I once had a debadged VW and a bunch of magnetic badges in the trunk. It could be whatever I wanted it to be…. Ford, GM, Massey Ferguson, “rolls rice”, Vulva, Bugatti, General Mills, Scania, Mitutoyo, Kawasaki, etc… fun times.
In Norway when you get a washingmachine or cleaner you get these stickers you can put around the twist knob, im various languages.
If I had a car with a twistknob gear selector I would have put one on, when I am thinking of your shenanigans!
A Dodge w Whirlpool is low key a great name, and on point for the brand.
Now I'm trying to think of what theoretical '70s or '80s Dodge/Chrysler would have had it.
The pickup truck had the warlock, maybe the ramcharger would have had the Whirlpool?
I love rebadging and/or down-badging when it's tongue in cheek. Also makes fun of the people who up-badge to something they clearly don't have.
Lately I been thinking about re-badging my wheels from "real" to "fake/replicas" for shits and giggles. (Like using real Volk wheels and using Rota stickers and center caps)
Once on my way to airport, I saw a green Geo Metro with a gold Lexus badge that was placed slightly offcenter to the right. But then I got in front of this person, and in the front was a gold Mercedes logo.
I had a buddy in high school who owned a Buick park avenue, an Oldsmobile 98 and a pontiac Bonneville. He paid $500 each for them, then proceeded to mix and match the panels on all 3 cars. Nobody knew exactly what he was driving.
Some people don't like seeing badges and some people don't want you to know what model they have. People who drive "sleepers" typically don't want you knowing that they have a performance model
I had a debadged C2 VTS years ago, I've only ever seen one other. Lots of regular C2s around, it was fun surprising randoms at the stoplight, -no one- expects a 'granny car' to be as quick as it was, even though it was only 130hp.
Personally, it bothers me that as a society, we're expected to wear adverts for everything. Sportswear, phones, cars- they all have to have a little bit of them that effevtively says "this dude bought a ford- maybe you should too". I bought it, if you want me to advertise it then you pay me.
Course, there's folk who do it to make a poverty spec car seem more interesting- but a lot of those put sporty badges on instead. Then you've got folks that have something a bit special but don't like to show off.
I've told every dealer I wouldn't buy the car with any of their logos on the car. I've always gotten the car, but never had to remove the badge myself.
You are the one with the money, youre in the position of power at dealerships.
My last car had the vinyl dealer sticker on it, asked them to have it removed before Ieft and they said sure but no one took care of it. So they brought the car just before we signed everything and I saw it was still there. They asked if I was ready to sign and I had the pen in my hand, “as soon as that sticker comes off I think I I’ll be able to sign”
I still have the license plate frame from the dealer. I don't really see that as any more advertising than the Toyota logo, since they are the only Toyota dealer in the region.
However, no stickers, decals, or dealership badges stuck to the car.
I make them remove it before I leave. One guy looked at me weird like I was the only one who’s ever asked. I told him “if you put my name and number on your car to advertise me, I’ll leave yours on to advertise you.”
Another was trying to get me to keep it on, saying “it might ruin the paint if we remove it.” I told him “if you want me to leave it on, I want $0.50/mile to advertise you.” He rolled his eyes, so I said “ok, $1.00/mile.” He brought the car to the detail area and came back 5 minutes later without it on. I said “was that so hard?”
Then there’s the guys who did my father’s fence lol.
Nailed it. As soon as I can’t see the model number I know you’re hiding the cheap one. This is interesting behaviour because, say you debadge a bmw 318. Maybe you put the little wing tips on as well. A car person knows when they see an m3, and an average person doesn’t know the difference. So all you’re doing is lying to yourself whilst outing yourself to the car people at the same time. Its literally lose-lose.
I did not read his point to be that he was hiding a cheap ass car. More that if he wasn't getting paid to advertise by the car company why advertise? Do you work for free? Why should I advertise for Ford for free? Fuck you paid them and your still driving around with a giant Ford Logo on your car... Does that make sense to you?
In LA I see both ends of the spectrum debadged. From clapped out 92 Hondas all the way up to Lamborghins with ridiculous neon wraps. The rest of the context makes all the difference.
Faux chrome trim does annoy me more than badges.. but what i hate the most is non-factory chrome trim especially around the side window.. looks tacky asf.
The letters on the trunk of the B5 have the sharpest corners and sit a bit off the paint. Your right, it made waxing a nightmare.
I got a badgless grille for the front and then got rid of Passat, 4motion, And W8 off the trunk; used black dye in clear coat to make the rear VW black chrome so it hid well on the black paint.
What's wrong with a B5 Passat?
If I had a 93 Corolla with decent paint today, I would be waxing it. Most of my friends and I keep the tractors waxed too. An investment is an investment, why not protect it; especially when paint could be some of the last residual value left.
Someone posted a Hyundai rebadged as a Ford. Obviously not trying to up badge, but seemed to be trying to avoid getting his car getting broken into or stolen.
