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Don’t worry: the reference is so obscure I’ll probably forget it.
36 Comments on “What’s Wrong with this Picture: Jack Gleason Edition...”
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Good one!
I don’t know who Jack is.
Is it wrong (the picture) because that little badge on all the fenders is labelled as the ‘GM mark of excellence’?
A better reference would be “Get Smart” Agent 86… Missed it by that much!
I wonder how much the UAW guy who sticks these things on crooked gets paid?
–chuck
I’m not sure who’s more talented… The badge applicator or the guy urinating while taking this picture.
Oh I didn’t notice it’s misaligned. That’s funny.
What is a GM car?
No joke…I have been noticing the same got-damn thing. Come on General Motors, get your shit together before you get demoted to Private Motors. Ironically, I noticed this right on Mound Road across from the GM Tech Center.
I used to watch Jackie Gleason. You know “The Honeymooners”. There was a GM Mark of Excellence in the 60’s but it wasn’t an external piece of trim.
When I was a kid in the early ’60’s, we had a neighbor who bought a new Pontaic. I was young enough then that, in the way of the young absorbing the world and taking it as the ultimate reference, it just seemed out of the norm rather than a NSFW-up
On the obscurity challenge, I’m going to guess it’s a Watergate reference of sorts.
It’s the misaligned badge on the Volt concept car that is GM’s moon shot to salvation.
Y’all have no idea if the badge is mis-aligned or not. The bottom of the GM badge is mounted parallel to the horizontal rocker line, so if you can’t see the rocker line in the pix, you have no idea whether it is aligned or not. The body line you are trying to judge said badge’s alignment with is an accelerating body line such as the leading edge of a driver’s door, which it most likely is.
However…the gap shown in the picture appears to vary from top to bottom by at least 2mm. If so-not good. Is this a new model or a long-in-the-tooth model in which the body ties tend to get sloppier as the years go by.
Good point, Stu. On the gap, almost looks like the door isn’t entirely closed. Can’t be too old of a car–GM just started adding these a few years ago.
Tomorrow everyone’s going to be checking out the badge on every recent GM car they see.
The guy at Pep Boys who puts the stick-on “vent-a-ports” on every car known to mankind could have put the GM emblem on straighter than this one turned out.
Stu has an excellent point about the lack of reference to the rocker line, however if the badge in the picture is indeed straight and not crooked, the leading edge of the door would be slanted towards the front wheels instead of away from the front wheels like it is on most (all?) cars I’ve ever seen.
Probably crooked as hell, Mark of Excellence my ass.
Bang! Zoom! To the moon, Alice, to the moon!
Not sure what this picture has to do with GM’s moon shot though, I’ve seen the badge on pictures of the Volt but all the pictures have been of silver cars. And the Volt test mule (Malibu) was dark colored. Heeeeey, anyone know where the picture of the prototype Ricky boy drove around DC is? Wasn’t it white?
Is it a reference to Smokey and the Bandit, in which the sheriff (Jackie Gleason) takes a leak on the side of the road?
There is definitely a reflection of somebody peeing. Either that or a really skinny rainbow.
If “Jack Gleason” refers to Jackie Gleason, then I look forward to the “R. Allen Zimmerman Edition” of 3WTP.
Stu has an excellent point about the lack of reference to the rocker line, however if the badge in the picture is indeed straight and not crooked, the leading edge of the door would be slanted towards the front wheels instead of away from the front wheels like it is on most (all?) cars I’ve ever seen.…
And that would require knowing if the logo is on the forward side of the door, or is it on the fender, behind the tire…So without a real reference point, we just don’t know. If we go by the old GM, well, that would make the answer pretty obvious.
Hate to be a dope, but I don’t get the Honeymooners reference.
As a D-2.8 autoworker nothing pisses me off more than seeing “off location” badging on cars. Its a simple but important detail that gets over looked often. And the D-2.8 are the worst offenders but that said I’ve seen my share of Toyotas, Hondas with the same problem. Its one of my many messed up automotive pet peeves to watch for this on cars.
