Yesterday’s post by Tatra87 on the subject of a lovely little Suzuki Cappuccino without any identifying badges got me thinking. Cars all come with badges; always the manufacturer’s name and/or logo, usually the model, and often some additional appendatory information. But houses for example almost never advertise the maker and usually cost significantly more. Appliances inside the home usually are clearly marked no matter the price level. Athletic wear including shoes is usually slathered with logos, but business or formal attire generally is not, and casual attire often very discreetly. When I was in high school I wore a GAP sweater with their logo on the front in huge letters. Nowadays I’d refuse it. Brand loyalty is an interesting concept, if nobody could tell at a glance that your truck is a Chevy instead of a Ford, would you keep buying Chevy trucks etc…
Obviously in the case of the car, the manufacturer has an interest in advertising itself going forward. Some carmakers such as BMW for example use design elements such as their signature grille shape to almost render the badge itself moot at this point, but then there are model identifiers and performance levels, engine sizes, etc., much dictated solely by a marketing department and attached to the vehicle because they can and, let’s face it, some people like to advertise what they have for whatever reason. Some, such as Chevrolet, let you pay $185 to have a black colored logo instead of the brassy gold one and others such as Mercedes let you pay around $500 to have a backlit logo on the grille, and they were hardly the first to do so.
So the question is twofold – Are all the original badges still on your car? And would you still want or have purchased the exact same car if it had no identifiers on it whatsoever? After all, the vehicle is still exactly the same functionally either with or without the badges on it. The best way to be honest about is probably to picture what you would do if the badges fell off and there were no resulting holes, depressions in the bodywork, or glue residue on the paint, would you replace them?
I prefer badging that is discreet. However, as car styling becomes more homogeneous due to aerodynamics, and smaller cars, I can’t blame manufacturers for increasing the prominence of their branding. However, tacky it may often look.
It wouldn’t stop me from buying a car I’m interested in. Unless it was noticeably in poor taste. Unfortunately, some of the most overdone branding is now part of the front grille. Not easy for the owner to address.
I’ve never removed badges, but I find many dealers don’t have especially attractive branding. I’ve removed dealer labels on my cars for years. 🙂
Certain cars certainly don’t need badges, the Charger is clearly what it is based on styling alone, same with all the pony cars, corvettes etc. in some cases these don’t even wear the corporate logo anywhere on the exterior, despite their flagship position in the brands.
As for my own car, if the badges are ugly, yep, they gone. If it’s a brand new car they get thrown in the bin with the stupid plastic engine cover until I trade it in. For the many many years I’ve had my Cougar I removed the chrome accent strips at the bottom of the tail lights, which happen to contain the the brand model and submodel. Never bothered me one bit but I did reinstall them because I was bored of the look after a while.
Nice Matt! – My ’94 (actually the ex’s) T-Bird was that color.
Looks its best at sunset on one of those days where the sky is colorful.
(but I’m sure you know that ;o)
Yep, thanks! That picture happened to be taken on a late October sunset too. The color looks it’s worse at high noon, the sun washes out all the pearl making it look appliance white in all but the shadows, where it just looks dirty lol
I’m from the “no badges please ” camp. I personally don’t like the size of them now, they look totally ridiculous. (Benz, RAM etc) I would get the heat gun and pull every one. I pulled the power stroke badges off our F350 in a vain attempt to have it be less of a theft target, to no avail. Cant stand dealers badges, at least they aren’t riveted on anymore.
Actually surprised the makers haven’t gone to a full roof wrap with its logo, kind of like the Mini’s with the Union Jack. A missed opportunity!
I had a 1968 Ford Falcon Futura wagon. There were no Ford badges on that car. It had “Futura” badges on the rear fenders and on the glovebox door and there was a shield badge on the steering wheel that Ford was using during those years. I got a parking ticket in it once. They wrote it up as a Mercury. I told he judge I didn’t have a Mercury. He dismissed the ticket.
When the Asian manufacturers started moving from brand name badges to obscure logos, I found it frustrating, especially trying to ID a generic car from a distance. Is that the Mazda or Hyundai, or perhaps Infiniti logo? But my real hot button are the branded license plate frames. Your car already has a blue and white roundel badge on the trunk, plus 335i in letters/numbers. Do you really need a chrome license plate frame that says BMW? In the words of the great Edward Tufte https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Tufte “visual clutter”.