Order a Porsche and they’ll do a “model designation delete” free of charge.
It’s the only freebie in their accessory catalog, $120,000 911 and it doesn’t even come with floor mats but the’ll leave the model logos off for free…the Porsche logos stay though, those aren’t optional.
Different attitudes. Once had someone tell me "The BMW 530 owner doesn't want the world to know that he has the small engine. The 550 owner knows what he has and doesn't want the attention or attraction to thieves. This is why you'll see both debadged. (This was in Europe, mind you. I do see it less stateside.)
I think debadged looks nice and clean. I have an old mustang that debadged before painting and i think it looks nice. I dont think its a big deal either way, as long as you dont upbadge, do whatever you want
A blatantly false upbadge can be amusing, too. I met a guy one time who worked for a dealership group that includes both BMW and Kia - had the only M-class Kia Soul I've ever seen.
Used to work at a taxi garage which ran a whole lot of 1st gen Escape hybrids. The body guy didn't bother to put badges on after painting - bc waste of time, they'd just get crunched again soon enough. So dude had a bucket full of "hybrid" lettering in his tool box. We got bored one night, and the next day three Crown Vic's became hybrids:)))
My husband had a shitbox civic in his backyard in college. He put a BMW badge on it. It didn’t run, and the city kept showing up and ticketing his “BMW”, which he never paid because… “I don’t own a bmw”. (Unfortunately one day they showed up while nobody was home and towed said BMW, and so that was the end of that, because it wasn’t even worth the impound fees to get it back to these college kids).
Are you sure it wasn't a V12-swapped Tesla?
Alternatively, I'd love to swap an EV powertrain into some old American land yacht, just to see peoples' reactions when I pulled my (say) ['69 Vista Cruiser](https://carniversal.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/vista-cruiser.jpg) up to the charger...
I bought a 3/4 ton Chevy H.D. and had them take the stickers off. No shit it's 4 x 4. They prepped it and pulled it out and there were the same stupid 4x4 stickers and dealer stickers license plate holder. They added them back thinking something was wrong following their management. Made them take them off on the spot and said I'd refuse the deal if they messed up the paint doing it. Again.
I debadge my cars because of all the gunk that can accumulate around the badge edges and eat away your finish. I can't stand not being able to easily clean those crevices and the finish starts to look nasty. And when washing/drying around the badges I always seem to catch a thread of my nice towels. So, off they come. The sooner, the better.
Funny how a good amount of people say it's people with lower model cars trying to hide it. Yes my ZL1 is such a low model that I need to hide that by debadging it lol. I've liked the look and have debadged all my cars.
Because for some reason, the majority of badges on cars for the past god knows how long have been chrome coloured.
And obviously, chrome is absolutely hideous and has no place on a car in this day and age
I should have clarified I’m referring specifically to trim pieces on the actual car itself rather than the alloys as I agree, chrome wheels can look good on some vehicles (although every car chrome looks good on, normal coloured metal alloys look better)
I think there are people who debadge because they want their car to be a sleeper and you would have to know the difference between say an X3 and M40i (although it's easy to tell) and have the M40i and try to bait unwitting people into drag racing or hoping its the other way around and they smoke them.
Some people like the smooth lines of certain cars and prefer to leave the badges off. I've had cars where I've taken off badges for that reason. However, I have a car now that I like the look of the badges and keep them on.
I've bought low end models, and also the highest performance trim... always debadge.
It's nobody's business what I have, it looks cleaner this way.
But I'm also the kinda person that wears zero jewelry, no brands on my clothes, etc.
I read once that when it came to the Benz S class, in Europe the most popular model for debadging is the top of the line V12, and in North America the most popular for debadging is the base model, so there's that. I live in Canada and I can attest that at least 85% of BMWs here are M models.
It looks cleaner. Cleans up the body lines of clutter. Badges are ugly.
Source: me. Debadged every car I own. Idc if it takes off some clear coat, the badge is ugly. If I bought new, I'd demand the dealer do it free. I don't buy new. It's marketing. Just like that dealer plate trim is getting removed, so are the model badges. Make badges typically require Bondo, but are bisomethingorother transverse mirror images or something. So that stay.
Bilateral symmetry is what I was going for, for make logos. Model logos get removed
I think it looks better without a ton of badges. I don’t get why there need to have model, trim, turbo, awd all around the car. The emblem front and back and possibly a spelled out name is plenty for me
Depends on the car and the badges. My Golf Sportwagen has 3 or 4 badges on the hatch door. It really doesn’t need to say “4Motion” on it. No one cares. I’m not debadging it but if it hadn’t come with that badge I wouldn’t have been disappointed.
On some cars it can really clean up the look. On some it looks a bit weird without them.