But if you notice the problem is consistant on some models, and that is NOT a line workers fault. That is poor attention to detail by an engineer and a union toolmaker. If you really watch for it you’ll find this is the case with alot of cars.
Also watch for badging on decklids/liftgates that “smile” at you. The left side badge drops lower near the end and the right side starts low and rises near its end. This is very common I find.
Can’t tell if the door is ajar or if it’s just a bad door align. Gap is off. I did notice that the GM badge is worn. Looks as though it’s been thru the car wash a few times. How bout GM just stops putting these emblems on their cars. The person who put it on probably just came back from ‘lunch’ on a Friday night.
I always thought these little badges were a dumb idea and a waste of money.
I saw one upside-down last year on a Cobalt, although I hope (and pray) the owner did it. Upside-down cross inspired perhaps?
A little off topic, but does anyone else notice most of the Chrysler/Dodge badges have their plastic chrome peel off? Looks terrible and provides for a terrible visual analogy for their quality.
@LXbuilder
I always assumed it was body shops that place badging off-location when repairing cars. Older Chrysler minivans seem to be where I’ve noticed it most.
Having never assembled a car or otherwise worked in the industry, it’s possible that I only notice the most egregious screw ups.
I agree with Stu.
Some comments:
– is it just me, or does the colour of the adjacent panels seem to differ in hue?
– let’s hope this is not a pic of the Volt, but rather just a poorly repaired car coming out of a body shop;
– per Wiki, GM stopped refering to the logo as “The Mark of Excellence” in the late 70’s, interesting correspondence with the general decline of the General;
– I propose that it be now called “The Mark of Incompetence, Arrogance and Bankruptcy”.
This badge comes from the same kind of bureaucratic thinking that caused my former government employer to make ZERO DEFECTS license plates to put on the front of all the shipyard-owned cars and trucks, back in the day when this was teh management buzzword. Needless to say, most of them were damaged to some extent by the time six months had passed, but they stayed on the vehicles until trade-in (or wrecking yard) time.
The reference to ‘The Honeymooners’—for those that have forgotten—The year was 1956 when ‘The Honeymooners’ were sponsored by Buick (remember the Special, Century, Super, and Roadmaster?). I can vividly recall the one ad. where they had a Buick playing polo—i.e. the driver drove, but the passenger wielded the polo-stick, hitting the ball ever so effortlessly. The ‘game’ afoot was obviously to demonstrate the incredible ‘handling’ of the car! Jack Lescouli (sp.?) was the pitchman for the ad. and Buick was the third best-selling car that year (Chev. first, and Ford second) BTW—the car was a convertible.
Right you are Michael. GM started putting these things on in 06 in an effort to ruin a clean looking fender area. You know GM and badge clutter. ABS emblems, electronic spark control emblems etc. My neighbors flex fuel emblem is upsidedown. Who couldnt catch that at the factory?
Hint: What was Gleason’s catchphrase? What GM car sounds like one of the words in the catchphrase? That’s the car upon which the misaligned badge rests.
Hummina, hummina, hummina…
Stopped making Lumina in 2000 or 20001, so not a Lumina.
RF: “What was Gleason’s catchphrase?”
Seems like it was “And away-y-y we go!” Then there was “How sweet it is!” and–after a hearty belt of booze–“mmm…that’s the good stuff!”
“What GM car sounds like one of the words in the catchphrase?”
I’m stumped.
RayH: Almost there –
Hummer?
Loved Gleason, especially the show from Miami in the 60’s
“Joe The Bartender” (Gleason) and “Crazy Guggenheim” (Frank Fontaine) always funny!
50merc
Awayyy we go. Chevy product.
You know it’s entirely possible that the badge is parallel to the ground in this picture, and they just took it on an angle.
Robert: Oh, now that’s a stretch!
Jackie (were he alive today) would not be seen in such a crap can (unless for comedy effect in a movie).