Apropos of nothing, a few years back I saw Tufte give a conference talk here in Chicago… well worth it.
The model badge fell off my Focus shortly after I got it, apparently there were some defective ones. I contemplated as a joke replacing it with a Falcon badge sourced from Australia, but it was too damn hard to find. Plus the dealer replaced it free.
We have an VW Golf Alltrack…I removed the TSI and Golf badges and left the Alltrack and 4Motion ones, for now.
I’m fine with the manufacturer’s logo and model name being on badges. What I don’t need are badges denoting a trim level or engine size, unless it’s something truly special like a high-end version of a muscle car or sports car. Nobody cares that my Hyundai Elantra is an SE or has a 2.0L engine under the hood. Even worse are callouts to mechanical features, like when GM put “ABS” badges on every car that had anti-lock brakes. Nobody needs to know about my transmission choice either. I guess I’ll allow a “hybrid” badge since some owners may want people to know they’re doing good for the environment and such.
I’m curious about the once-common practice, at least on American cars, of having a model-name badge somewhere on the side of the car. This was standard from the 1950s into the ’80s – and of course if it was a Brougham you needed to know about that too – but by the ’90s those badges had mostly disappeared. But recently they’ve made a comeback on some brands, like Chevrolets and Lincolns.
The Tesla Model 3 doesn’t say “Tesla” on it anywhere, not even in back. While that wouldn’t bother me if I owned one, I do find it a head-scratcher from a marketing prospective. Why wouldn’t an upstart manufacturer want people to know their cars are becoming popular? The badge on the back is free advertising. Would, say, Lexus have grown as quickly as it did if their cars didn’t say “Lexus” on them anywhere?
Does anybody see a model 3 and not know it’s a Tesla? I know we car types are in our own world when it comes to car knowledge, but these cars and Elon Musk are so intertwined in th Zeitgeist, not to mention their distinctive looks it’s hard to imagine anybody who’d potentially buy one needs huge badging in their face to seal the deal.
In this area of the world (Baltimore/Washington Corridor) the Tesla Model 3 is becoming so commonplace, it is starting to blend in with all the other sedans.
In this case, its lack of badging may be the attention-getter here.
I wasn’t referring to Tesla fans who follow Elon’s every tweet; I mean mainstream non-car people who have heard of Tesla and may even know what they look like, but don’t think of *themselves* as potential Tesla buyers. I think they might be swayed by seeing more Teslas on the road, making it clear that they (and EVs in general) are reaching the mainstream, something that is easier to notice if the car in front of them at the red light says “Tesla” on it. I’m also in the DC/Baltimore corridor and wonder if the Model 3 is “blending in with other sedans” too well for their own good in this respect.
Are people buying Corollas and RAV4s simply because they see them and their badges in high numbers?
I’d suggest Tesla’s ascent with very little badging is strong evidence that the marketing “experts” rationale towards big bold badging is specious hogwash. If normal car shoppers don’t really notice the distinctive styling cues of a Tesla, why would they notice a little bit of chrome letters either?
Because non-car people can usually read, but cannot tell a Tesla from another car, “styling cues” notwithstanding. I was pointing out Teslas to my parents, the last couple of times I was in their area – they had never noticed them before.
Most folks can tell a Benz or a BMW from their grille and emblem because they’ve been around for decades. Teslas haven’t, but because they don’t identify themselves with lettering, people who don’t see cars the way enthusiasts do remain unaware of their presence. It’s a bad strategy, IMHO.
I’m not sure I agree with BMW, historically the most characteristic identifier is the twin kidney grille, period. I doubt anyone needs to see the roundell to tell its a BMW. Its not that prominent an emblem either and the actual BMW lettering within you practically need reading glasses to identify. On top of that various alphanumeric model emblems are practically jibberish even to enthusiasts.
Tesla is still very young, but BMW and Mercedes once were too, and neither needed in your face badging to identify their early examples. Enthusiast or not it’s their background presence that filters into our conscious. Generationally I’d wager our grandparents probably never noticed a 2002 from a Corvair or a Falcon 2 door sedan in the early 70s,
How do you identify a BMW from the back, as it zooms past you on the highway? The blue and white roundel. Same with Mercedes’ three-pointed star. Tesla’s “T” emblem looks pretty uninspired by comparison. And a bit too similar to Dodge or the bazillion model-specific ones made by other carmakers, especially in Asia.
