Rebadging, for many strange reasons

[Greg Myers]

An idea from Rob Hall.

The US market and foreign get many rebadged cars for one reason or another. 

[Greg Myers]

Oooops. Forgot one, The Australian GTO. My son has one. 

[paul alflen]

HOW ABOUT THE PLYMOUTH CRICKET?

[Snake45]

And how about all the cool Canadian "Pontiacs" of the '60s?

[Richard Bartrop]

The Meteor, which was sold by Canadian Mercury dealers

 

The Monarch, sold through Canadian Ford dealers.

[Force]

3 hours ago, Greg Myers said:

An idea from Rob Hall.

The US market and foreign get many rebadged cars for one reason or another. 

 

 

The Ford T5 was for the German market as the rights for the Mustang name was allready taken by another company, T5 was a Ford code for the Mustang project when it was developed.

[bbowser]

46 minutes ago, Force said:

The Ford T5 was for the German market as the rights for the Mustang name was allready taken by another company, T5 was a Ford code for the Mustang project when it was developed.

Nice that they didn't even bother to weld up the holes for the Mustang insignia !

[Ace-Garageguy]

The term "badge engineering" was common in years past, very often referring to multiple versions of the same basic car produced by companies that would ultimately be blended together to form British Leyland (like the MG Midget / Austin Healey Sprite "Spridgets").

Here's a list of LOTS more...  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_badge-engineered_vehicles

 

[espo]

3 hours ago, Richard Bartrop said:

The Meteor, which was sold by Canadian Mercury dealers

 

The Monarch, sold through Canadian Ford dealers.

I have always liked the looks of the Canadian variants. They seemed to have a lot more chrome trim and looked like a mild custom sometimes.

 

4 hours ago, Greg Myers said:

Oooops. Forgot one, The Australian GTO. My son has one. 

These were great cars and I'm sorry to hear that Holden was stopping production . When I retired in '05 I bought a new '05 GTO, Metallic Black with Black Interior and a 6 speed manual. We traded it off in '14 for a new car for my wife. I had a hard time ducking my head to get in or out. This is one of those cars you will always regret getting rid of. The build quality on this car put anything GM was building at that time to shame.     

[GMCMAN52]

Espo your right the 05 were nice rides I drove several of them as Company cars,yes I worked for the General.I loved the manual cars vs the auto. I thought that the auto was  a little dull . I even taught  my daughter how to drive a manual  with that Goat at the mall after ours .Wish I would have purchase it. Manual and Blue with black interior and blue stitches. 

[oldcarfan]

I just read an interview with the American VP for Datsun at the time and he said that he had to insist on them not using the Japanese name Fairlady for the 240Z. He went to the designer and he didn't like it either and they got together and talked Datsun into using the chassis code instead. And that's my trivia contribution for the day!

[Greg Myers]

Joining Uncle Sams Navy and moving to Okinawa right when the 240Z came out in 1970 I was surprised by two things,

one, the Japanese cars had dashboards marked in english. I was expecting to see Japanese characters '.

Second were all the traditional Japanese car names, Fairlady among them, Sunny, President Crown, 

[espo]

On ‎6‎/‎29‎/‎2018 at 3:08 PM, GMCMAN52 said:

Espo your right the 05 were nice rides I drove several of them as Company cars,yes I worked for the General.I loved the manual cars vs the auto. I thought that the auto was  a little dull . I even taught  my daughter how to drive a manual  with that Goat at the mall after ours .Wish I would have purchase it. Manual and Blue with black interior and blue stitches. 

My only objection on the manual had to do with the gearing of first and second gears. First seemed almost to low almost like a "Granny" low in a truck. It would get you across the intersection and you were ready for second. Second was a baby step up from first. I felt first should have split the difference between the two gears. Once you were into third then you were moving pretty good. The other objection that I had was with fifth and sixth gear. Just not enough step up between the to gears. Of course by that time you better be watching your rear view mirror for flashing lights. I think the first second issue had to do with the LS2 engine that lacked the low end torque below 2,000 rpm, at least that is what it felt like unless you slowly released the clutch. Above 3,000 rpm you had better have both hands on the wheel and have a plan as to were you're going because you were going to get there quickly. I knew others who had GTO's with the Auto. Trans. that were happy in stop and go traffic, but felt they were giving up something to the manual on the open highway. Either way I truly miss that car. My problem was that at 6' 2'' and an ageing stiff neck it had become difficult for me to get in and I was often hitting my head above the door opening. But it was comfortable for miles and miles and even with my lead foot I would approach 20 mpg on the highway.      

[peteski]

I fairly recent one was that Pontiac Vibe was a Toyota Matrix or vice-versa.  Seems to me that GM and Toyota make strange bedfellows.

[Bucky]

To me, this was a big knock on a great Pontiac nameplate.

My sister bought a blue LeMans, like the one pictured, thinking she had bought an American-made car.

Edited July 2, 2018 by Bucky