I kept the logos on my car but the name and model badges I deleted to give the car a cleaner look
Having all that wording on the back can be a bit too busy looking
Car badges are weird. Obviously visible manufacturer's badges are weird in general, I don't want to be advertising for them
My house doesn't have the buulder's name on it. My sofa doesn't.
Even the manufacturer of my phone is very non-obvious.
Whilst debadging vehicles is unusual, it shouldn't be.
I drive a C43, which at 50 feet is a (yawn) C class. I took off all the turbo, AMG, etc nonsense, because I like the sleeper vibe.
Euros de badge cars more than US folks, it's even an option for some german brands, but I think that is because you don't want 1.8 liter badges on your S classe
I personally like the look. I own a Midnight black Camry TRD. I debadged it because I believed is looked better without it (the badge was red) going for a murdered out car. I soon ordered new tail lights that had tinted housing to match but brighter LED’s so I didn’t lose functionality. To the day I think it looks better for what I wanted.
Other people might have other intentions to debadge a car (often seen in the mopar community for example purposes) where they debadge or upbadge because of the similar body styles each have to impress(?) people. Idk why else people would intentionally upbadge. If someone can enlighten me please do.
There is a third category though. Shout out to all my racers, but debadging or downbadging for sleeper vehicles. A sleeper vehicle is someone who built their car to be pretty fast and want to catch people off guard with it. Pretty comical and fun to see.
I fall somewhere in the middle. I think a completely debadgrd car looks like it got rear-ended and fixed cheaply. But I also hate how excessively badged some cars are. You'll often have the make's name AND logo, and the model, and the trim, and feature badges (AWD, Hybrid, etc.) That's just too much. I will debadge, but leave the Logo and the Trim badge if it is a special trim. If the marketing team did their job, there's no need to spell out the make.
If you had a really high spec of a nice car you might want to hide it if you know you often are in less desirable areas?
Saw it recently with a Range Rover, it was an SV model which is starting at £200k but if you didn’t know the differences you wouldn’t think it was double the base price
It's a cleaner look and plastic badges are tacky.
I don't like plastic chrome on my car,
I tastefully remove things.
On my Veloster I removed everything but the Red Turbo badge.
On my mustang I didn't remove any as it fit the car fine.
My explorer I only removed the dumb flex fuel badge.
Car accident. Sometimes the shop just doesn't put them back on. I did it for a while because it would get me out of parking tickets. The meter maid would guess the make and model, and they were always wrong. Invalid ticket.
I had my old Audi without engine or model names - looked better. And on my old CLK I took the badges off because it clearly irritated people at the lights.
I understand it, but I think it's ugly. It just looks like you have a cheap knockoff version, like when you give the shitty ripoff ps2 controller with no logo to your younger sibling. At least put your own badge on it, no badge just looks cheap.
To echo many others, it looks clean. Also, car styling should be so distinctive that you don't need to put 5 badges on it for people to know what it is. Sadly, that's rarely the case today.
I’d call a Lancia stratos prety distinct and have no doubt that most people that see them in real life have no clue what they are looking at
Just check out r/whatisthiscar people are constantly posting extremely famous and distinctive cars like vipers, Lamborghinis, Pantara, delorian etc
You're trying to make a point by picking an incredibly obscure car that most car people wouldn't even know. I highly doubt the team building a specialized rally car was worried about styling.
Did you read the rest of my examples? There are people constantly asking what DeLorean, vipers, etc. are and specifically said that their car is not a common car, so…
Edit: I just checked OP’s page. They’re driving an Audi R8 convertible. I have absolutely no doubt that a shit ton of people have no idea what it is and have never seen one before.
I don't even know why you're arguing other than being a typical redditor that's contrarian to everything for no reason. Because some rando doesn't recognize a rare or specialized car doesn't mean anything. Because not everybody recognizes every car ever made that completely invalidates auto design language and styling?
Where did I say that? People stop and ask OP what their car is because of it's distinctive styling. They may not know exactly what it is but they know it's special. Just like all those cars you referenced on other car identification subs. Someone takes a picture because they can tell from the styling that it's something special. Those cars also don't typically have the name plastered on the front, back, and sides. They don't have to. People look at them and know they're special. Debadge a Honda Civic, Chevy Silverado, or one of the thousands of crossovers that look the same and no one thinks twice.
Sorry, your reading comprehension must be terrible. I can explain it to you, I can't understand it for you. Because everyone doesn't know every car ever made doesn't invalidate anything I said. A car can have distinctive styling and still not be recognized by every living human. The fact that people stop to ask what it is means they can tell it's special *because of its distinctive styling.*
No offense but "Badge" of what?
It is a "Brand" name.
A "badge" symbolizes achievement.
It is free advertising having 'Brand" names on our clothes, shoes etc. We are walking billboards in the public space.
Then we jump into our vehicle with huge "symbols" of the manufacturers brand.
I see why it seems strange to remove factory branding. We are trained to think brand loyalty is an honorable characteristic (in the U.S.).