If they were close enough to one, your grandparents could read the “2002”, “Corvair” and “Falcon” scripts on the cars you mention. That made it easy to tell what was what, even if they looked kind of similar.
Emblem + model name on the rear of a car makes sense. All the other stuff, such as engine configuration, displacement, trim level, dealer’s plate, etc., is superfluous, but good to have for those of us who like to know these things.
The roundel is a round blue and white circle, the Mercedes 3 pointed star is a three pointed star. One you can barely make out the name around the edge if you squint hard, the other has no brand text at all. To know what brand these emblems represent is to know the brand. If you were an American and didn’t know what Mercedes was in the 50s and you happened upon one in traffic, what more does that emblem tell you than the Tesla T in 2019? You couldn’t exactly google it back then to look it up, while now you can ask your voice assistant “hey, what was that car with T on the back?”
I’m not anti-emblems, but I am pro minimalism. I don’t think an elaborate billboard alerting to people what it is will do anything for Model 3 sales. Mercedes and BMW didn’t get clout from grandiose styling, if anything they were anti style(by the Detroit tradition), people learned about them the same way people learned about Tesla – substance:
“You want real luxury, like built like a bank vault overengineering? Let me tell you about Mercedes Benz!”
“You should look into BMW if you’re outgrowing the impracticality of your Sports roadster, they go and handle better and are as practical as a sedan”
“you want a fast and totally livable electric car? Check out Tesla!”
Big gaudy emblems are for cars and trucks that shout “Notice at my gimmicky multifunction tailgate! I’M A CHEVROLET!!!”
“Even worse are callouts to mechanical features, like when GM put “ABS” badges on every car that had anti-lock brakes.”
This being CC, I always find it interesting to see an old car with a badge calling out some feature that was special at the time but is commonplace now. Such as:
-The ’79 Corolla my dad had when I was a kid had a “5-Speed” badge on the rear hatch. Remember when a manual having 5 gears wasn’t always a given?
-The ’88 Buick I drove in high school had “Fuel Injection” badges on the front fenders. Remember when having fuel injection was considered special?
I’ve also noticed recently, with turbochargers becoming commonplace you hardly ever see “turbo” badges anymore. In the 1980s, if your car had a turbo it was pretty much a given there was a badge somewhere announcing that fact. Now, not so much. They’re not completely go yet, though; I have noticed turbo badges on some recent model Kias and Chevy Sparks.
The New Beetle was offered in both turbo and TDI variants, albeit with no badging to indicate. The turbos had a pop-up spoiler at the top of the rear hatch, though.
I bought a TDI badge at a VW dealer when I was in München on business and added to mine.
I hate dealer badges but am pretty indifferent about other badges.
I generally prefer badging, at least the model name and brand emblem. I’m not a fan of the “debadged” look… a little too ghetto for me. As others have mentioned, dealer badges belong on the paperwork, not the trunk.
I’m with you and MT on dealer badges. I always remove them and/or the dealer license plate trim thing as I’m opposed to using my car as a rolling billboard advertising the dealer.
Case in point, traded in our 5-series a couple years ago for a newer Fusion at a Kia dealership. There was a sticker on the back window with the dealer’s name, a license plate trim plate (or whatever you want to call it) and a sticker on the trunk lid. All were removed by me a day after bringing the Fusion home.
However, on some of the older, collector cars I’ve had, I have restrained myself from removing a dealer badge. Usually because they look good or add a little something extra to the vehicle.
I have not debadged any car of mine, but that comes down to being lazy more than anything else. I really don’t like the badging for the most part, but understand the OEMs reasoning for putting them on. And, in the dealership, it makes it easy for a sales rep to spot which car is likely to have (or not have) the features you just said you wanted.
My favorite is when someone rebadges using a foreign version of the same car (like the change of a GTO to a Holden, or a Saturn becoming an Opel) or even when they purposely rebadge with ridiculous changes, like BMW badges on a Daihatsu. That makes it an inside joke among people who love cars and know the difference.
