The psychology of 'de-badging'

[161BMW]

Audi RS2 is a very cool car
0-30mph is quicker than McLaren F1 road car and F1 car driven by Jacques Villeneuve. Not to mention engineering input from Porsche and good brakes to boot!

[CB2152]

There's a Volvo S60 in my friend's road with "R" wheels and an "R" front bumper resprayed to the colour of the rest of the car, and it has a D5 badge on the back. Turns out it is a D5, but it is quite tricky to tell considering the effort the guy has put in...

In my opinion, a bit sad...

[DickyC]

161BMW said:

Audi RS2 is a very cool car
0-30mph is quicker than McLaren F1 road car and F1 car driven by Jacques Villeneuve. Not to mention engineering input from Porsche and good brakes to boot!

For its all round ability it was probably the best car I've owned.

Quick! Put it on your Must Have One Day list.

[ShiresV2]

I debadge everything unless it's rare or old.

I'm old fashioned and feel that proudly displaying the engine size and whether it has ABS and so on is a bit vulgar. It feels like I've taped my P60 to the back of the car.

[JonathanLegard]

Badges you say?

As spotted in Tooting.

[swindorski]

ToothbrushMan said:

Ive never quite understood what drives somebody to either change badges or de-badge.

Now im even more confused reading about 320d owners wanting to give the impression of something faster like an M or the 335i chappy debadging his car to make it less conspicuous as a fast car.why not get both drivers together over a pint and just swap keys instead

Mine says 'targa' on the boot. If I removed these five black letters, from my black car, I'm sure whoever would be interested might still notice the roof is made of glass. Those that aren't wouldn't notice (or care) either way.

In the meantime I have a less cluttered smoother boot...

[daytona111r]

I always thought it would be cool to have a Dino, with just the Dino badges, and not any Ferrari badges that had probably been added at some point during it's life.

[e21Mark]

My old beemer should say 316, but with dual 50mm exhausts it would probably look a bit daft if I left the badge on. They never made a 328 e21, so I shan't bother.

[AlexRS2782]

JonathanLegard said:

Badges you say?

As spotted in Tooting.

It would be equally at home on the crappy plates thread too

[Nohedes]

Ozzie Osmond said:

As others may have noticed, Porsche fairly recently adopted the habit of writing a large chrome P O R S C H E across the back of their entire range of cars.

Lucky buyers can specify the "no cost option" of deleting the Porsche lettering. However, there is no option available for deletion of the model designation - neither free nor paid for!

I think this might be wrong - from memory, it's possible to have the model designation deleted, e.g. '911 Carrera' or replaced with just '911' but you can't order without the 'PORSCHE' badge on the back. All of these options are FOC.

On the main topic, I think P1H nailed it several pages ago...

[ManOpener]

I'm contemplating removing the "TFSI" badges down the side of my car. Not for any vain reason, but mostly because the "I" fell off on one side and won't go back on as the backing has gone minging.

[yzrh]

If I owned a new top-end car, e.g. SL65 AMG, then I'm not de-badging it. If I had a cheaper variant of that car, e.g. a S300, I would certainly get it de-badged.

As bad and egotistical as it sounds, it's mostly about status.

[developer]

My E63 was de-badged.

I had them put back on by the dealer before I bought it.

Why would I want to dumb it down? - it's an E63.

Hello again Dave .

[anonymous-user]

Debadged my SL55 for two reasons:

1) It looks cleaner without the clutter of the badges
2) Unlike most Merc owners I have no need to shout about what car it is! The weird thing is the lower in the range the car is the more they seem to need to let people know what they own which in most cases is a dull ugly saloon from a marque trading on its history!

[TooMany2cvs]

cb1965 said:

Debadged my SL55...

...Unlike most Merc owners I have no need to shout about what car it is!

Yet you resurrected a thread untouched for two years to tell us...?

[anonymous-user]

Thread came up in a feed, I commented on it, it's a forum.. that's what you do! Understand???? Could do with an emoticon of banging hand on some thicko's head here!

[Daston]

I fail to see the point of badges full stop. I don't need to be told what model I purchased. It's not like my suit for work has a massive sign on the back telling the world how much it was.

My RX7 has no badges just the Mazda RX symbol front and rear. The MG is the same with just the ZS logo and Checkered flag they put on them.

[daemon]

I've just bought a Clio 197 and am going to debadge it - purely for the "clean" look at the rear.

[lee_fr200]

I've debadged previous cars as I think they make a car look cluttered and crap so removed them

[TooMany2cvs]

Daston said:

It's not like my suit for work has a massive sign on the back telling the world how much it was.

Not even on one sleeve?
http://www.themitchelli.com/2011/03/fashion-faux-p...