It seems all vehicle manufacturers were (and are) guilty of it – “badge engineering” or doing as little as possible to distinguish one brand or model of car from another, in an effort to save costs.
Mitsubishi Suzuki
North American manufacturers were especially egregious – with the pinnacle perhaps being reached in the decades of the 70’s and 80’s. But British Leyland also was known to “swap out grilles” on its many Mini clones. Even today, in Japan’s kei-car class, there’s no difference between a Suzuki Every Wagon and a Mitsubishi Town Box other than the badge on the same grille.
One of my favorite commercials is the mid-’80’s Lincoln ad with the high rollers coming out to pick up their cars…and stumble over which is the Caddy, Olds or Buick. You know that had to cause a lot of gnashing of teeth at GM headquarters.
But even with this example of GM’s look-alike C-Bodies of the mid/late-’80’s, I think there’s another that’s even better (worse?).
Cordoba
Charger
Since there are so many to choose from, let’s confine ourselves to the ’70’s and ’80’s – and my pick is the 1975 Chrysler Cordoba and Dodge Charger.
What makes it my pick is the stark contrast of the 75 Charger with its previous three-generations of predecessors. While the 66-67 Charger wasn’t a huge sales hit, it was definitely unique. Then we were blessed with the beautiful ’68-’70 models. Finally there were the ’71-’74 fuselage years.
Then we get to the 1975, which even a two-year old could tell was a Cordoba with a slightly different grille and hood medallion, and some louvres over the opera windows. But I guess we can’t heap too much scorn on Chrysler – they were in terrible financial shape at the time, and would require a federal bailout to stave off bankruptcy just four years later.
I guess it’s not surprising that in the ’90’s, Chrysler would give up on the pretense altogether and sell the same Neon with Dodge and Plymouth badges.
Ford Escort and Mercury Lynx? Chevy Monza/Buick Skyhawk/Olds Starfire/ Pontiac Sunbird? Chevy Cavalier and Cadillac Cimarron? Chevette and T1000? Dodge Aries and Plymouth Reliant?
There are so many – what’s your pick?
Years ago I was a car design student (1999). People from Lincoln came by to recruit. For this I provokatively designed a Lincoln pick-up truck. Little did I know…
Keep in mind in the 70s Chrysler Plymouth had dealers and Dodge had dealers. Few were CPD combined. Also in our town GM each had their own dealerships. Stand alone Oldsmobile, stand alone Buick, etc.
Omni/Horizon
I believe the first generation Cadillac Escalade is the worst case of badge engineering among trucks and SUVs. It was an example of a rushed effort, taking the GMC Yukon Denali and sticking on Cadillac badges.
By comparison, the first generation Lincoln Navigator was far more differentiated than the Ford Expedition it was based on. The Ford guys clearly took more than 10 minutes to make it look like an actual Lincoln.
The BMC ADO16 was a low point of badge engineering, with – ascending price order – Austin, Morris, Wolseley, MG, Riley and Vanden Plas 1100 available. If you think of them as trim levels rather than different cars it makes more sense and was easier to understand than the alphabet soup that other makers used.
The worst in Europe now is VAG. From the ouside I can’t tell the difference between Audi, Cupra, Seat, Skoda or Volkswagen, especially the SUV models. The interiors are even more similar, sharing screens and switches.
Imagine how much better the cars would be if the effort expended on the insignificant differences were spent on actual engineering. When you look at the history of badge engineering, specifically BMC, GM and Chrysler, and now VAG it’s difficult to make a business case for it.
Toyota seems willing to let other makers sell their cars. At the moment in the UK the Corolla is available as the Suzuki Swace and the Yaris as the Mazda 2.
Whereas the Stellantis light van is real badge engineering, the badge is the only difference between Citroen, Fiat, Opel, Peugeot, Toyota and Vauxhall.
The worst was the Nash/Hudson Rambler. Only the hood badge and hubcaps were different. Second worst was the 47-48 Kaiser and Frazer. They had slightly different grilles, and dashboards with a rearranged cluster. Otherwise identical.