On the list of things that bother me the presence or absence of badging on cars is way, way down the list. I don’t remove the badges the factory put on but I have never added anything either. To my way of thinking everyone who cares what brand of pickup truck you have will know, regardless if you put “Ford” or “Ram” or whatever in six inch high letters. Likewise the ones who don’t know probably don’t care either.
My Dad told me that debadging a car was a big fad in the fifties.
Personally, I’m a ‘leave it stock’ kinda guy, so the make, model, and trim badges are ok by me. I’m thankful that my Mustang lacks a lot of the ornamentation that many Mustangs have though. I’m also happy that my Civic says just that, “CIVIC”. We don’t need no stinking “Turbo” badges, that seemed all the rage in the eighties.
I know what I got. ;o)
But dealer license plate frames, badges, any of that is NOT STOCK, and comes off of the car as soon as I bring it home for the first time.
Actually, let me rephrase that: The dealer license plate frames are still on my Mustang and Civic… Since they’re plastic, they are flipped around and used as a spacer to keep the metal tag from touching the paint!
I don’t really care about badges, so no, I don’t remove them.
What I do remove is the dealership’s license plate frame. Why should I give them free advertising? And I got my current car from an Autonation dealership, which uses pink frames. No, I’m not driving around with a pink license plate frame on my car.
Those frames often create an elusive, distant rattle. And a rattly clang when you close the tailgate. First thing I take off any car I buy.
One car model whose lack of badges (and any other decoration) is part of the designed identity of the car is the Ford Mustang Bullitt – both 2008/2009 models and current ones.
The few who do know immediately understand what the car is. It is identified by color and sound but not badges. Those who don’t know may know it is a Mustang but have no idea what a very special car it really is. The name “Mustang” and the horsey symbol never appear.
There is a badge on the rear that uses the word but if you know cars you identify it long before reading “BULLITT” in that deck lid gunsight badge.
I like the badges. The ’50s were the golden age, with sweeping “modern” script that captured the essence of newness and high style. However, Ford’s “Custom 300” and Cadillac’s “Series 62” from that time lack series identification, which is probably why so few people recognize those model names. (Unlike “Fairlane” and “Coupe De Ville”).
I’m against the practice of “shaving”, i.e. taking the emblems off. Aesthetically you’re losing something special about the car, not gaining.
Modern cars/SUVs/trucks are boring enough. Take away the brand identification and you’re left with an anonymous jellybean or flying brick.
I like my car in as new condition, so I leave the emblems alone. The dealer plate frames come off as soon as the permanent plates are delivered.
However, there was one time I did remove badges from one of my cars. In late 1983, Nissan was putting on these tacky gold laurel leaf 50th anniversary emblems on its new 1984 cars for a short time. As much as I like to leave my cars alone, I couldn’t stand these cheap, tarty adornments, and it wasn’t long before I pulled them off. I still have them around somewhere, though.
I don’t like too many badges, but my feeling on debadged cars in traffic is that it strikes me as incomplete collision repair, not a style choice. Since it’s hard to tell, I have to come down on the side of preferring some badges.
I say definitely yes. I’ve had two Saab’s and one bmw which all had dicey or absent badges – one of the first things I did with all 3 was replace the missing or worn badges with new ones.
I would also like to add that at one time, nearly all makes of cars (including Chevrolet, Oldsmobile, Buick, Cadillac, Dodge, De Soto, Chrysler, Ford, Mercury, Lincoln, Studebaker, Packard, Kaiser-Frazer, Nash, and Hudson) all had a heraldic shield or crest mounted on their cars and used in advertising. Like many hallmarks of Western Civilization that are now disappearing, this automotive heraldry is all gone now, except Cadillac’s crest, which has been greatly minimized (No more ducks; the last duck died with the Catera).
Other thing that bothers me with badging is submodel and engine callouts where there isn’t any other engine or submodel that’s even available. My Cougar is a XR7, but in 1994 ALL Cougars were XR7s, same with the Thunderbird “LX” or my Focus “SE”.
I’m sure the marketing rationale is giving off perception of value, but it’s cynically deceptive to imply that you bought anything more special than the base or lone submodel it is.
I like a minimum of badges, but I do like logos. The BMW propeller, the Buick shield, etc… if done well, I think they make a car more interesting.
