How Many Badges Can I Put on That Body?

The series of The Despised is getting cut short. It has drifted into another topic, a much more important one: badge engineering.

Badge engineering is when a company takes one particular car, truck, SUV, or minivan body, changes some of the looks, parts, and interior, and markets it as a different brand.

GM, Ford, and Chrysler have done it for around 70 years. Toyota, Honda, and Nissan do it with their luxury brands. Volkswagen does it with a number of their foreign brands, ones we don't have here, like Skoda and SEAT.

Let's start with badge engineering done correctly.

Behold, the Pontiac G8 (2008-2009).




It's true that Pontiac is no longer with us, and this is a great tragedy. In the G8, General Motors finally had a fun Pontiac again, one that offered V6 and V8 engines at a reasonable price. The car was an absolute hoot to drive, and just about every car magazine labeled it as a return of the America muscle car.

It also got decent gas mileage with the smaller engines, to appease the environmentalists. The largest engine, a 6.2L V8, made 415hp and was available with a 6 speed manual. Gas mileage wasn't even a suggestion.

It was a hilarious joke.

So, how's it badge engineering?

It's an Australian car.

A Holden Commodore to be precise.

Let's say it all at once, "Twins..."

All they did was put a Pontiac split grill on the front of it and called it good.

So, why is this a good example of badge engineering? After all, they didn't do that much to it.

Simple, Holden isn't sold in America. The average consumer probably didn't know that the G8 was just a warmed over Australian product.

But, the car looks like a Pontiac, and that's important. If they tried to market the Holden as a Buick, it probably would have flopped. Buick's target customer doesn't generally care for muscular, angled sedans. Pontiac buyers do.

That's the secret with badge engineering. Companies have to find exactly which product will sell for which brand and to which customer. They have to change enough to make it an independent product, but still use the same parts to keep costs down.

It's a high stakes balancing act with a brand's perception (how it's viewed) on the line.

The G8 will live on as a Chevrolet Caprice built only as a cop car. Here it is:
However, GM won't be making one for us civilians.

But that's what police surplus auctions are for. In four, five, or six years from now one of these will be up for auction. Police cars have uprated engines with more power and better suspension.

For every lucky person that can get their hands on one, that makes overdrive necessary.