Before 1930 there were a lot of rebadges among the smaller independents. As with store brands on appliances and food, one “behind the scenes” company made a car, and several different “manufacturers” sold the same car, pretending that they “manufactured” it.
The new generation of the Mitsubishi Colt, the ‘ultimate hatchback’ and ‘developed for the European market’, according to the site of the Dutch dealerships. Which must also apply to the Renault Clio then.
Le Gods! Has it come to that? And the ASX looks familiar too!
Forgot about that one! Renault Captur it is.
The profit margins were so small (if they weren’t negative) on the Pinto/Bobcat and Vega/Astre, you can’t really blame them. The N-O-V-A cars must have been the first to get four models from the same sheet metal, and the Js, five. The ’76-77 Cutlass Supreme/Regal coupes were the worst high-volume/high-profit offenders I can think of, but they did have different hoods, interiors, and trunk lids in addition to the fascia.
Mazda 2 (current gen Toyota Yaris). Also, Suzuki offers rebadged versions of the current Corolla and RAV4.
Proton Tiara
The Plymouth Horizon / Dodge Omni comes to mind. If we were to go back a few decades, the clear winner would be the Studebaker President / Packard Clipper. Not a winner for Packard.
LINCOLN, what a Luxury CAR should be and once was. That commercial was brilliant. The GM downsized Luxury sedans were indeed confusing as well as too small and downright UGLY. Small wonder buyers bought Lincolns. Fun fact, the close up of the confused man is Actor John Ingle who played E. L. QUARTERMAINE on General Hospital. The 78 LINCOLN sales brochure features Tom Selleck. Of course who can forget Ricardo Montalban and *Rich Corinthian Leather *? BTW, having owned Cadillacs, I switched to LINCOLN. Still Thinkin Lincoln with my 2007 Town Car Signature Limited, the last gasp of traditional American Luxury CARS.
That ad was working for me, until the Lincoln MK7 drove up, stopped and carried on rocking for about 5 seconds….
I once made the mistake of telling my daughter that what turned out to be a ’79-ish Cadillac (forget the model name, the one with the wonky B-pillar) was a Chevrolet. Owner looked most unhappy. Hey, at least I got the C right! 🙂
I think the mid- late 90s Chevy blazer, GMC Jimmy and Oldsmobile Bravada is about as bad as it gets. The Blazer and Jimmy are barely distinguishable other than the bowtie badging and color options . At least the Bravada had some Oldsmobile unique bits- unique front clip and body cladding, and Oldsmobile only all wheel drive (vs 4wd) and no skid plate. I guess they didn’t think the discerning Olds buyers of the day weren’t into mud bogging. My wife and I had a 1998 version of the Bravada, a nice enough vehicle I suppose and it did bring our boy home from the hospital so there’s that.
The Omni/Horizon is the point where Plymouth became irrelevant. Seems like everything they made past that point was also the same thing as a Dodge, just different badges. Maybe a different grill. About the only “unique” Plymouth without a Dodge after that point was the 1990 Laser. Which was just a rebadged Mitsubishi Eclipse. Oh and the Prowler but that was pretty niche
I was expecting to see a Blackwood on these pages, soon, since I saw a kind of ratty example of one just a couple of days ago, the first sighting on one in a while and was expecting the pre-CC effect.
That said the Blackwood is NOT a case of simple badge engineering since the only visible sheet metal that is shared is the cab and even inside that cab there isn’t a lot of parts shared with the F-150.
The worst example is the Dodge/Plymouth Neon, since the only thing that was changed was the brand badge as they shared the same name.
I’ll go with the GM NOVAs-Nova, Omega, Ventura and Apollo, nothing more than a Chevrolet Nova with a different front clip and taillights. The interiors were also virtually identical, same dashboard and instrument cluster and only minor changes in interior fabric.
Agree. And, like many mentioned, it would not have been much trouble (or cost) to make them different.
Probably the most recent; Dodge Hornet/Alfa Romeo Tonale. Talk about echoing the Cordoba/Charger in modern times!