I would add to that COLORIZE THE DANG LOGO
Buick looks so much better now that the trisheild is red, white, and blue again. I wish they would do the same to the center caps on the wheels and to the one on the steering wheel. Take pride.
I hate the “flow-tie” logo on up level Chevy performance vehicles were they reduce the bow tie to a mere outline on the grille.
Have you seen the Ford logo on the steering wheel of the 2020 Explorer? It’s monotone and looks gross to me – like the paint peeled off. Given Ford’s reputation for peeling badges (Edge and eleventh-generation F-Series), not a very wise decision.
Edit: appears to be a normal Ford logo now. I must have been looking at a pre-production truck.
I was actually going to post this… Seeing the color tri-shield on my car gives me the warm fuzzies. Nostalgia to be sure, but it doesn’t cost them much more and it just makes me like the car that much more.
I’m more of a “leave it alone” guy than I used to be but some things irritate me.
Example: my 2010 Highlander was a “base” mode but had the optional V6 and 4wd. However Toyota only gave a call out for the 4wd so I added a V6 badge because I was irritated by the lack of badging for what was the top engine. I also added a small chrome “TRD” badge on the hatch because I’m a smartass – but I won’t do that kind of thing again.
My 2018 Buick Regal TourX doesn’t even have a little “T” badge to indicate turbo like Buicks did in the past. It’s no Grand National but I liked the little “T” badges because it was a historical call back to Buick’s past. I am in the process of adding a “T” badge but one that is subtle and discreet. I also purchased a “Buick 4 TURBO intercooled” badge but I’m putting that under the hood on the engine cover because GMs embossed (but not colored) “ecotech” on said cover is so sad. I reserve the right later to colorize the echtech to make it stand out.
I miss call outs for engines, especially when it is the top option for a car or at least not one to be embarrassed about. My Mustang has a clear “289 V8” badge on the fender, new 2.0T Accord will let you know by a badge on the trunk lid, GMC incorporates the 5.3 and 6.2 V8s displacement into the badges of the Sierra, GM slaps a V6 badge on the Canyon and Colorado if so equipped. Those that don’t on their vehicles it is almost as if they are embarrassed of the fact that the have an ICE under the hood.
I blame metric displacement, two digits and a decimal point really limits graphic design creativity. The lone exception would be Ford’s 80s badging, most famously the 5.0. Plus cubic inches have displacements that are almost rhythmic to say, two seventy three, three fifty one, four forty. Liters break the rhythm with the spoken decimal point.
Neat! You should do a feature on your TourX! Very cool cars.
I like stock badging. I recently bought a ‘12 Tacoma that had OEM black badges that I disliked. Stock chrome ones from a junkyard were readily available and look so much better on such a clean truck. Blacked out trim and rims are SO overplayed at this point…
Feature was sent to curbsideclassic@gmail.com but haven’t heard back…
When’d you send it? I haven’t seen anything.
curbsideclassic(at)gmail.com
FYI that’s still listed under “contact” on this website. I’m emailing from a gmail account.
If you’ve got a different one you’d like used I’m all ears.
No, not where, WHEN? I get and respond to multiple emails per week there and went back to look for yours, but nada. If you have a date that might help although I went back a ways…thanks!
September 2nd (per my sent file at least the pics were)
I resent the text because I couldn’t find when the text of the article had been sent.
Nope, nothing on the 2nd or thereabouts and nothing today. You’re a contributor, why not just drop it into wordpress and upload the pix that way like everyone else, then you can format it?
I’ll send you an email offline now…sorry for the late response
I just sent you two emails, I have two addresses on file for you but neither is a gmail as you noted above. One is a hotmail and the other is your own site if you know what I mean… I’m sending from a personal email address to keep the CC mail out of it in case that’s the issue.
I utilized wordpress and submitted for review.
Thanks Jim, I’m updating my email on my profile now – I haven’t used the hotmail that was listed for quite a while.
Look forward to your review, Dan – I see you posting on the Regal site often. We’re loving our TourX, and have put about 12K on it so far. I have everything to do the declad/Opel rebadge for it, just need a full Saturday alone with the car to execute.
I am not commenting too fast. I am commenting precisely the correct amount.
