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Too many cars shot, not enough time to write them all up. Here’s a few outtakes whose names are (hopefully) worth sharing.
Who takes the time to transplant a WRX emblem a 240 wagon, of all things?
And the once common, but now rare 1000 SEL.
66 Comments on “Curbside Classic Outtake: The Name Game...”
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I love it. Much better than the people who slap racing logos from other manufacturers on their cars. Like an “Aveo R-type.”
All three curbside classics have something in common. With reasonable care they last forever. I’m stunned at how many Dustbuster GM vans I still see on the road, butt ugly things and given the GM 3.1 and 3.4 V6 propensity to self-destruct, kind of shocking. The ye’ ol’ Volvo 240 is near indestructible, and the Merc limo, well ’nuff said.
The dustbusters could be had with the L26 “Series I” version of the 3800 V6, which is in every way an incredibly superior engine to the 3.1L and 3.4L, but especially in reliability. I would bet that most which are still around today use that motor.
GM should have kept using the 3800 in U-body duty. Even the L36 “series II” 3800 with the occasionally trouble-prone gaskets would be preferable to the 3400.
Thanks ajla. I had no idea that the GM 3.8L V6 was in the Dustbuster vans. The Series I and Series III engines can’t be killed, are easy to work on, and have gobs of torque. Agreed GM should have just keep putting them in and not gone with the 3.1 and 3.4.
Dustbuster, heh.
I used to call my mom’s Pontiac Transport ‘The Suppository.’
To be fair, she did manage to clear 6 digits in the odometer, making the pill the longest running Pontiac in human history.
I like it when people buy the fake logos and stuff from Walmart and put them on their cars. I cannot remember what car it was, but the owner had stuck a “turbo” badge (in Porsche-like script, no less) onto their econobox.
A little off subject but still a little bit related, I saw an elderly couple driving a Kia Sedona minivan with a vanity plate reading “KOREA VT”. I found that odd.
I’ve seen Mercedes here in NM with plates that are designated WWII vet. No biggie. Some people can forgive and forget.
When I was based at Camp Lejeune, NC, during the late 80s early 90s, one of the Marines in my battalion drove a Yugo “GT”, complete with spoiler, “dual” exhaust w/ coffee can muffler, and decals. Hilarious!
The “Luminatic” sounds like a kitchen appliance from the 50s.
I once saw a Lexus LS430 wearing a Pearl Harbor Survivor plate. I really wish I’d had a chance to talk to the driver.
I saw an elderly couple driving a Kia Sedona minivan with a vanity plate reading “KOREA VT”. I found that odd.
South Korea was not the enemy. They were on our side. Still are.
Korea VT? Perfectly appropriate given that he fought to defend the same part and government of Korea in which his car was built.
Regarding the P.H.S. in the Lexus … what better evidence is there that that driver didn’t carry a grudge?
My late father was a WWII vet (Army Infantry) who served in the South Pacific. The last 17 years of his life, he drove a Subaru. He loved that car because he was a frugal man, and that car cost him little in gas and maintenance.
He never thought it a big deal that he drove a Japanese car; as he’d say. “That was in the past.”
The only time that’s defensible is if the badges accurately represent modifications performed to the vehicle. Even then it typically comes off as tacky and ruins the fun of having a sleeper.
I know some guys that transplanted a 351 W motor (5.8L) into the mustang and created 5.8 emblems from the 5.0 and 2.8 versions. Later they were aftermarket available but at the time it was a neat trick.
The Buick vents on pickup trucks, Mazda 323, and other cars just look ridiculous.
Wouldn’t a 1000SEL be a 10.0 liter? ;)
I peeled off nice aluminum V8 badge in a local junk yard of a Neon that was totally stock.
Also seen in the neighborhood a Golf IV sporting Porsches’ ‘turbo’ badge. But at least some Golfs had factory turbo.
Years ago someone wrote the word “Anal” in the dirt above the Probe emblem on my first gen LX.
Did you ever get to the bottom of who did it?
^ Baroomboom tssshhh!
There are thousands more Chevy “SS”‘s on the road than General Motors ever built…
There’s a guy here in Oakville, Ontario who has a Dodge Neon with Nissan Skyline badges all over it… even added poorly fitting body cladding to it… looks stupid
Isn’ Oakville the most “American” of Toronto’s suburbs?
And I’m sure he added a bit of class to his ride by painting it a “restrained” shade of day glo green. I’m all about NOT judging another dude’s wheels, but riced Neons (and Cavaliers) are chariots of the underworld.
Maybe it was his last Neon that I pulled V8 badge off at the junk yard in Georgetown.
You should come to Venezuela Mr. Niedermeyer.