I keep trying to forget about this one…..
Wow, I knew these were closely related but didn’t realize they were this much alike. Somehow it fails to look like either a Dodge or an Alfa.
To me the tipping point with the ”ladder” companies, like GM and Chrysler/Dodge/Plymouth, and more recently VW, was when first the platforms and then the powertrains, became the same. And the end result became just the brand badge, like the Neon. But the other kind of badge engineering is corporate badge exchange. Honda has been a trendsetter here, often with SUV’s, with their rebadged Land Rover Discovery and Isuzu SUV’s in the past. And their current winner is the Prologue EV (in the US at least) which is based on the Chevy Blazer. A little more than a rebadge, but the principle of a Honda-branded Blazer seems twisted. It shows how desperate Honda is to sell an EV. And it’s doing well.
Saab 9-7X and 9-2X. Like Saturn, GM had no idea what to do with Saab in its waning years.
That Aston Martin Scion IQ thing
Winner!!
That Aston Scion Toyota also wore PSA brand badges.
I’m going with many 80s Dodge and Plymouth vehicles, especially the early models. Like many other badge engineered vehicles, all that was changed was a grille and name badges. Many times, even wheels/covers were randomly pulled from the parts bin between the two. But what really set these apart was even the Pentastar logo didn’t even have to change between the two.
At least Chrysler sometimes used different header panels, interior features, and other parts to differentiate themselves.
Rolls Royce and Bentley for many years. Driving a badge engineered Bentley wouldn’t be so bad though.
First gen K-car LeBaron and Cimmaron (even though I secretly want a late model D’oro).
The JDM-only Toyota Cavalier, a bone-stock J-body with the bowties swapped for Toyota badges.
Those came in Toyota and Chevy they washed up here used terrible rep.
As some others are writing, it would be easy to nominate the Plymouth Neon as the worst. I can’t think of another case where the only difference between the Plymouth and Dodge Neon were, quite literally, just a couple of decals. Chrysler couldn’t even be bothered to use actual emblems. Everything else (and I do mean everything) was exactly the same between the two.
It really seemed to be the point where Chrysler threw in the towel on the Plymouth brand. A few years later, they made a half-hearted attempt to revive interest with the Plymouth Prowler but it was a case of too little, too late, and Plymouth would be history not long after.
The first example of badge engineering was the 1903 Model A Ford becoming the 1903 Cadillac.
According the book Ford by Pacey, Henry only lowballed and bought Lincoln so he could fire Henry Leland, Paybacks are a bitch.
In Europe, I’d call out BMC for the lazy way a complete range of cars came under multiple badges – Austin and Morris Minis, 1100s, 1300s, 1800s and 2200s, Austin Cambridge and Morris Oxford, Austin Westminster and Wolseley 6/99, MG Midget and Austin-Healey Sprite, and then the upmarket versions with Riley, Wolseley, MG and Vanden Plas badges. This carried on from the mid 1950s until the mid 1970s.
And most of this was to appease the dealers, and allow them to compete with each other rather than reform the network and compete with Ford and GM.
Jaguar are not exempt – Daimler was effectively an upper trim level on the XJ6 and XJ12 for many years. Rootes were little better, though in their defence the brands (Hillman, Singer, Sunbeam and Humber) were more clearly differentiated, at least in their minds, and alongside each other in the showrooms.
The Stellantis light vans, in Citroen Peugeot, Fiat, Opel and Vauxhall, and Toyota for some, are an extreme case, as was the preceding GM-Renault van in Renault, Opel, Vauxhall, Nissan and Fiat forms.
Austin Minor van I drove one for a week, Austin horn button so you knew from the inside it wasnt a Morris and the crinkle grille outside.
One example that sticks out in my mind is the Mitsubishi Precis. Copying a car that didn’t deserve to be copied:
Weirdly though the Hyundai Excel was basically a Mitsubishi underneath with a Giugiaro wrapper. So it kind of came full circle. But still Excelling at Precisely nothing.
