Rebadged?

Today's luxury car buyers are mostly pretentious pricks that are solely focused on how prestigious a brand of car maybe and how much personal wealth the car shows off to other drivers on the road.  They care very little about what a car is really about and this trend has enabled luxury car makers to rake in millions by selling on badge alone while heavily cuttin back on quality (Mercedes-Benz).

Back in the day buying a luxury car meant buying a more luxurious, safer, and more tech advanced car than a normal car but with the change in attitude and general change in consumer needs that logic holds little truth.  Not only does people not care about a car's quality anymore than the badge on the hood, the whole consumer base demand more from an everyday car.  This resulted in everyday cars becoming more luxurious, safer, and more advanced than what we are used to see, and in some instance more so than a so called luxury car. For example you can buy real leather seats, cooled seats, panaramic glassroof and various other tech options on a Hyundai Sonota, which used to be a very cheap to own economy car.  It now has more luxury and tech options than a BMW 5 series, which equally equiped costs 30 to 40 grand more than the Sonata. The Sonata has equally impressive if not better safty rating as well. But no a luxury buyer would never consider these but only care about that BMW badge.  Is that badge really worth 40k more? I don't think a Financial Adviser would ever advice you to indulge 40k on a BMW badge.

Unbeknownst to most luxury car buyers today is also the fact that most luxury cars are rebadged version of a cheaper car. This is a trick that automotive makers have been doing for decades to reduce the research and development cost of a new car. What makes more money than putting a Porsche badge on a VW and sell it for 30k more? Nothing and VW knows people would pay more for that Porsche badge as long as they are kept in the dark about it really being a VW.

So who really plays the rebadge game today? Well it's probably more widespread than you think, but lets gain an understanding first about what auto critics mean when they say something is rebadged, shares the same chasis or shares the same platform. Rebaging is when a car company takes a car and put a different badge on the front just so they can charge more, both cars are about 90% identicle and its by far probably the most dispicable practice in the industry. Sharing the same chasis means that two cars share the underlying frame and construction, so about 70% are same. Companies do this to save money on researching and developing complete new engine and frame. Sharing the platform means that two cars are same in skeleton frame only, they look different on almost every level except when you strip everything away so about 30% are the same.

1. Acura: It is still shocking that a lot of car buyers today don't know that Acura was a brand that Honda created for North American only so they can import their high priced Honda models from Japan to the U.S. You can say that Honda was the first foreign company that figured out the shallow nature of American consumers. They know Americans would never buy an expensive Honda based on badge alone since Americans preceive Hondas to be cheap economy cars. So Honda cased in in the late 70s buy rebadging several their Japan only models to Acuras only to sell for 10s and thousands more than the Honda counterpart. Examples were Honda Integra, Legend, and NSX. Honda was so sucessful with the rebaging they made millions selling the exact same car with Acura badge in the front that Toyota and Nissan soon followed. Today models such as the Acura TSX is no more than a rebadged Honda Accord from Japan and Europe. Acura TL and RL shares the same chasis with American Accord. The Acura RDX shares platform with the Honda CRV and the best selling MDX used to be a rebadged Honda Pilot and now only shares the chasis with it.

2. Toyota: it did take long for Toyota to follow Honda's success with Acura and create their own luxury brand in North America. The Lexus brand is arguable much more successful today than Acura but it may be shocking how many rebadged models they have today. The best selling ES is no more than a rebadged Toyota Camry, even the real wheel drive GS is based on the same chasis as the Camry.  No wonder that car drives like an old persons boat even with the persona of sporty. The flagship Sedan LS also shares the same chasis with the Toyota Avelon, no surprise there. The so called 3 series fight IS shares the same platform with the Toyota corolla and in their SUV lineup the GX is no more than the rebadged Toyota 4runner and the more expensive LX is rebadged Toyota Landcruiser, which is already a very luxurious and expensive.

3. Nissan: Nissan maybe late to the party but they are no strangers to rebadge engineering either. The wildly popular G series is rebadged Nissan Skyline, which itself is a very popular car in the import street racing scene. The M series is based on a luxury Nissan model for Japan only, and most of their crossovers are created for American market only.

