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

it's highly expensive to design vehicles and a lot cheaper to make some deal with another company; I believe the term "1% of something is better than 100% of nothing" somewhat applies as quite often it is not economically feasible to produce a vehicle for a certain market area, yet there are sales to be had within it by your brand

sure, your profit margin is minimised, but it's still profit

not to mention if you as a brand can cover every class of vehicle, you are more likely to get people into the dealerships

I don't really understand why someone would hate it, this seems to be more of a case of not understanding the purpose for it.

Also, there are a lot of cases there badge engineering involves a model made by a brand with no presence or no dealer network in a given market, rebranded as something people are familiar with.

Such as the Daewoo platforms sold as GM brand vehicles. In those markets they're not actually competing with the original product because it's not there, but they're filling a role for the brand and saving them the resources that would be required to develop a new model.

All of these manufacturers are businesses first, it would be silly to hold not wanting to waste lots of time and money and R&D for no good reason against them.

I mean badge engineering literally benefits everyone involved, both brands, as well as the consumer, by providing a wider selection of vehicles on the market.

@Matt thinks the best vehicle platform is the pl73

he says the best cars ever are all pl73 based

You want a large sedan based on the Peel P50

you want a car with only rear wheel steering