Now I don’t want to tell my emblem story again. I’m taking all my words and going home.😝
Copy and paste before submitting. Should take it second time around.
It’s okay. I realized my story was boring anyway.😑
I never debadged any of my cars: Cortina, Laser, Swift, Mazda 3.
However when I had the Cortina I did a junkyard search for a ‘Cartier’ badge off one of those special-edition LTDs with the idea of putting that on my old base-trim Cortina in place of the L badge, sort of like “Take that, status-slaves!” Never did, though. But I did find an extra ‘O’ so I could change the FORD separate-letter badging to FRODO when the Lord of the Rings was real popular, but then realised there’d be a lot of extra hole-drilling and filling for the spacing to look right. 🙂 So it didn’t happen either.
The Laser’s plastichrome badging faded to obscurity, so did the Swift’s sticker-type tailgate badges, especially the 5-speed one. You have to look carefully to see that it was ever there now.
Growing up as a little car nut in the 50’s, I loved badging of all kinds. I never got bored on road trips – looking for PowerGlide, PowerFlite, Overdrive, et al, on the backs of cars. And you were the car expert kid when you knew – from a distance – that the 1954 Olds in front of you was a 98 by the unique thick chrome strip running down the trunk long before the Ninety Eight lettering came into view. Of course during the era customizers were busy removing all of this stuff and filling and sanding and frenching while at the same time adding spotlights and Cadillac grilles and Olds spinner wheelcovers to Chevies.
As we moved into the power mad 60’s it was great fun spotting the 327, 396, 352, 390, engine designations.
It’s fun to see that car collectors today attach that once disdained dealer badging to their old cars to make them look more period authentic.
In response to all the (somewhat justifiable) dealer badge hate I’m reading here, I would not recommend removing them, as they can be useful in documenting a car’s history.
A 1958 Cadillac I owned had this sticker on the trunk. I wrote to A.W. Golden, and they looked in their files and sent me the ORIGINAL INVOICE for the car!
I also like the vintage look of the older dealer stickers and emblems:
I’m conflicted about dealer badges for that very reason. I can’t stand the things, and always ask dealers not to put them on, but on the other hand, they’re often my favorite part of an older car. Plus, when traveling out of state and I see other Virginia-registered cars, I always check for a dealer sticker to see where they’re from!
My Mustang has a faded peeling sticker of “Jim Roof Ford Ottawa, OH” and my Dad has lived his whole life in that county but I’ve never ran into anyone who seemed to know anything about that dealer or dealership.
Some states require the make of car to be displayed, front and rear. DaimlerChrysler found that out on the second generation Dodge Intrepid. When first introduced in 1998, it had “DODGE” on an emblem on the hood, but on the rear, it only had “INTREPID” in the full-width taillight assembly. That was not enough. At some point in production, “DODGE” was added, using a stick-on logo, on the left side of the decklid.
Illustration: a 1998 on the left, a 2004 (last year of production) on the right.
I guess Chevrolet never found that out between those same years!
I’m not so sure about that, I don’t think any Jeep Wrangler has ever said Jeep on the rear end, our 2015 certainly doesn’t and I can’t see it on any images of the previous two generations either. And Matt is correct re: the Corvette. Our Toyota has the logo in the front but nothing spelling it out (it’s the same for most cars in that regard, actually).
Perhaps Dodge just wanted to advertise their name more?
My MKZ says Lincoln on the rear, but not on the front. My Fords have the logo which happens to include the name, as do my Mercuries but on those, from the Mountain/Cliffs/Stylized M era includes Mercury in the ring around the outside of the logo, front and rear, however the letters are so small you aren’t reading it from any distance at all.
I had the badges removed and holes filled when I had my car repainted, so there’s my vote.
Badging seems more important today then in years past. Create a row of compact cars like Accord, Camary, Altima, Sonata, and several others all in the same black or white color and I wouldn’t be able to tell them apart. I miss the days when just a short glance was enough to tell the make and model of the car.
As far as going overboard with the trim level, engine size I don’t think that matters to the average observer of the car on the street as much as to the ego of the owner.
Amen.
