Badge 'inflation'

[corkscrew]

A friend of my wife is a Mercedes dealer here in Bangkok. She was at our apartment today and I told her about the SLK20AMG that I saw on the street. She just laughed and said that it was very common for Thai car owners to rebadge their cars. She said that most of the 500S cars are really 280S cars sporting a 5 for a 2. In this case the owner just turned his older SLK200 into a 20SLKAMG with a little bit of glue.

[terdsak_12]

A common sight in this town. Loads of moody M3's around too going by the badges.

[Thairish]

A common sight in this town. Loads of moody M3's around too going by the badges.

I saw a rust bucket Mitsubishi Lancer recently with an M3 badge on it! What's that about...

[Tywais]

A common sight in this town. Loads of moody M3's around too going by the badges.

I saw a rust bucket Mitsubishi Lancer recently with an M3 badge on it! What's that about...

Wishful thinking?

[steveromagnino]

Do you guys not see this all over where you grew up?

In NZ it is commonplace; certainly not unique to Thailand?!

[moonoi]

Do you guys not see this all over where you grew up?

In NZ it is commonplace; certainly not unique to Thailand?!

Agreed its the same in the UK

Loads of Ford Escort 1.3L badged as RS or XR3i or Ford Sierras' with Cossie badges or BMWs' with Alpina or AC Schnitzer badges (why only upgrade to an M3?)

[Gazza]

A friend of my wife is a Mercedes dealer here in Bangkok. She was at our apartment today and I told her about the SLK20AMG that I saw on the street. She just laughed and said that it was very common for Thai car owners to rebadge their cars. She said that most of the 500S cars are really 280S cars sporting a 5 for a 2. In this case the owner just turned his older SLK200 into a 20SLKAMG with a little bit of glue.

Thai youths put Harley Davidson stickers on the tanks of their Phantoms or Bosses. Not sure who they're trying to fool.

[davethailand]

Close, they've already made-

32amg

36amg

43amg

55amg

60amg

63amg

65amg

dtm amg

[Bung]

I saw a vigo in town the other day and under where it said D4D on the doors it said V6

It made me stop and think for a moment as it looked authentic and thought that Toyota had suddenly put out a V6 after we all bought 4's!

[Plus]

Theoretically it's possible in export versions that are not available in Thai market.

[jl_333]

Theoretically it's possible in export versions that are not available in Thai market.

rebadging cars is the worst. especially with the amount of "AMG" cars running. I can see if you do a motor swap you deserve the badge, but anything less (body kit, rims, spoilers, etc) does not warrant it

[corkscrew]

Theoretically it's possible in export versions that are not available in Thai market.

rebadging cars is the worst. especially with the amount of "AMG" cars running. I can see if you do a motor swap you deserve the badge, but anything less (body kit, rims, spoilers, etc) does not warrant it

I am using "you and your" here to address the rebranders, debranders and down-branders.

I really don't understand rebadging cars. Your family and friends (and surely your mechanic) will know that you 'turned' your 280S into a 500S. It's humiliating. Who are you trying to impress? The ignorant driver of a motor cycle behind you.

A less sinister (but stupider) form is debranding: removing the model number from the outside surface of the car. You want people to understand that you are driving a Mercedes but you want them to remain ignorant of its 'status'. Now your friends and family just know that you want to hide the fact that you are driving something less than top of the line. None of these debranders ever remove the Mercedes star!

I think that it would be far swifter to down-brand. Buy a 500S and substitute 280S. Your friends will wonder why. You can say that you don't want people to think you are driving an obscenely expensive machine.

BTW, a new 500S in Thailand will cost you 14,900,000 baht. The same car in the USA will set you back 3,600,000 baht. That's just about 25% of the Thai sticker price.

My Bangkok cars carry the original factory brand...they are at the low end: "2"s.

Hmmm....wonder where I can buy some "5"s.

[terdsak_12]

Theoretically it's possible in export versions that are not available in Thai market.

rebadging cars is the worst. especially with the amount of "AMG" cars running. I can see if you do a motor swap you deserve the badge, but anything less (body kit, rims, spoilers, etc) does not warrant it

I am using "you and your" here to address the rebranders, debranders and down-branders.

I really don't understand rebadging cars. Your family and friends (and surely your mechanic) will know that you 'turned' your 280S into a 500S. It's humiliating. Who are you trying to impress? The ignorant driver of a motor cycle behind you.

A less sinister (but stupider) form is debranding: removing the model number from the outside surface of the car. You want people to understand that you are driving a Mercedes but you want them to remain ignorant of its 'status'. Now your friends and family just know that you want to hide the fact that you are driving something less than top of the line. None of these debranders ever remove the Mercedes star!

I think that it would be far swifter to down-brand. Buy a 500S and substitute 280S. Your friends will wonder why. You can say that you don't want people to think you are driving an obscenely expensive machine.

