavageATL, but not quite the same:
For more obscure rebadgings, there’s the ’50s Morris Oxford/ Austin Cambridge, re-labled the Hindustan Ambassador for India, and the late ’60s Hillman Hunter, built as the Peykan in Iran. An even more obscure Iranian variant was the late ’70s Opel Rekord, sold as Chevrolet-Iran.
Happy Motoring, Mark
Considering the Ambassador was the most common car in India for a long time, I don’t know if that counts as obscure!
Well, obscure outside India or Asia. The Morris Oxford and Austin Cambridge are pretty obscure to most Americans.
Happy Motoring, Mark
The Hindustan Contessa might be more obscure it started as the lasst model Vauxhall Victor did some parts donor work in Australia disguised as a Holden Torana/Sun bird then started fresh in India with the same Isuzu diesel engine used in the Ambassador,
Toyota and Daihatsu share quite a few models often with some mild restyling but the same car underneath and when the Japanese owners have had enough of them they go to auction and often wash up on New Zealand shores
RHondas used to be common here but are mostly gone now just like the parent Hondas they were based on neither of them last forever and the financial pain of keeping such cars roadworthy isnt worth it when car yards are crammed with shiny fresh used imports.
Does anybody remember the ‘Sterling’ -ca.1987 or 1988? A British re badged Honda Accord. They even used the ‘James Bond’ theme in their TV ads.
It wasn’t rebadged or an Accord. It was a rebadged Rover 800 which was based on the Acura/Honda Legend but used a different exterior and interior design, as well as some different engines (and some Honda ones)
My dad worked on that car. His company made window seals. We traveled to a testing ground out west where they had them parked in the sun one summer, so I saw the Grand Canyon on a business trip.
Fascinating. Never knew about the Alfa Romeo Dauphine. This awful car pre-dated the Alfa Romeo ARNA / Nissan Cherry Europe duo (another candidate for your series) by twenty years
Leave it to the British to make a Honda product unreliable.
Quite attractive, mind you. And probably a nice drive when it was running.
when ‘the British’ made their first Honda, the Ballade-based Triumph Acclaim, a Honda internal quality audit rated it very highly indeed (possibly even the best, though I may have misremembered)
When introducing their newer models here in the late ’60s, Renault actually took out ads apologizing for the Dauphine’s inadequate durability in the US market!
I’ve seen some British comedy series on US Public Television that featured what looked like a 4-door Honda Civic badged as a Rover. Besides the badging, did those have enough British content to become unreliable?
Happy Motoring, Mark
The second Rover/Honda model after the Triumph acclaim was the Rover 213/216 of 1984, the first of a series of small rovers based on contemporary Hondas. Reliability wise, they weren’t bad, I recall that the 213 was a Honda engine and the 216 used Rover’s own. They did have a propensity to rust, I can’t remember the last time I saw one. Later “Rondas” used the infamous Rover K series engine, which while a good tractable unit with good power and economy, developed a justified reputation for eating its own headgasket at around 60k miles.
Some of those Rhondas had Peugeot or Perkins diesel engines those were the better versions.
If you remove parts from a Mebius, are you performing a Mebius strip?
Suzuki are really in on the rebadging game these days with the use of Toyota products to fill gaps in their ranges. In the UK in particular they have the RAV4 based Across and the Swace, based on the locally built Corolla estate.