Question: What's the Most Ridiculous Example of Badge Engineering?

Murilee Martin
by Murilee Martin
question what s the most ridiculous example of badge engineering

After writing my earlier post on the Isuzu Statesman Deville, I got to thinking about all the oddball vehicles that have resulted from badge engineering exercises over the years. Some badge-engineered cars end up being successful for the parent company (e.g., the Colt), but most just confuse vehicle shoppers. The Plymouth Cricket. The Isuzu Hombre. The Mercury Mountaineer. The list is long, but I think the Plymouth Arrow Truck gets my vote for the most senseless act of brand-diluting badge engineering in American automotive history. The Plymouth Arrow car was a rebadged Mitsubishi Lancer Celeste, and it didn’t exactly set any sales records. Apparently hallucinating much different sales figures for the Arrow, the suits at Chrysler figured they’d slap the name on Plymouth-badged Mitsubishi Mighty Max pickups and make dozens of dollars! Plymouth had made trucks in the 1940s and revived the idea with some success in the mid-1970s, but the marketplace wasn’t clamoring for Plymouth-badged Mitsubishi pickups with confusing name similarity to a slow-selling and essentially unrelated Plymouth car. What feat of badge engineering gets your vote as the most ridiculous?

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  • Detroitcarguy313 Detroitcarguy313 on Feb 12, 2012

    Chevy trucks/GMC I am by NO means an expert on the auto industry, but I'm still not seeing why there has to be BOTH when they sell pretty much the same vehicles.

  • Ccode81 Ccode81 on Feb 12, 2012

    Most Bentley under RR era.

  • Dolorean Dolorean on Jun 27, 2012

    How bout the Opel Kadett (mid-late 80s), spawning the following: Chevrolet Ipanema (BRA) Chevrolet Kadett (BRA) Daewoo LeMans (ROK) Daewoo Racer Opel Monza (RSA) Passport Optima Pontiac LeMans (US) & (AUS) Vauxhall Belmont (GB) Vauxhall Astra (GB)/ IDA Kadett (YUG) Opel Astra (East Africa; GMEA)

  • TopJimmy5150 TopJimmy5150 on Jul 26, 2012

    Hyundai Excel/Mitsubishi Precis Ford Grenada/Lincoln Versailles

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