Badge Engineering

[sirwiggum]

Welcome to the forum ToddM.
That's a great anecdote there
Seems the old Ladas were built to last for the countries they were designed for.
I sometimes read tales of Cuban 50s Cadillacs being given a new lease of life with Lada engines. I like that whole innovative way of repairing!

I admire that in engineering. The old Peugeot 504s and Merc W123s seemed to be built to last.
Even in old computers that still run.

The problem with modern items are:
- Built in obsolescence - Car manufacturers and Electrical manufacturers make no money on a resale if your old car / TV / computer is still running perfectly. So to a certain extent they are designed for a finite timeframe, maybe 2000 hours operation / 10 years / 150k miles etc.
- Disposable society - If your car breaks and it is 10 years old, if the repair is going to cost up to a grand, usually the thing gets weighed in. NuLabour got rid of a lot of classic metal on their scrappage scheme. GB number plate systems (and RoI too on a yearly basis) mean that a car is out of date at most 6 months after being bought new (up to a year in RoI if you buy on new years day). If your TV breaks, or computer, you just throw it out and get another. There is no notion of make do and mend, just endless waste and manufacturers making a fortune out of it.

[sirwiggum]

Fords and Mazdas.

Ford Fiesta mk4 and 5 were sold as Mazda 121.

Mazda 121s were sold as Ford Festivas and Kia Prides.

Mazda 323s were sold as Sao Penzas (remember them?).

Mazda 626s were sold as Ford Telstars.

I think the Ford Pickup is a Mazda.

Ford also sold the Maverick which was a Nissan Terrano.

Upon seeing the newish style transit, I initially thought it was based on the Iveco Daily, but Iveco-Ford was only for trucks and haven't been badged as such for about 10 years.

They sell a Fiesta saloon as the Ford Ikon.

Cross-branding - Mercury Capri, Mercury Cougar, the infamous Merkurs.

Renault Fluence, sold in Ireland, looks like a Megane saloon but is actually based on the Samsung SM3.

Astra saloon was sold in Brazil confusingly as the Vectra.

The old Astra saloon is sold in Russia as the Chevrolet Viva.

[FarmerPug]

ford and mazda did a lot of it
Chrysler/dodge in the 80s spongued a lot of mitsubishi designes.

Isnt that really what badge engineering is, being lazy and taking credit for someone elses work eg peugeot ion

[sirwiggum]

Well it's more contractual agreements. Maybe one company has a hole in their portfolio and another has an applicable model, and doesn't mind the revenue.
Or maybe couple of companies pooling resources.

I've worked for software companies that have "badge engineered" their products. Small companies but rebadged for big names. Eventually the 2nd company got took over by the biggest name in IT, so was an inevitable badge engineer of the application.

Speaking of Mitsubishis, Proton for years were selling old Mitsubishis. The original "Saga" model, the Persona/Wira, the little hatchback that was based on the colt. They even sold a badge engineered AX:

[FarmerPug]

Good find
The Morris Ital and Hyundai pony were badge engineered the man who was in charge of the Ital sold the design to hyundai I believe.

Badge engineering happens in tractors I'm not sure of the model but at our Renault/class (badge engineering in itself except the Renault badge got phased out) anyhow there was a number of Renault tractors painted green and called John Deere.
and the ride on lawnmower Market is almost filled with the same lawnmower with a different name castle garden or mountfield

[sirwiggum]

Italdesign designed the Pony but they didn't actually design the Ital, they just sorted out the production of the Harris Mann design and were a bit p-o-ed that BL had named it after them!

My Dad once got a Hyundai Stellar because he believed they were actually the Cortina mk6 and didn't like the look of the Sierra.

Hyundai themselves put that in an advert that it was the spiritual successor to the Cortina, and not a jellymould.

While it was based on Cortina mechanicals, the body was again Italdesign and not a secret Ford.

[sirwiggum]

[FarmerPug]

the original sierra was ugly when it came out, it wasnt until the facelifted version came out did the sierra look quite reasonable.
I think hyundai got the better nicer version of the ital.

[sirwiggum]

During the early 1970s, George Turnbull was retired from BL and took two Marinas, one saloon and one coupé to a small car producing company in Korea who were interested in developing their own car, instead of making other people's cast-offs. Hyundai took the Marinas and developed the Hyundai Pony from them, in 3-, 4- and 5-door variants, a station wagon, and a pick-up, kick-starting the company's ascendancy in car manufacturing.[18]

[waue1978]

the original sierra was ugly when it came out, it wasnt until the facelifted version came out did the sierra look quite reasonable.
I think hyundai got the better nicer version of the ital.

It depended on which version of the Sierra you got. Tje ones with the small headlights & slatted grills looked hideous, but the smooth front end looked nice & loads of people replaced them with Cossie grills too.
Does anybody know how the Sierras ended up with the 2 front ends? You couldn't even put it down to low spec/high spec as I saw loads of GLs with the ugly front & Ls with the smooth.

[FarmerPug]

alfa romeo van:

based on the fiat ducato, a van for petrolheads

[sirwiggum]

I don't know what Fiat were smoking when they decided upon that rebadge.

Peugeot also sold it as the last Talbot - Talbot Express.

Re: Sierra - I think the pre-facelift initially used the 3 bar grille for the base models, and the "aero" nose for the Ghia and XR4, but later put the same nose on all models, even the base models.
Post-Facelift did look well, as did the Sapphire.

Funnily enough though, apart from the XR4 / RS500, I don't think I ever saw a 3 door. Would be strange to see something like a 3 door Mondeo. Cortina mk5 had a 2 door Taunus variant in Europe.

[waue1978]

There were a few 2 door Mk5 Cortinas here too - think they were all 1.3s. I've seen a few base model 1.3 Sierras in my time. They all had that ugly front too. Most of them got snapped up for Cossie reshells & replicas now though.

[FarmerPug]

i remember driving the diesel sierra with the better front end.
I heard it was a peugeot engine, but it was terrible.

[plod]

Funnily enough though, apart from the XR4 / RS500, I don't think I ever saw a 3 door.

Almost certain there was some base model 3 doors
Where the XR4i had the 2 piece rear side windows, the Cosworth had the single rear window, and there was a few 2 door base model sierras with the single side rear window, and became popular for basing many a Cosworth replica on

I agree the facelifted sierra looked better, but I did like my pre facelift XR4x4 especially after I fitted the Cosworth grille, XR4i Bi-plane spoiler, and Cosworth wheels to mine