One of my favorite script badges was on the back of the Chrysler New Yorker from 1976-78. Why? Because in one badge it told you what you needed to know. It was a Chrysler New Yorker. One badge. Everything in it. I’ve tried and failed to load a long forgotten badge from the 1920’s, that of the Wills Sainte Claire. If you’re interested you’ll just have to look it up. It really is a work of art.
Yes, it would be hard to replicate that in Plasti-Chrome.
Thanks!
“Generationally I’d wager our grandparents probably never noticed a 2002 from a Corvair or a Falcon 2 door sedan in the early 70s,”
My grandmother was driving a 1602 in the early 70s followed by a 2002 Tii
When my wife got a ’04 Elantra GT(the one that looked like a Saab from the back) I removed the Elantra badging from the back and replaced it with home market ones.
It did cause a moment of grief the first time I ran it thru DEQ. The tech couldn’t find any reference to an Avante GT.
Haven’t debadged a car in a long time, though I’ve added one of those Cadillac Fuel Injection badges on my Travelall, and a cheesy Limited Edition badge from Walmart to cover the holes from the Police Interceptor badge the county removed before sale on my Daughter’s car.
My 300b Marauder has had its Mountain badges front, rear and steering wheel replaced with the Fireman/God’s Head logos from the original Marauder’s era and chrome letters in the Embossed Marauder in the bumper cover. Done by a previous owner.
On my Scout Cab Top I’ve updated the badges to ones from an late 80’s MD truck.
Speaking of which when I was out yesterday there was a nicely done Dentside that the owner had modernized the badges with ones from a late model F-350 XLT.
I have also thought about trying to track down a new set of Zephyr letters and back dating my MKZ, but it probably won’t happen.
When I bought my 03 Falcon ute, I noticed that nowhere on the car was a Falcon badge, my ute is the base model, a Falcon XL, and it seems some utes either came badged as that on the tailgate, or no badges at all, like mine, not sure why, all had the Ford oval of course.
So when it needed some minor collision work repair. (not my fault) I had the body shop put the missing badges in the correct place, as I thought it needed to have its proper name on the car.
The only badges I dislike are boring ones. The single-piece plastic in a boring typeface with the car brand or model. Yawn. Like Chrysler did in the 80s where the brand name was on the left side of the decklid and the model was on the right.
I miss artfully done badges. The gorgeous over-the-top scripts or the big bold block letters that were once so common. I love the big D-O-D-G-E on the back of the modern Grand Caravan – it is a great throwback to the era of Fluid Drive. The one on the back of my Fit with the blue circle dotting the I is sort of from that old-school badge look. I would never take that one off.
As for me, I drive a Kia Sedona, so you know that I don’t do badging for the prestige of it. I won’t go to the trouble to remove it, but don’t think it adds anything either.
The factory badging for the most part does not bother me.
The thing that bothers me is those folks that put those license plate frames on that proudly display the maker of the car.
This morning I was behind a BMW 3 series with a rear tag frame that said BMW on it. I see these on Acura, Benz, Infiniti, BMW and Lexus vehicles all the time. It is like the copious badging already on the vehicle would identify it to anybody, but they feel compelled to have another badge on the car to denote what it is
Looking over all these comments reminded me of the friend of a friend in college, who had a Lark. The manufacturer’s name on the trunk was partially missing. It just read “Stud”. I never knew if that was intentional or just age.
On my 04 Sienna all the factory badges are still there and I might replace them if they fell off.
When I bought my 93 Camry, the Toyota logo on the trunk lid was already missing and the holes filled in. Then the badge that says Toyota fell off and I just don’t care enough to glue it back on. The letters that say Camry are integrated into the plastic on the trunk lid and those are not going anywhere. I think my Camry might have Gold plated badges since the logo on the grill cover is rather golden.
I came back from a hike to find an older couple looking at my car. One of them asked me, “Who makes Element?”
First time I’d noticed that it doesn’t say Honda anywhere outside except on the window glass corners.
They were the auto company formerly known as Honda, now known as “H”.
I removed my GTI badge and turned it into a necklace. Not really, but I’m thinking about it.
If I ever get a Honda Element, I’m getting a custom badge “Elephant”.
Supposedly the old Honda FIT badge that had the colored “jewel” as the dot of the “i” was being stolen off of cars and turned into jewelry in some parts of the world where the FIT was being sold.
You mention that houses don’t have labels.