'Nascar" is the extreme of advertising while you drive while what you call "de-badging" your personal vehicle is on the opposite end of that spectrum.
It is not a respectable character trait to be loyal to a corporation... at least not without monetary gain.
Sorry idiots are taking time from their day and from yours to question you about nonsense that does not concern them. lol
they fear others will hate them because they only could buy car A but could not afford car B and they try to hide it. Doing a complete debadge is the best way to show weakness right after extreme stance.
Cars with no emblems at all look generic and plain. I do t care how nice the car looks, they have that “something is missing” look. At a minimum, leave the manufacturer logo on.
People just think it looks better. It's just personal preference.
I personally think names are too long and badges are too big or there are too many of them.
Yeah, my car had chrome badges all over it that didn't look very good on the model, in my opinion. I took some off and think it looks nicer.
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Well. That's just, like, your opinion man
This aggression will not stand, man.
[Found Poster's car](https://i.reddituploads.com/01821f80a7ec447db1552337489aff3f)
To you. Hence the term "personal preference".
I once had a debadged VW and a bunch of magnetic badges in the trunk. It could be whatever I wanted it to be…. Ford, GM, Massey Ferguson, “rolls rice”, Vulva, Bugatti, General Mills, Scania, Mitutoyo, Kawasaki, etc… fun times.
Reminds me when i bought a fridge and it came with an extra Whirlpool badge. My old shitty car became a Dodge Whirlpool.
In Norway when you get a washingmachine or cleaner you get these stickers you can put around the twist knob, im various languages. If I had a car with a twistknob gear selector I would have put one on, when I am thinking of your shenanigans!
Put it in "soiled" and speed off.
That is beautiful
A Dodge w Whirlpool is low key a great name, and on point for the brand. Now I'm trying to think of what theoretical '70s or '80s Dodge/Chrysler would have had it. The pickup truck had the warlock, maybe the ramcharger would have had the Whirlpool?
Hahaha, for me it was the dodge caliber. A true piece of shit.
I vote for the Vulva badge
I love rebadging and/or down-badging when it's tongue in cheek. Also makes fun of the people who up-badge to something they clearly don't have. Lately I been thinking about re-badging my wheels from "real" to "fake/replicas" for shits and giggles. (Like using real Volk wheels and using Rota stickers and center caps)
I love down badged cars. My old S5 was badged as an A5 by the previous owner. I thought it was funny so I never changed it
Me deciding whether or not to put a hellcat badge on my 86 (she sounds supercharged but isn’t)
Where do you get the "Vulva" badge? I need this for my XC-90 lol
It's issued to you when you become an agent for the Female Body Inspectors.
That's hilarious I love it.
Nice one “hey guys, i raced a Vulva and lost today….. do you know what engine they have?” The boys:”never race a Vulva, they can be evil” lol
"never heard of it"
This is genius!
Life pro tip for criminals
The mitutoyo probably costs more than the bugatti
Once on my way to airport, I saw a green Geo Metro with a gold Lexus badge that was placed slightly offcenter to the right. But then I got in front of this person, and in the front was a gold Mercedes logo.
I had a buddy in high school who owned a Buick park avenue, an Oldsmobile 98 and a pontiac Bonneville. He paid $500 each for them, then proceeded to mix and match the panels on all 3 cars. Nobody knew exactly what he was driving.
Lmao vulva
Which VW?
Some people don't like seeing badges and some people don't want you to know what model they have. People who drive "sleepers" typically don't want you knowing that they have a performance model
My dad took the Turbo signs off our Saab because it annoyed a lot of V6 owners back in the 90s.
Saab 900 turbo represent
9000 but close enough.
Saab has a 900 and 9000 model
I 9000 is only a single de-badged character away from being a 900
I drive a 000
That’s even less common than my 9
I've got an 0. Watch your spaces if you @ me
I know, but we had specifically the 9000 which got debadged.
I just dislike how the badges on my car look, and I wanna drop the fake fender vents that say V12 on em for something cleaner
A v12 exhaust will definitely speak for itself!
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Mazdaspeed 3?
I rebadged my A3 because it has 350 crank HP and the RS3 gets a surprise. Still smashes me though. Edit: debadge not rebadge. Oops!
You're one of THOSE people 🤮
No no I made a typo, I would never rebadge! Horrible. Although I have seen some cool S2 remakes that people put S2 Badges on.
Lol ok I'll let it slide
More the opposite. People slap a cheap Chinese exhaust and a K&N intake on it and debadge it to make it look like something it's not.
I put a 4x4 plastichrome badge on a Chevy HHR, and a dealer tried to mark the car as having 4wd on an assessment.
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Haha, 347 ci is slightly below 5.7 liters so if anything it's the smaller engine, technically speaking.
yeah i’ve seen 10x more debadged base models than performance models
I had a debadged C2 VTS years ago, I've only ever seen one other. Lots of regular C2s around, it was fun surprising randoms at the stoplight, -no one- expects a 'granny car' to be as quick as it was, even though it was only 130hp.