4. Mercedes-Benz: The mighty Mercedes is probably the most recognizable luxury name in the world 20 years ago, and today they make some disgustingly low quality and unreliable cars.  How the mighty has fallen, but at least they can still sell their grossly over priced cars based on their famed three star emblem and the tagline "we created the first car ever!" Let's forget for second how cheaply made the modern C and E classes are but take a look for second how rebadging has affected Mercedes as well. When the SUV/crossover market boomed in America during the 90s Mercedes wanted to join the fun but like other European car makers they had no experience making those SUVs. They then joined forces with Chyrsler primarily to rebabge popular American SUVs such as the Jeep grandcherokee into the now popular ML and GL class. Maybe that's why those Mercedes SUVs are so prone to break down since they are really Jeeps. Even today after the Merc and Chrysler split, the ML and GL still share chasis with many Chrysler vehicles.

5. Audi: When you wanted to buy a luxurious German sedan the choices used to be Mercedes or BMW, but now Audi has joined the party. VW capitalized Americans tendency to have short term memories, people knew Audi used to be no more than a rebadged VW and now since they are priced much more than before, they must be real luxury cars like BMW and Mercs right? Well the truth is many Audis still share the same platform or even chasis as their VW siblings. Even the famous Audi super car R8 is a rebadged Lamborghini Gallardo, doesn't Audi make any of their own cars?

6. BMW: BMW is probably the only luxury car maker in the world that you can truly say that make absolutely every single model with their own unique design. But they are also the most guilty when it comes to over charging their cars based on their badge. BMWs are arguablly the worst when it comes to standard luxury options and conviences on their cars and yet their pricing seem to increase about 100 times faster than the current inflation rate, they are probably the company that have capitalized the most with the American consumers pretentious nature by selling awefully equiped cars for 3 or 4 times as much as a car that is much better than their own. What's funny is in Europe BMW's are just like a Ford in America, in it's most basica form it has absolutely nothing. They come with cloth seats, manuel seating, and some of them don't even have cruise control. But as soon as Americans see the BMW badge they are ready to mortgage their future to buy one.

7. American brands: now you may ask why group all of them together. Well by now hopefully everyone realizes that Americans are probably the pioneers when it comes rebadging, all the our luxury brands such as Cadillac, Lincoln and Buick and rebadged version of their cheaper siblings like Ford or Chevy.  These models are also rebaged into European brands when sold in Europe since Ford and GM owns a lot of European car makers, people just don't know that.

8. Jaguar: well British cars certainly has a very tumaltous history. They were never luxurious enough to compete with the Germans, they were never reliable enough to compete with the Japanese and they were certainly never cheap enough to compete with the Americans. Jaguar had so many different ownerships during its existence that it's cars own rebadged so many different times. It's true they make a lot of their own cars but some of their more popular ones were rebadged from Ford, GM and other car makers. Now they are owned by Indians, the future doesn't look exactly bright.

9. Land Rover: true to its British nature, the Land Rover cars are way worse than they are preceived to be. They are said to be elegent yet many German and Italian cars are much more stylish and luxurious. They are said to be tough off roaders yet most American SUVs such as Jeep are much better and tougher off road than any Range Rovers out there. They are said to built with such quality that will last forever, well this is a complete joke since Land Rover has never ranked higher than dead last or 2nd to last in any of the reliability rating systems. I guess they have one thing going for them which is they don't rebadge any cars but that's easy to do if you only make a new car every 20 years. In its 100 year history Land Rover only introduced 5 new Range Rovers ever. To compare most companies come out with a new car every 5 to 6 years. And even so they don't rebadge, Land Rover has never created their own engine as they have always borrowed engine from Jaguar, BMW, Ford or GM.

9. Porsche: Porsche is known for making small sporty cars such as the 911 but they can't escape the rebadge job either. Never mind that 911 was just the VW beetle when it first started, but Cayenne is no more than a rebadged VW Toureg. Porsche is not exactly known for its SUV making so they consulted their parent company VW to rebadge.