Automotive badge engineering has been around for over 100 years

In a very recent past the Opel Ampera and the Chevrolet Volt, the Volkswagen Up, the Seat Mii and the Skoda Citigo, the Citroën C1, the Toyota Aygo and the Peugeot 108 or what about the Alfa Romeo Tonale and the Dodge Hornet? Or the Renault Captur and the Mitsubishi ASX … They are all sets of cars that are exactly the same except for a few details. One of those deviating details is the logo and the type plate, these are so different that as an unsuspecting consumer you should get the impression that you are dealing with something original here. The main motivation behind these (false) constructions is cost savings. But a different audience can also be reached with a different name. None of that is new. We are talking about badge engineering here, as selling the same model with different name badges is called.

As early as 1902, the cars of the French Clément-Brayard imported into the United Kingdom by Charles Chetwynd-Talbot – the twentieth Earl of Shrewsbury – were sold on the British Isle under the name Clément-Talbot. Anyway, these are still different brand names for different markets.

In 1917: Texan and Elcan

It is different in 1917 when the public in America can encounter cars on the street with the same appearance but with a different brand name on the grille: the Texan car brand Texan starts purchasing its bodies from a competitor (or fellow car manufacturer) from that year onwards. Elcar of Elkhart, Indiana, to use on his own cars. It is true that Texan used its own chassis and technology, but the bodywork – after all, what the public sees from the car – is the same as the Elcars. It is therefore not yet 100% badge engineering.

One on one, Ajax and Nash

We see exactly the same technique ten years later at Ajax and Nash. In search of expansion opportunities, car manufacturer Charles W. Nash hijacks the factory complex of the bankrupt Mitchell Motors Company in Racine, Wisconsin at auction in 1924 from the nose of the also interested Hupp Motor Car Corpporation of Detroit. Nash doesn’t waste any time and in 1925 cars of the new Ajax brand come off the band in the former Mitchell factory. The only Ajax model is the Six, a five-seater car that is slightly more compact and cheaper than the Nash models. In the first year, 27,300 copies of the Ajax Six are sold. In the opinion of Charles W. Nash, that is not enough. Apparently the new name Ajax does not tell the public enough. To boost sales figures, it is therefore also sold as Nash Light Six from 1926, and with effect: 38,622 are sold that year. It is the first proof that badge engineering can work.

Nash is certainly not the last to prove it. The English car industry almost manages to make it a tradition, but Volkswagen also owes a lot to it with the Polo derived from the Audi 50 and the Passat related to the Audi 80.