I have seen 3000GT with Ferrari badges, Geelys with BMW, TRD on Chevys
Along the same lines, when I had a gray Jaguar XJ, I replaced the “leaper” hood ornament with a reproduction Lincoln greyhound. Same post, but a dog instead of a cat. Even the Jaguar fans liked it.
If you were a big fan of the financial firm, prepending “Pricewaterhouse” to the badge of a Mini Cooper S would be kind of fun. But I can’t imagine anyone who’d be a devotee of a financial firm and off-kilter enough to so-badge his car.
I saw a Jaguar XJ-6 from the mid-80s that had the -6 on the logo replaced with a V8 logo in Ford’s style. Presumably it had an engine transplant.
Probably a small block Chevy. It’s a popular conversion for Jaguars for people looking for cheap, reliable power. I think it’s dumb, though replacing the OEM transmission for a GM unit makes a lot of sense. The six cylinder Jaguar “XJ” engine was in production for about 40 years. It’s a classic, competition proven design and like most inline sixes, it’s very durable. There are lots of things that can go wrong with a 1970s and 1980s vintage Jaguar, but the engine is not likely to break. Sure, the Weird Joe Lucas electrics on the ignition system or fuel injection (Bosch design, made by Lucas) will fail at one time or another, but you’re not likely to throw a rod or drop a valve.
The Jaguar 6 is perfectly suited to the XJ and vice versa. The SBC and the XJ, not so much.
Sometimes, SOMETIMES, carefully thought out and placed badges can work. Case in point, I have a Chevrolet HHR 2LT. The thing is loaded. I had a set of little silver Brougham emblems from an 80’s Oldsmobile that I added to the side in a place that I felt the designers would have approved. And seeing how the car is loaded to the point where it should have been an LTZ instead of just an LT, I added a “Z” to the liftgate. People who have commented on my car actually think it’s all factory. And, if you ask me I think it sounds classier to say I have a Chevrolet Heritage LTZ Brougham, than an HHR 2LT.
I’ve had some big fun with emblems over the years on my cars!
My first car was known as the Turbo Rambler, after a friend gifted me a cheesy plastic chrome Turbo emblem. I don’t think it made the flathead 6 any quicker, but the reactions from people who thought I was serious was always good for a laugh!
I’d repainted one of my Econolines once and never bothered to put the emblems back on. One day on my bicycle, I found a VW badge lying on the street. I took it home and wired it onto the grille of my van. A few months later, I got a notice from the city that I had to move my car or get a ticket… it listed my van as a Volkswagen (but with my plate number and the correct color)! That’s a pretty big Transporter you got there, son.
And for my old Wildcat, I found out that pieces of emblems from a Grand Prix, an Impala and two Mustangs equaled “Grand ala Mutant”.
Is it just me, or has anyone else noticed how oversized, garish and awful many nameplates and emblems have become? I mean, really, anyone who cares is already going to know what a particular car is, right? It seems like they’re always an afterthought, and I’m sure many stylists have spit up their lattes when they saw what the badge-and-marketing boys did to their designs… Toyota and Ford readily come to mind… I hate hate hate the molded-in “MUSTANG” on the back bumper cladding.
I despise the ford logo in the center of the tailgate on all the new trucks. It’s just plain wrong. I grew up with the either stamped F-O-R-D or smooth with bottom corner emblems, even painted on is ok with me…anything else is horrible.
I agree with the logo size issue. It’s one of my biggest complaints about modern styling.
I mean, really. Why does the car logo have to be the size of a dinner plate or bigger. One of the worst was the VW Phaeton, but some of the latest M-Bs are even more ludicrous.
I like subtle badges added to a car like the 240 WRX above. It’s fun.
We own a ’78 VW Westfalia that came with a 2.0L four cylinder. I’ve “upgraded” it to a Corvair 110HP/four speed manual and have a 2.7L logo added to the tailgate opposite of a “Volkswagen” script from the 60s. Only the VW bus guys notice it.
Saw a 1940s Flxible Clipper (40′ long interstate bus) where someone had grafted a 60’s VW van emblem onto the big bus nose. Worth a chuckle.
I’m not an enthusiast of the Wal-mart/JC Whitney “BLING” stuck all over a car. $5 hubcaps, portavents, turbo across the windshield, etc.
Subtle humor I like though.
Yeah the OEM logos are far too big these days but I recognize that some vehicles have gotten so big that a traditional logo might not even be noticeable.
I saw a Taurus SEX. Way more imaginative than a bogus BMW M badge slapped on a garden variety 3 series. Sometimes there is hardware behind the added markings…I had my clock cleaned by a ’89 K car with a turbo badge on the decklid.