I’ll go with quantity in the GMT 360, which GM managed to sell under six different brands of the same basic vehicle – the Chevrolet TrailBlazer, GMC Envoy, Oldsmobile Bravada, Buick Rainier, Isuzu Ascender, and Saab 9-7X.
There was of course the Dodge D50/Mitsubishi Mighty Max, and Ford Courier/Mazda B2000, Chevy Luv/Isuzu P’up
And then the opposite way with the Ford Ranger/Mazda B2500, Chevy S-10/Isuzu Hombre Chevy Colorado/Isuzu I-series, and Dodge Dakota/Mitsubishi Raider.
And of course every GMC truck is a rebadged Chevy, or vice-versa, since about 1972?
There have been a lot of badge-engineered SUV’s, enough that I cannot keep track of them.
And there have been many badge-engineered medium-duty and heavy trucks, think GM/Isuzu, Mack/Renault, Paccar/DAF.
But the worst of the worst has to have been the rebadged Internationals sold for a few years as a Caterpillar (CAT 660) with a Navistar engine rebadged as a Cat as well.
We got CAT 630 &660s out of Aussie there were 3 on a fleet I worked in but they used the Navistar cab and a C15 CAT engine that had a slightly tortured exhaust path to clear the RHD steering, it cracks and has to be fabricated, because theres nothing in the parts network for them, nice enough to drive but for the cramped US day cabs but the 18 speed is manual with a stick poking thru the floor so I liked them. Only 6 wheeler configuration no weird jockey wheels, so they were not 50+ tonne rated.
Lots of great thoughts above. To start, I’d say the worst I’ve seen has been your cover vehicle: That Ford F150 Lincoln wanna-be. Followed by the first gen Cadillac Escalade and Lincoln Navigator’s. I still feel those two are way too Chevy and Ford like, so I’d never pay anything close to the prices they have for them. But then again, I would never spend a bunch of money on any SUV. The current Escalade is nothing more than a glorified Tahoe.
However, when I go back in time to the 70’s (when I first started my love affair with cars), there were a lot of them and they seemed to work well. I see several above mention the Omni/Horizon. Great little cars. The 80’s Cadillac Deville/Park Ave and Olds 98. The GM A-body’s like the Century/Celebrity/6000/Ciera. The many Dodge/Chrysler/Plymouth’s of the 80’s and 90’s. In my opinion, these brands need to start doing more of this again today to offer us sedans instead of just SUV’s. No reason we can’t have Chevy/Buick share platforms.
Chevy and Buick do share.
And they did share sedans quite recently:
Cruze and Verano
Impala and LaCrosse
Nobody wanted them enough for either company to continue with their version.
Now you have:
Traverse and Enclave
Trax and Envista
Trailblazer and Encore GX
Buick should just get it over with and stick their badge on a pickup truck and/or Chevy Tahoe as well. I don’t see much if any future for the marque past maybe 2030, even the Chinese have significantly reduced the number that they buy (really the main reason Buick still existed over here this decade).
The blatant rebadging of the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s is a large part of what got GM into trouble in the first place. (See August 22, 1983 Fortune Magazine cover). Not that the cars were necessarily bad, just that to 99% of the public they were basically indistinguishable.
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/1983-fortune-will-success-spoil-general-motors/
The GMT360 ranks as one of the most re-badged. platforms. while the Chevrolet Trailblazer and GMC Envoy were logical and the Isuzu was desperation, making it a Buick and an Olds was stretching it and badging it as a Saab was ludicrous. I suppose we can be thankful GM didn’t try to make the Trailblazer a mini Escalade too.
Asa brand Mazda’s JDM product line stands out. To conserve engineering resources anything not a core passenger car, crossover or sports car is made by somebody else. Even the B series pickups are now Isuzu like the medium duty Titan truck. The Kei class have been Suzuki since the 90s and after being sold as a Ford, Nissan, and Mitsubishi product the Bongo van is now a Daihatsu and the Bongo Brawny is aToyota.
ist gen Honda Orthia was a rebadged Mazda Capella right down to keeping the same decals on the 4×4 version, Repair panels were sourced from the Ford/Mazda dealer.
