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
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
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
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.
The existing mid-engined Corvette Daytona Prototype is a lot more like what I would hope for in the profile of a mid-engined Corvette road car, but this definitely looks a lot more like reality.
Maybe they'll pull a BMW and campaign a car in a "production based class" for a whole season without an equivalent road car actually being available to the public.