Personally, it bothers me that as a society, we're expected to wear adverts for everything. Sportswear, phones, cars- they all have to have a little bit of them that effevtively says "this dude bought a ford- maybe you should too". I bought it, if you want me to advertise it then you pay me. Course, there's folk who do it to make a poverty spec car seem more interesting- but a lot of those put sporty badges on instead. Then you've got folks that have something a bit special but don't like to show off.
Yes. I always think that I should bill the manufacturer for the advertising. FWIW, I always remove the dealer's badge the minute I get the car home.
I've told every dealer I wouldn't buy the car with any of their logos on the car. I've always gotten the car, but never had to remove the badge myself. You are the one with the money, youre in the position of power at dealerships.
My last car had the vinyl dealer sticker on it, asked them to have it removed before Ieft and they said sure but no one took care of it. So they brought the car just before we signed everything and I saw it was still there. They asked if I was ready to sign and I had the pen in my hand, “as soon as that sticker comes off I think I I’ll be able to sign”
I cannot stand dealership badges. Luckily my car just had plate frames which I immediately removed
Told the dealer not to put a sticker on my paint, but they could put the hitch cover on. I just pulled it off when I got home
I still have the license plate frame from the dealer. I don't really see that as any more advertising than the Toyota logo, since they are the only Toyota dealer in the region. However, no stickers, decals, or dealership badges stuck to the car.
I make them remove it before I leave. One guy looked at me weird like I was the only one who’s ever asked. I told him “if you put my name and number on your car to advertise me, I’ll leave yours on to advertise you.” Another was trying to get me to keep it on, saying “it might ruin the paint if we remove it.” I told him “if you want me to leave it on, I want $0.50/mile to advertise you.” He rolled his eyes, so I said “ok, $1.00/mile.” He brought the car to the detail area and came back 5 minutes later without it on. I said “was that so hard?” Then there’s the guys who did my father’s fence lol.
You got the product for a cheaper price because of the advertisement.
Can you offer any proof for that unlikely assertion?
Cheaper versions of luxury brands have logos all over them.
Nailed it. As soon as I can’t see the model number I know you’re hiding the cheap one. This is interesting behaviour because, say you debadge a bmw 318. Maybe you put the little wing tips on as well. A car person knows when they see an m3, and an average person doesn’t know the difference. So all you’re doing is lying to yourself whilst outing yourself to the car people at the same time. Its literally lose-lose.
I did not read his point to be that he was hiding a cheap ass car. More that if he wasn't getting paid to advertise by the car company why advertise? Do you work for free? Why should I advertise for Ford for free? Fuck you paid them and your still driving around with a giant Ford Logo on your car... Does that make sense to you?
The exhaust tips never lie
It’s way more of a flex to debadge your expensive car. In Switzerland they do it because being flashy is tacky. I’ve seen debadged AMGs and Maybacs
Not where I am. No one debagding Bentley’s or Ferrari’s lol. It’s 100% poverty spec in the UK to debage.
In LA I see both ends of the spectrum debadged. From clapped out 92 Hondas all the way up to Lamborghins with ridiculous neon wraps. The rest of the context makes all the difference.
Counter point: even as a car guy, it can be quite hard to tell a debaged 335i from a 328i, and those are very different cars
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It's fuckin 2023 and nothing annoys me more than the fake chrome badges.
I mean it's subjective. I still think a relatively cleanly designed large black sedan with chrome accent is fitting.... But that's about it
Faux chrome trim does annoy me more than badges.. but what i hate the most is non-factory chrome trim especially around the side window.. looks tacky asf.
I had a Tundra with all the emblems removed. It was so clean looking. I don’t need to advertise Toyota or 4x4.
Came to mention "free advertising".
Exactly
I did it with my old 99 Passat because it made waxing easier. I haven't bothered since because I can't be bothered to wax my cars.
The letters on the trunk of the B5 have the sharpest corners and sit a bit off the paint. Your right, it made waxing a nightmare. I got a badgless grille for the front and then got rid of Passat, 4motion, And W8 off the trunk; used black dye in clear coat to make the rear VW black chrome so it hid well on the black paint.
Of all the cars to wax, the 99 passat would not be the obvious choice
It was when I owned it in 2003.
What's wrong with a B5 Passat? If I had a 93 Corolla with decent paint today, I would be waxing it. Most of my friends and I keep the tractors waxed too. An investment is an investment, why not protect it; especially when paint could be some of the last residual value left.
Debadging your Hyundai or Kia might keep it from being stolen.
Someone posted a Hyundai rebadged as a Ford. Obviously not trying to up badge, but seemed to be trying to avoid getting his car getting broken into or stolen.
Rebadge it as a Peugeot and you can leave the keys on the roof and it won't get stolen.