Second gen was featured on CC but even Wiki doesnt know about the first gen model.
Time for another obscure re-badges article. FWIW a lot of Mazdas wore the blue oval
Starting in 1987, Chrysler Canada began selling the former Plymouth Horizon and Dodge Omni, as the Plymouth Expo and Dodge Expo. Identical model names. Several years before, they did the same with the Neon.
(1988 Plymouth Expo.)
1987 Dodge Expo.
Actually-sticking an ‘Expo’ badge on a 1984-1986 Omni GLH would be a great way to mess with people, making them wonder what the hell an ‘Expo GLH’ is.
Rootes assembler Todd motors came up with a car that just swapped some trim pieces in the 30s and carried it on into the 60s, it worked they were popular, the mothership in the UK knew though the UK didnt have those cars the owners manuals were printed by them, lots exist today and people still cant tell them apart, the Minx became a Humber 10,80 & 90
yes I know youve never seen one and wouldnt recognize one if you did.
I could come up with many examples of automotive badge engineering. What about the food industry? Here’s a list of small, entrepreneurial, “all natural” brands that have been bought up by the big conglomerates. Will the products still be made with the same ingredients and levels of quality? Not sure. I like the Kashi cereals for example. But theoretically, Kellogg’s could create any cereal and call it “Kashi”.
Obscure bit not noticeable unless youve seen an original was early 30s Willys Sedans in Australia, they look like fluteless Vauxhalls because they are, Bodies by Holden they didnt bother with the Willys tooling, Aussies didnt notice because thats what they got NZ got the whole Willys cars complete
I’ll have to ask my 90 y.o dad about that – he had a ’37.
Kaiser Henry J & Sears Allstate
The worst examples IMH0
The 1977 Lincoln Versailles, the one based on the Granada
The Cadillac Cimmaron
The Nova based Pontiac Ventura, Buick Apollo,and Olds Omega
The Chevette based Pontiac T 1000 ( I think thats what it was called)
The Vega Based Pontiac Astre
The Alfa Romeo based (drumroll) Dodge Hornet
The Honda Crossroad (a rebadged Land Rover Discovery) likely had to have knocked Honda’s overall reliability index down at least a few points. Makes the Honda Passport badged Isuzu Rodeo look like a pillar of reliability in comparison…
When I consider badge engineering, I’m thinking of pure rebadging with little to no differentiation, versus platform sharing. The GMT360 was a rather ridiculous proliferation of a platform, but there was fairly significant interior and exterior differentiation and unique body panels, so in my humble opinion these fall short of the most cynical badge engineering jobs, such as the K car twins, Mitsubishi Precis, escort/lynx, et al. I am surprised there’s been no mention of ‘80s GM A body clones (Celebrity, Ciera, Century, 6000), which came down to pick your favorite grille design.
How could anyone not mention the late 80s Pontiac LeMans? It was a rebadged Daewoo.
They were sold under the names “Asuna GT” and “Passport Optima” in Canada.
Badge engineering, in the strict sense, means virtually no difference beyond the badging. The Plymouth/Dodge Neon is an example. The next step is maybe different grilles and wheels. The Dodge Caravan/Plymouth Voyager is an example.
But my favorite, though slightly more ambitious, was the VW Routan.
Saab 9-7x. “Screw it, we’ll just put a Saab grille and mount the ignition in the console on ANYTHING, it’ll work.”
My nomination is the Isuzu Rodeo/Honda Passport….repaint the D-pillar and attach Honda nameplates/badges. Oh, and also raise the price a little and have warranty coverage for a shorter period of time (to cover the cost of attaching the ‘H’ badge in the center of the grille?).
Here’s my twist: Where badge engineering would have been better than the actual product:
Easiest one Mazda should have rebadged the 626 as a Ford vs wasting money developing the Contour.
There was always the Mazda 323/1st generation Mercury Tracer (1988). It was eons better than the previous Mercury Lynx.
