The psychology of 'de-badging'

[Muddle238]

A family member has an IX35 which is in my opinion, vastly over badged.

Centre stage, you have a fairly large Hyundai logo badge. Left side bootlid has the word "HYUNDAI" spelled out, incase you didn't recognise the logo in the middle. Right side bootlit has "IX35" in a different font to the HYUNDAI. Below the IX35 lettering is a rectangular silver badge with black letters saying CRDI, then below that randomly all by itself is another badge, again in it's own unique font saying "4WD", which it isn't 99% of the time.

When it comes to badging, the Korean's don't know when to stop.

That being said, I think cars look empty with no badges at all. