And you think that the average consumer can honestly tell the difference between rebadged pickups

If badge engineering is what you call the Panther platform, then I'm not talking about badge engineering.

So you called me a dick because you're making overgeneralizations you can't justify based on a lack of understanding

No, I used the wrong term. I'm not the one being hostile here, dude...

What's it called when a foreign company steps into a market, and then takes a competitors vehicle, slaps a different bumper on it, and tries to pass it off as "competition" against the same vehicle?

Not joint venture vehicles, just complete mooching off the others production

Ok you're pretending to be retarded with that one

Its a serious question: What is the purpose behind the Suzuki Equator? It fools no one into thinking it's actually a Suzuki.

Practically no one bought them

Ok

You own Suzuki

You want to introduce a pickup truck to the market because people in North America like pickups

The problem is if you design a pickup for North America, and you're Suzuki, it will probably reflect the sales of your other vehicles.

So it's not worth the gamble

So you approach a company, say Nissan and offer a deal to rebadge one of their vehicles

Nissan finds it to be an acceptable deal and you have business

Now you aren't in the hole for engineering something, as suzuki, for a continent, that will probably sell like a Suzuki

The fact that X amount only sold doesn't matter

That's after the fact

But it's not your pickup, and the quality of Nissan's pickup gets placed on you.

Or, people see through your bullshit and just go buy the Nissan instead.

The average yokel probably doesn't know he's buying a Nissan

I'm pretty sure the average consumer is a bit more informed than that

Go ahead and tell the middle aged mom driving the infinity that she owns a Nissan

Infinity and Nissan are not a comparable example

They are

They're different markets

Luxury and entry

Rebadging comes in all different sizes

Suzuki and Nissan shared the same market

Not to mention the example of rebadging for brand loyalty

You weren't getting a 'better' product

I mean, you were getting a better product

You were getting a better suzuki

You had different prices and incentives on them

All of this seems like excessive overhead and logistics, just to place a bet that people would be tricked into not realizing their truck was made by someone else, who sells it for the same price or even cheaper

Well it is

Yes, that's why I don't get it.

It's probably safe to assume that in that specific vehicle instance Nissan was well covered in whatever the terms of the deal were and Suzuki was taking a risk

Suzuki most likely did this to get their name out there in the truck market

And it didn't work

And it was probably better they didn't try to design some truck for North America because they would have been assed out