OOH! I thought of another one: 1990 Chrysler New Yorker Salon/1990 Dodge Dynasty.
Okay-the concurrent Canadian version in 1990 was the Chrysler Dynasty, but this one always cracked me up. Chrysler did upgrade the NY Salon 1991 with the New Yorker hidden headlamp front/rear clip. I guess Chrysler must’ve heard complaints from the old guys who bought the 1990 Salon as an entry level ‘Prestige” Chrysler and got tired of everybody saying “Nice Dynasty” at the Elks Lodge.
These are probably some of the better Badge Engineering examples, and not some of the worst like the Neons and the K-cars, but what about all of the Holden cars rebadged here as Chevys and Pontiacs?
The Holden Monaro rebadged as a Pontiac GTO.
The Holden Commodore as the Pontiac G8 and later as the Chevy SS.
The Holden Statesman as the Chevy Caprice PPV (police car).
At least these badge engineered cars had the looks and appointments to differentiate them, the parent car was not sold here but down under, and the original car had the steering wheel on the wrong side 😉. At least some engineering thought had to go into the design, that last point especially.
If I had to pick a worst though, I’d go with the Chevy Nova… Not the one that we all know and love from 1968-1980, but whatever the hell that thing was they called a Nova much later, say the late eighties or early nineties. That was no Nova.
The Henry J-based Allstate.
As many have already named the various GM 70’s & 80’s models – at least they had put in a little bit of effort to differentiate from the brands, but Dodge/Plymouth were lazy about it especially with the Omni/Horizon and in later years America/Expo and of course the Neon – just badges and later decals only.
Anyone for a Ford Maverick? This was a Nissan Patrol rebadge downunder.
All the rebadges associated with the Button Plan deserve a shared dishonourable mention.
They do. But not the plan itself, which never demanded who merged with whom, or how it was to be structured. The fundamental idea was a quite-correct one rev up a lazy and bloated sector, prepare it for a later more open market, and get a bit of sensible commonality going on, in what was a tiny market in the world picture. And we really were driving some pretty crap cars by world standards when it came in, and paying heaps for them. It bugs me that the internet, in its wisdom, keeps suggesting otherwise.
What was never contemplated then was the total abandonment of even small tariffs, and finally, of govt help, and that’s when the whole thing ended.
(Not sure why the rant, which is now over).
Australian Senator Button car plan
Going from memory here.
Holden Commodore / Toyota Lexcen
Toyota Camry / Holden Apollo
Toyota Corolla / Holden Nova
Falcon Ute / Nissan Ute
justy mentioned the Ford Maverick above
Nissan Pintara / Ford Corsair
Hopefully I haven’t forgotten any and they are around the right way, If it even matters.
Nissan Pulsar/Holden Astra, though it’s true higher versions did in fact get a GM-Holden engine (the Family II out of Port Melbourne).
Blimey, I’d forgotten the Pintara/Corsair, probably from trauma. I’ve driven top and bottom of the range, and whilst the manual 2.4 was crudely quick, they were truly horrid cars.
And in true Nissan style, very hard to kill, despite prayers and curses for them to be exorcized from our presence, and Ford or Nissan, a fervent wish that the cars would fall off the badges for good.
The NUMMI Nova/Prism was a great car. It allowed the cheapskate to bypass the Toyota dealer to buy the most durable transportation appliance ever made, the Corolla. The Chevy dealers were always giving out better deals. You could also save a few thousand buying one used cause the stink of the Chevy(or Geo) badge caused it to depreciate like a stone in water.
Id say its actually the best rebadge on this whole page.
Chevy suburban
GMC suburban
And it lasted for YEARS
Badge engineering?
They used the SAME NAME.
The row of GM A-bodies gets mentioned often. But I have to give GM credit because it wasn’t simply badge swapping. Each division got its own distinctive nose and tail, wheels or wheel covers, and dash.
I thought the Isuzu/Honda/Acura hookup was amazing. The Honda Passport and Acura SLX were just grille changes. I put an SLX grille on my Tropper and confused a lot of people, but honestly it was the better looking grille…