BTW, a new 500S in Thailand will cost you 14,900,000 baht. The same car in the USA will set you back 3,600,000 baht. That's just about 25% of the Thai sticker price.

My Bangkok cars carry the original factory brand...they are at the low end: "2"s.

Hmmm....wonder where I can buy some "5"s.

Makes sense to buy the S500 in the US and use your 11 million spare Baht to fly first class regularly to go for nice drives on decent roads, and garage it while here!!!

[corkscrew]

Theoretically it's possible in export versions that are not available in Thai market.

rebadging cars is the worst. especially with the amount of "AMG" cars running. I can see if you do a motor swap you deserve the badge, but anything less (body kit, rims, spoilers, etc) does not warrant it

I am using "you and your" here to address the rebranders, debranders and down-branders.

I really don't understand rebadging cars. Your family and friends (and surely your mechanic) will know that you 'turned' your 280S into a 500S. It's humiliating. Who are you trying to impress? The ignorant driver of a motor cycle behind you.

A less sinister (but stupider) form is debranding: removing the model number from the outside surface of the car. You want people to understand that you are driving a Mercedes but you want them to remain ignorant of its 'status'. Now your friends and family just know that you want to hide the fact that you are driving something less than top of the line. None of these debranders ever remove the Mercedes star!

I think that it would be far swifter to down-brand. Buy a 500S and substitute 280S. Your friends will wonder why. You can say that you don't want people to think you are driving an obscenely expensive machine.

BTW, a new 500S in Thailand will cost you 14,900,000 baht. The same car in the USA will set you back 3,600,000 baht. That's just about 25% of the Thai sticker price.

My Bangkok cars carry the original factory brand...they are at the low end: "2"s.

Hmmm....wonder where I can buy some "5"s.

Makes sense to buy the S500 in the US and use your 11 million spare Baht to fly first class regularly to go for nice drives on decent roads, and garage it while here!!!

But is more fun to drive in BKK.

[Plus]

Somehow my previous post gets quoted again and again.

Vigo with V6 engine is offered in Austalia. It is theoretically possible for those with special access to get export version here. With 234 Hp it breaks 50% tax barrier on power. I guess that's the main reason it's not offered here, also if the engine is imported it would push the price out of reach of Toyota customers.

Someone mentioned seeing white Fortuner on a car-hauling lorry here - also export only color it was explained.

[The Dan Sai Kid]

There's a car around with an Isuzu badge, yet it's a Honda Civic. I've seen a few, what's the deal with that?

[Rigger]

Somehow my previous post gets quoted again and again.

Vigo with V6 engine is offered in Austalia. It is theoretically possible for those with special access to get export version here. With 234 Hp it breaks 50% tax barrier on power. I guess that's the main reason it's not offered here, also if the engine is imported it would push the price out of reach of Toyota customers.

Someone mentioned seeing white Fortuner on a car-hauling lorry here - also export only color it was explained.

There is a few V6 Tiger style hilux around in Pattaya that I have seen

[moonoi]

There's a car around with an Isuzu badge, yet it's a Honda Civic. I've seen a few, what's the deal with that?

I believe they were built under license from Honda. Not very popular though...

Can anyone confirm that?

[tom yum goong]

There's a car around with an Isuzu badge, yet it's a Honda Civic. I've seen a few, what's the deal with that?

I believe they were built under license from Honda. Not very popular though...

Can anyone confirm that?

Yeah, the Isuzu Vortex is basically a Honda Civic. I think the exterior is ever so slightly different but underneath its exactly the same.

Not sure why they would do this though. Certainly Honda and Isuzu are not related corporately.

Edited January 12, 2006 by tom yum goong

[steveromagnino]

Theoretically it's possible in export versions that are not available in Thai market.

rebadging cars is the worst. especially with the amount of "AMG" cars running. I can see if you do a motor swap you deserve the badge, but anything less (body kit, rims, spoilers, etc) does not warrant it

It is a bit of plastic and counts for nothing... so I don't think many people would care much about the 'deserve' element of it.

Like wearing counterfeit watches or whatever, to me the pleasure is in the quality and performance of the original item. If I can find a counterfeit with the same performance (which I cannot for watches or clothing) then I would wear that.

Same same for the cars. But I am just one person, and I would never own a German piece of s&*t starting with B and ending in W again here in Thailand given their propensity to break down, fall to bits and generally be junk within months of purchase.

I might go for a Benz though. So...where can you buy these badges again? I might convert the A class to an AMG S500 yo yo yo yo. Do you think anyone will gues?

[INTJ]

Honda and Isuzu had some kind of exchange deal around '97 where the Honda Civic was badged as an Isuzu Vertex, and Honda sold a pick-up identical to the Isuzu Spacecab called the Honda Tourmaster. I'm not really sure what the point of that was.

I have also seen the aforementioned pick up badged as an Opel Campo here.

INTJ.

.

[terdsak_12]

I've seen a few of them Honda pick-ups around, must be collectors items by now.