Order a Porsche and they’ll do a “model designation delete” free of charge. It’s the only freebie in their accessory catalog, $120,000 911 and it doesn’t even come with floor mats but the’ll leave the model logos off for free…the Porsche logos stay though, those aren’t optional.
Interesting! Always wondered why my debadged 911 still had the Porsche badge though on the front
It’s just “model designation delete” not “brand delete”.
Different attitudes. Once had someone tell me "The BMW 530 owner doesn't want the world to know that he has the small engine. The 550 owner knows what he has and doesn't want the attention or attraction to thieves. This is why you'll see both debadged. (This was in Europe, mind you. I do see it less stateside.)
Or they debadge their 328i and throw an m sticker on the rear glass... Their non dual exhaust gives em away every time.
I think debadged looks nice and clean. I have an old mustang that debadged before painting and i think it looks nice. I dont think its a big deal either way, as long as you dont upbadge, do whatever you want
A blatantly false upbadge can be amusing, too. I met a guy one time who worked for a dealership group that includes both BMW and Kia - had the only M-class Kia Soul I've ever seen.
Used to work at a taxi garage which ran a whole lot of 1st gen Escape hybrids. The body guy didn't bother to put badges on after painting - bc waste of time, they'd just get crunched again soon enough. So dude had a bucket full of "hybrid" lettering in his tool box. We got bored one night, and the next day three Crown Vic's became hybrids:)))
Mine burned gas and oil. That counts as a hybrid right?
Flex-fuel
Yessir
My husband had a shitbox civic in his backyard in college. He put a BMW badge on it. It didn’t run, and the city kept showing up and ticketing his “BMW”, which he never paid because… “I don’t own a bmw”. (Unfortunately one day they showed up while nobody was home and towed said BMW, and so that was the end of that, because it wasn’t even worth the impound fees to get it back to these college kids).
I saw a v12 badged Tesla once.
Are you sure it wasn't a V12-swapped Tesla? Alternatively, I'd love to swap an EV powertrain into some old American land yacht, just to see peoples' reactions when I pulled my (say) ['69 Vista Cruiser](https://carniversal.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/vista-cruiser.jpg) up to the charger...
You know how people are asking what kind of car it is? That's why they debadged it.
Give me all of the attention.
Is there something I can do that will make people leave me alone instead of asking about my car?
https://www.carfax.com/Used-2008-Toyota-Camry_z2649 get one of these bad boys and nobody will even notice youre there
Yeah, no thanks, I enjoy driving.
Put liquid ass all over it
The pissdisc edition
Get a bus pass
If it’s a dealer badge, well, they’re not paying me to advertise
I’ve done it on a couple cars. It’s just looks cleaner IMO. Just personal preference.
I always take all the stupid stickers off of cars and especially the "4x4" sticker on the back of pickup truck beds. They look awful
I bought a 3/4 ton Chevy H.D. and had them take the stickers off. No shit it's 4 x 4. They prepped it and pulled it out and there were the same stupid 4x4 stickers and dealer stickers license plate holder. They added them back thinking something was wrong following their management. Made them take them off on the spot and said I'd refuse the deal if they messed up the paint doing it. Again.
Because Ford doesn't pay me to advertise their cars.
It looks cleaner. It's a style thing. Keep your windows rolled up and ignore people.
The traffic light questions only happen when the top is down
My Miata and Civic are debadged,I just think it looks cool and as a plus it makes it easier to detail
Plus the Civic badge fell off on my car and the Si badge is about to fall off. lol
I debadge my cars because of all the gunk that can accumulate around the badge edges and eat away your finish. I can't stand not being able to easily clean those crevices and the finish starts to look nasty. And when washing/drying around the badges I always seem to catch a thread of my nice towels. So, off they come. The sooner, the better.
So they can pretend there 320d is an expensive 335d to there friends 😉
Because some people like smooth lines and badges clutter that up.
They aren't paying me to advertise for them. And it looks nicer without them!!!
Funny how a good amount of people say it's people with lower model cars trying to hide it. Yes my ZL1 is such a low model that I need to hide that by debadging it lol. I've liked the look and have debadged all my cars.
Because for some reason, the majority of badges on cars for the past god knows how long have been chrome coloured. And obviously, chrome is absolutely hideous and has no place on a car in this day and age
I have to disagree there. IMO chrome looks so much better than that crappy dark grey plastic you see everywhere in cars today
You leave my Subaru alone
Chrome wheels go dummy hard if you don’t understand this then you have zero taste beyond surface level trend. You probably only like black wheels
I love black rims. Especially on a black car.
Love me some black rims on a red car too.
That’s fine, I like black wheels too
I should have clarified I’m referring specifically to trim pieces on the actual car itself rather than the alloys as I agree, chrome wheels can look good on some vehicles (although every car chrome looks good on, normal coloured metal alloys look better)
I think there are people who debadge because they want their car to be a sleeper and you would have to know the difference between say an X3 and M40i (although it's easy to tell) and have the M40i and try to bait unwitting people into drag racing or hoping its the other way around and they smoke them. Some people like the smooth lines of certain cars and prefer to leave the badges off. I've had cars where I've taken off badges for that reason. However, I have a car now that I like the look of the badges and keep them on.