Beater, I with you regarding badge size. I find the oversized logos of today disgusting. The winner of superfluous nameplates had to be Mazda in the ’80s. IIRC, it was something like Mazda 323 1.6 DX
I’ve seen people do the SEX thing to Focus SEs before too. K-car’s were available with a turbo BTW. The most wicked was the Spirit RT from 1990 till the K was canceled. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_Spirit#R.2FT
My brother-in-law’s Kia Rio SX has earned the nickname “Sex.” On the same principal, my Cobalt LS is called “Les.”
How about a Prius with the ‘Police Interceptor’ emblem from the trunk lid of a police Crown Victoria?
I once saw a Mazda 3 with Pi carried out across the back of the car: 3.14159265358979323846… Very geeky but quite cool; well, cool in a geeky way.
In my neighborhood there used to be an oldish red BMW 3 series with the front license plate from Oklahoma and the rear one from Texas. Looked pretty cool.
Would be kind cool to park it straddling the state line…
Years ago I knew a guy who owned a Checker Marathon sedan. He thought it looked like a Soviet limousine so he replaced the Checker script on the trunk lid with stick-on letters that said Chaika.
There’s a Saturn Ion around here that’s been rebadged “Onion”, which isn’t so hard seeing as its original badge was in all caps. I even have a picture somewhere.
I once had the privilege of following a Honda Element equipped with the ultra-rare “Police Interceptor” package.
In my B5-Passat-owning days it was common for the guys on Passatworld.com to rearrange the badging on the rear trunk to say things like “TAP ASS”
I saw an Element that said “Hummer Escape Pod” with lettering I swear looked factory.
I had to laugh at that one.
This one time I saw a Honda Accord with the Honda badge removed, only to be replaced by the BMW emblem. To top things off, this guy had the BALLS to put an M3 badge on it too!!!
Absolute sacrilege I tell you!
I remember reading something about someone rebadging a Bentley as a Phaeton… I thought that was pretty classy.
Just in case you aren’t aware of this:
“D1 (VW Phaeton/Bentley)
The D1 platform cars (not to be confused with the earlier Audi V8 platform) share some components with the D3 platform, but have conventional steel bodyshell construction.
– Volkswagen Phaeton (Typ 3D, 2002-present)
– Bentley Continental GT (2004-present)
– Bentley Continental Flying Spur (2005) (2005-present)”
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Group_D_platform#D1s
A fellow employee at the Nissan dealership years ago was awaiting delivery of his brand new Sentra. It emerged from Pre-Delivery Inspection with “TENSRA” on the trunk and a bunch of mechanics snickering in the background.
About 10 years ago I saw a first generation Festiva it was the common green that I always see the Festiva come in, and the owner had torn off all of the Ford and Festiva emblems and put on Honda and Civic emblems all over the place. I think he even put that it was an EX.
Having said that, I took off the silver GENESIS letters on the trunk. Not a big fan of asymmetry on a car, and wasn’t going to add more plastic badging to the other side of the trunk.
Generally, I’m in agreement with people who think there is too much badging going on. I loved the days of yesteryear when badges were truly emblems, like the the Ford Mustang, the Chevy Impala, but hate all those stupid words spelled out, and letter/number names, like LS6, or EUROSPORT. Especially irksome is the dealers who think they need to add their own emblems….CARLSFORD FORD…ackkkkk!
And dealers of yore that POP-RIVETED their logos on that led to rust and the inability to get rid of them easily.
When we bought our first car we took it home and removed all the dealer logos. The next time i drove it to the dealer to get something some dealer person went out and reapplied them. I was hot to say the least… Never went back to that dealer for anything. Would buy a car from them again, won’t come back after I remove the dealer logos though… GRIN!
Love it.
My college car was a 1987 Chevy Nova/Toyota. A friend of mine had some Nova SS stickers left after he got rid of his 70 something Nova. We the put the “SS” stickers under all 3 of the nova emblems on my car. I used to joke that it was an original ss.
Once had a 1979 Chevy Van, (bought new)and had a friend who worked at the Dearborn Assembly plant when it was building the 1st gen fox-body mustang….so the “turbo” scripts I came by looked pretty convincing just above the corner turn signal indicators on the front fenders seemed to convince people I had a turbo-charged van…
I wouldn’t be too quick to swap vehicle logos intentionally, since you may attract the wrong kind of attention….
I used to have a 1984 GMC fullsize van. The bottom edge of the back doors rotted out. I found a newer Chevy van in the wreckers that had been in a front-ender and the back doors were mint. I swapped them on and painted them to match but didn’t bother swapping logos. A couple months later I was pulled over by the police! They ran my plate while driving behind me and saw that it was registered to a GMC, but the logo on the back door said Chevrolet, so they thought it was a stolen vehicle and/or plates.