In the ’50s when huge subdivisions were being built to satisfy the baby boom, houses did have recognizable brands. In Manhattan there were three big builders, each operating in one corner of town. Johnson houses were like Chevys, colorful and varied but not especially solid. Phelps houses were Plymouths, plain and repetitive but reliable. Rader houses were Buicks, modest-looking but high quality, with elegant architectural features inside.
Everyone knew the brands and calibrated status accordingly.
I suppose any mass-produced product ends up with brands.
And there were many of these mounted on new homes when I was growing up:
On the right car, I like a debadged look, but have never fully debadged one of my own. In fact, I trend heavily toward rebadging. My Vega got a Buick Turbo 6 graphic added when I did the V6 swap (although mine was n/a). My New Beetle got a TDI badge added, purchased at a VW dealer in Munich. It also got decaled as Herbie. And my ’71 VW Campmobile got a full WWII B-17 paintjob.
More recently, my former ’15 Honda Fit was rebadged as a Jazz, the ’15 RAM 2500 has been rebadged as a Power Wagon and my ’17 Chev SS is rebadged as a Holden Commodore SS-V Redline. As noted above, our ’18 Buick Regal TourX is poised to be rebadged as an Opel Insignia Tourer. I waffled on rebadging as a Holden Commodore, but decided the Opel ‘blitz’ logo might elicit more interesting questions; “Is that a Tesla?”
Oh, all dealer decals/badges/licence plate frames are immediately removed upon purchase.
Back to the RAM, it’s one of the worst OEM badge jobs out there – the front fenders sport a veritable Powerpoint bullet slide’s worth of chrome blah-blah.
Imagine if you had the “LARAMIE LONGHORN” package too so you could have that badge looking like a cowboy’s belt buckle.
When you did the V6 swap in the vega, to be more accurate you could have used the red “6” which is the non-turbo V6 from the very rare lesabre grand national!
https://oldcarmemories.com/1986-buick-lesabre-grand-national-the-rarest-performance-buick-ever-produced/
Mine had been debadged. But there were too many like that, so I put them back
I took this pic a few years ago.
The worst case of fake badging I’ve ever seen.
Every now and then the owner of a (pick a name) car likes to close his eyes and pretend he’s driving a Ferrari.
Then there are some badges that have a double meaning
Take the Dodge Viper logo
Right side up it is the snake
Upside down it is Daffy Duck
Some i like and some i don’t. I have both added and removed emblems from cars. I had a 78 Ford LTD landau with a 73 Ford header and hood that I removed the emblems from. I had this idiot neighbor named Billy who every time he saw the car would say it was illegal in Washington DC to drive with out emblems. I never got stopped in DC for anything but was accused of stealing it in Stafford Virginia. Years later It was missing it’s hood ornament and i was junking my 79 Lincoln so it ended up with a Lincoln hood ornament and Lincoln turbine wheels .
Current car a 83 Lincoln mark vi says Lincoln no where on it but does say continental and mark vi and signature series and fuel injection. And it used to say automatic overdrive but that fell off. It also has multiple Lincoln crosses.
The new cars have giant emblems since they look so generic. They look rediculous and see only there so people don’t think they new car is some obscure Korean model.
I give the most rediculous emblem award the the Dodge RAM that says RAM in 5 inch tall chrome block letters. I though my son in-law was lying when he said they were factory. They looked like they came from pep boys or Home Depot.
I had a 78 lesabere I removed aLL the emblems from. I put a Cadillac emblem on another big Ford and a plastic cow in place of a hood ornament on a olds Delta 88.
I find it redundant to have a license plate frame that says Ford mustang on the back of a Ford mustang with Ford mustang badges on the trunk lid. duh!
For quite some time I had a license plate frame on my Mustang that said “MUSTANG 1967” but I still had people asking “what year is it?”
Just 10 years later I never see them anymore, but when Ford was making the Taurus X, I always thought it would be funny to add a badge before the badge, so that it said Tyrana Taurus X.
Come to Pinkley Ford! Check our Pinkley Taurus!
I’m surprised nobody has mentioned the venerable window decal. You know, the kind that take up ¼ of the windshield or rear window.
Factory air conditioning decals were a big status symbol when I was growing up. Very impressive considering how expensive A/C was at the time.