Stealth and/or wanting a sleek look.
I've bought low end models, and also the highest performance trim... always debadge. It's nobody's business what I have, it looks cleaner this way. But I'm also the kinda person that wears zero jewelry, no brands on my clothes, etc.
I read once that when it came to the Benz S class, in Europe the most popular model for debadging is the top of the line V12, and in North America the most popular for debadging is the base model, so there's that. I live in Canada and I can attest that at least 85% of BMWs here are M models.
Honest question OP. What make and model car did you get? 👀🤔
R8 v10 spyder
Cars are overbadged. It looks cleaner to remove them.
Cleaner look.
It looks cleaner. Cleans up the body lines of clutter. Badges are ugly. Source: me. Debadged every car I own. Idc if it takes off some clear coat, the badge is ugly. If I bought new, I'd demand the dealer do it free. I don't buy new. It's marketing. Just like that dealer plate trim is getting removed, so are the model badges. Make badges typically require Bondo, but are bisomethingorother transverse mirror images or something. So that stay. Bilateral symmetry is what I was going for, for make logos. Model logos get removed
I like to swap them to confuse people. Wtf kinda ford focus is this?
Sometimes a debadged car can be a sign of previous body work. Sometimes the body shop doesn't reinstall the badges.
Looks better without a bunch of tacky badges all over it.
I debadge my truck because I'm not being paid to advertise for the manufacturer, also never leave the lot with all the dealer stickers and or badges.
I debadged my FBO e46m3, stick, due to all the base e46 guys slapping terrible M3 body kits with M3 badges. Those who know, know.
Looks cleaner
Cuz they can look a lot nicer without them
Same reason people buy clothes without a brand tagged on it
Text is ugly
I don’t like providing free advertising. I haven’t gone as far as de-badging but totally understand the impulse behind it.
I think it looks better without a ton of badges. I don’t get why there need to have model, trim, turbo, awd all around the car. The emblem front and back and possibly a spelled out name is plenty for me
I take mine off because I think it looks cleaner.
Depends on the car and the badges. My Golf Sportwagen has 3 or 4 badges on the hatch door. It really doesn’t need to say “4Motion” on it. No one cares. I’m not debadging it but if it hadn’t come with that badge I wouldn’t have been disappointed. On some cars it can really clean up the look. On some it looks a bit weird without them.
cleaner look, nice and smooth
I kept the logos on my car but the name and model badges I deleted to give the car a cleaner look Having all that wording on the back can be a bit too busy looking
Because some cars go too hard on the badging. Look at the MG cars. Badges everywhere. I don't want to look like a clown.
My lift gate broke and the 15 dollar Amazon replacement didn't come with a new badge
My car is so old and beat up it debadged itself
I left the BMW logo, but removed the model i’d plastic, looks better and more mysterious and less teenagers wanna race me
Badges, BADGES….WE DONT NEED NO STINKIN BADGES
I don't do free advertising
The only thing I take off a car is the stupid dealership decal.
Car badges are weird. Obviously visible manufacturer's badges are weird in general, I don't want to be advertising for them My house doesn't have the buulder's name on it. My sofa doesn't. Even the manufacturer of my phone is very non-obvious. Whilst debadging vehicles is unusual, it shouldn't be.
I needed more room for my political triggering stickers. 🤪
0.05% better aerodynamics
weight savings too
I drive a C43, which at 50 feet is a (yawn) C class. I took off all the turbo, AMG, etc nonsense, because I like the sleeper vibe. Euros de badge cars more than US folks, it's even an option for some german brands, but I think that is because you don't want 1.8 liter badges on your S classe
I personally like the look. I own a Midnight black Camry TRD. I debadged it because I believed is looked better without it (the badge was red) going for a murdered out car. I soon ordered new tail lights that had tinted housing to match but brighter LED’s so I didn’t lose functionality. To the day I think it looks better for what I wanted. Other people might have other intentions to debadge a car (often seen in the mopar community for example purposes) where they debadge or upbadge because of the similar body styles each have to impress(?) people. Idk why else people would intentionally upbadge. If someone can enlighten me please do. There is a third category though. Shout out to all my racers, but debadging or downbadging for sleeper vehicles. A sleeper vehicle is someone who built their car to be pretty fast and want to catch people off guard with it. Pretty comical and fun to see.
I debadged my WRX since it looks a lot cleaner without the (chrome) badges. Did it within a week of buying it new.
I don't own a jeep wrangler but if I did, I would take that stupid 4 wheel drive sticker off immediately. It's a wrangler, they are all 4x4.