One officer came to the door and asked me to get out and produce my paperwork. Then I heard another officer coming up the other side of the van shout “It says GMC on this side.” I turned to the officer in front of me with a you’ve-got-to-be-kidding look and said “Did you pull me over because my back door says Chevy?” He just stood there dumbfounded, so I added “I replaced the back doors.” He handed me back my license and they took off.
I was once behind a Honda Odyssey “Type R”. That made me laugh.
Some hideous badging is factory-sponsored: e.g., Volvo “R-Style”. Yecchhhh. At a recent dealer intro for the new S-60, I asked a salesman if there was going to be a real R model, and he didn’t have a clue. The new T-6 cars have more torque and same bhp as the old R turbo 5, yet the brakes are smaller and have one-sided calipers. No more Brembos. The magnetic shocks are still an option. I guess they expect most customers to drive gently, in spite of the performance-oriented flackery.
Let me try this again…my previous post got truncated.
I think it shows a healthy individual spirit to rebadge a car. Some of the generic “turbo” stuff is silly, but I’ve seen some other really creative badging.
Thought the Genesis looked a bit generic without any badging (like BMW and Mercedes have) so I ordered the Korean winged Genesis badges and installed them. Much better. I took off the silver GENESIS letters on the trunk. Not a big fan of asymmetry on a car, and wasn’t going to add more plastic badging to the other side of the trunk.
Generally, I’m in agreement with people who think there is too much badging going on. I loved the days of yesteryear when badges were truly emblems, like the the Ford Mustang, the Chevy Impala, but hate all those stupid words spelled out, and letter/number names, like LS6, or EUROSPORT. Especially irksome is the dealers who think they need to add their own emblems….CARLSFORD FORD…ackkkkk!
I had mentioned this once in a thread several months ago, but it’s worth sharing here too.
There is a man in my town that has a mid-90’s Ford Econoline that he decided to decorate with various emblems. All things considered it appears as if he gave some thought to where he placed them on the van. What’s funny about it is that to those that know nothing about cars, they are looking at a Ford Ram 2500 Cummins Turbodiesel Sunfire LT with Autoride. Kinda rolls of the tongue, don’t you think???
How about:
Dark Metallic Mulberry Elk Grain Vinyl Roof
I saw it on an Eldorado at a Detroit auto show in the 1970s. Actually, it might have been a brougham. It sounded so poetic that I instantly memorized it.
Repeat after me:
Dark Metallic Mulberry
Elk Grain Vinyl Roof
I like it Ronnie, I like it!!!
Amazing how people here like to add badges to their vehicles, but in Europe they likey to de-badge them…
And woe to any stealership who puts their own badge on a vehicle that they try to sell me. Either it is removed with no trace that it was ever there and no resulting vehicle damage, or when they are writing up the contract, I shall write up my own contract for them that charges an “advertising fee.”
I also resent alpha-numeric names. Ford screwed up by dropping the “Galaxie” name for the 500, which meant nothing. American automakers have forgotton or deliberately erased their vehicles’ heritage and continuity of the model’s history. I’m glad the Impala name returned – it never should have been deleted in the first place. Same with Malibu.
I do want to see a resurgence of the car’s name on the sides of the car like you see on trucks. The Camaro’s name is shown, but few other car models display their respective names. It’s all about image and public perception.
I hated the body-color Impala scripts used on the 2000-2005 LS models. I own a 2004 base with sport-appearance package and had someone cut me a couple of Impala adhesive-backed names out of mirrorchrome in the same type style and 15″ length and they look really sharp. They sparkle quite nicely.
It’s sad that cars have lost a lot of the flash that made you proud to be seen in the one of your choice, but you can get trucks with all sorts of chrome embellishments and even bumpers.
VWs (except for the New Beetle) have letters on the back showing what engine they have in them. Nothing for the 2.0, “1.8T” for the 1.8L turbo, “GTI”, “TDI”, “VR6”, etc.
When I had over 300,000 miles on my ’01 VW Golf TDI, I found some aftermarket emblem letters that were the same size and virtually the same font as the stock VW emblem letters. I added “300K” in front of the “TDI” letters on the back. When I turned over 400,000 miles, I replaced the first number with a “4”, so now it reads “400K TDI”. It looks stock, but VW fanboys do a double-take when they check out the back to see “what I’m packin\'”, enginewise. When I turn over 500,000 miles, I’ll do the same thing again, only with a “5” as the first number.
Audi A9!
http://www.zejackytouch.com/photos-videos-jacky-tuning-touch/audi-a9-exclusif/
The original Mini Clubman was called the Clubman Estate, some owners of new Minis replace the Cooper badge on the back with the old Estate badge. Looks stock if you don’t know better.