Badge engineered vehicles

[hpb]

Good info, thanks jrustles! Who knew there was such an interesting back story to the humble Ranger? I'll Google "Chicken Tax" later, but I'm guessing it's something to protect the domestic car makers from the imports...we have, or at least had, the same thing here. Didn't work though, our car industry collapsed anyway, sadly. That Chevy Sprint turbo is 80's cool at its best! That car came here as the Suzuki Swift GTi. It was non-turbo though, just the naturally aspirated 1.3lt DOHC 16 valve EFI engine. Holden rebadged the Swift as the Holden Barina, in 3 and 5 door guise, but they only got the 1.3 SOHC carbed engine. The Barina was a huge seller, until the mid 90's when the deal with Suzuki ended, and the "new" Barina became a rebadged Opel Corsa. My wife owned one of them, it never cost us much money to maintain, but the 1.4 SOHC throttle body injected engine sure was a slug. These days, the Barina is a rebadged Daewoo, and its market share is low.

 

[asand1]

Nissan quest - mercury villager

 

[Concours14]

Originally Posted By: Propflux01

Can't forget the Dodge Colt, which was a Mitsubishi Mirage. Hyundai excel was also rebadged as a Mitsubishi Precis

And, that 86-90 Hyundai Excel/Dodge Colt was a Mitsubishi-derived product to begin with! The old Elantra of 90-93 vintage was really the Mitsubishi engineered/Hyundai-manufactured Mirage. For all I know, Mitsu licensed Hyundai to actually produce and badge their Elantra as a Mirage. Circles. Corporate circles drawn as they figured out the New World Order of manufacturing outside the United States. Made for strange bedfellows, no? The 92 Elantra wasn't a bad car for all the bad press. I drove one (the only thing I got from my divorce in 1993) for 13 years and 288,000 miles before I traded it for an 05 Accent in Feb. 2006. I had not a speck of rust on it, might I add..

 

[earlyre]

Just in case someone unfamiliar with the "chicken tax" stumbles onto this thread, it's a 25% import tarrif on trucks and commercial vehicles. This is why EVERY transit connect Ford imports to the us comes in as a passenger wagon, complete with fully furnished interior, and glass all the way around, then the ones sold as I panel vans, or commercial vehicles, are converted at a dockside facility.

 

[earlyre]

Also part of why mahindra gave up on selling their pickups and SUV's in the USA. They looked into all sorts of loopholes, but the one they were trying was importing the vehicles unassembled in knockdown kit form, then having their US partner/subsidiary assemble and sell them. But they failed to find a partner that was up to the task.

 

[y_p_w]

Originally Posted By: hpb

That Chevy Sprint turbo is 80's cool at its best! That car came here as the Suzuki Swift GTi. It was non-turbo though, just the naturally aspirated 1.3lt DOHC 16 valve EFI engine. Holden rebadged the Swift as the Holden Barina, in 3 and 5 door guise, but they only got the 1.3 SOHC carbed engine. The Barina was a huge seller, until the mid 90's when the deal with Suzuki ended, and the "new" Barina became a rebadged Opel Corsa. My wife owned one of them, it never cost us much money to maintain, but the 1.4 SOHC throttle body injected engine sure was a slug. These days, the Barina is a rebadged Daewoo, and its market share is low.

The Sprint Turbo came with a 1.0L 3-cylinder with an intercooled turbo. Still not really that fast, but I remember it was cheap and fairly reliable. The later versions had this funky looking hood scoop that was set to the side, but the earlier versions had an intake port on the grill to feed the intercooler. However, my 2004 WRX is a completely different level of car.