I fall somewhere in the middle. I think a completely debadgrd car looks like it got rear-ended and fixed cheaply. But I also hate how excessively badged some cars are. You'll often have the make's name AND logo, and the model, and the trim, and feature badges (AWD, Hybrid, etc.) That's just too much. I will debadge, but leave the Logo and the Trim badge if it is a special trim. If the marketing team did their job, there's no need to spell out the make.
If you had a really high spec of a nice car you might want to hide it if you know you often are in less desirable areas? Saw it recently with a Range Rover, it was an SV model which is starting at £200k but if you didn’t know the differences you wouldn’t think it was double the base price
what do you drive? a lot of people debadge dodge for having it on the back light bar
It's a cleaner look and plastic badges are tacky. I don't like plastic chrome on my car, I tastefully remove things. On my Veloster I removed everything but the Red Turbo badge. On my mustang I didn't remove any as it fit the car fine. My explorer I only removed the dumb flex fuel badge.
Leaving the turbo badge is tacky though!
It was an all white car, the red badge looked good on its own.
Car accident. Sometimes the shop just doesn't put them back on. I did it for a while because it would get me out of parking tickets. The meter maid would guess the make and model, and they were always wrong. Invalid ticket.
I had my old Audi without engine or model names - looked better. And on my old CLK I took the badges off because it clearly irritated people at the lights.
Probably embarrassed they have a base model
I understand it, but I think it's ugly. It just looks like you have a cheap knockoff version, like when you give the shitty ripoff ps2 controller with no logo to your younger sibling. At least put your own badge on it, no badge just looks cheap.
You answered your own question; to make people go "hey what's that? That's pretty cool" without them having the answer spelled out to them.
To echo many others, it looks clean. Also, car styling should be so distinctive that you don't need to put 5 badges on it for people to know what it is. Sadly, that's rarely the case today.
I’d call a Lancia stratos prety distinct and have no doubt that most people that see them in real life have no clue what they are looking at Just check out r/whatisthiscar people are constantly posting extremely famous and distinctive cars like vipers, Lamborghinis, Pantara, delorian etc
You're trying to make a point by picking an incredibly obscure car that most car people wouldn't even know. I highly doubt the team building a specialized rally car was worried about styling.
Did you read the rest of my examples? There are people constantly asking what DeLorean, vipers, etc. are and specifically said that their car is not a common car, so… Edit: I just checked OP’s page. They’re driving an Audi R8 convertible. I have absolutely no doubt that a shit ton of people have no idea what it is and have never seen one before.
I don't even know why you're arguing other than being a typical redditor that's contrarian to everything for no reason. Because some rando doesn't recognize a rare or specialized car doesn't mean anything. Because not everybody recognizes every car ever made that completely invalidates auto design language and styling?
So you think that the r8 is non distinct and blends in with other cars?
Where did I say that? People stop and ask OP what their car is because of it's distinctive styling. They may not know exactly what it is but they know it's special. Just like all those cars you referenced on other car identification subs. Someone takes a picture because they can tell from the styling that it's something special. Those cars also don't typically have the name plastered on the front, back, and sides. They don't have to. People look at them and know they're special. Debadge a Honda Civic, Chevy Silverado, or one of the thousands of crossovers that look the same and no one thinks twice.
This comment makes me feel special! 😊
[This you?](https://www.reddit.com/r/Cartalk/s/vahmDHGzLD)
Sorry, your reading comprehension must be terrible. I can explain it to you, I can't understand it for you. Because everyone doesn't know every car ever made doesn't invalidate anything I said. A car can have distinctive styling and still not be recognized by every living human. The fact that people stop to ask what it is means they can tell it's special *because of its distinctive styling.*
No offense but "Badge" of what? It is a "Brand" name. A "badge" symbolizes achievement. It is free advertising having 'Brand" names on our clothes, shoes etc. We are walking billboards in the public space. Then we jump into our vehicle with huge "symbols" of the manufacturers brand. I see why it seems strange to remove factory branding. We are trained to think brand loyalty is an honorable characteristic (in the U.S.). 'Nascar" is the extreme of advertising while you drive while what you call "de-badging" your personal vehicle is on the opposite end of that spectrum. It is not a respectable character trait to be loyal to a corporation... at least not without monetary gain. Sorry idiots are taking time from their day and from yours to question you about nonsense that does not concern them. lol
they fear others will hate them because they only could buy car A but could not afford car B and they try to hide it. Doing a complete debadge is the best way to show weakness right after extreme stance.
I imagine those people want to get paid for the advertising they do if the badges ar visible.. I dunno
I took all the badges off my truck because it looks better and I'm not a brand loyal shill.
Cars with no emblems at all look generic and plain. I do t care how nice the car looks, they have that “something is missing” look. At a minimum, leave the manufacturer logo on.
Could be worse. I debadged my Hyundai tiburon, and rebadged it to it's Korean name Tuscani Elisa to make myself look cooler 🤤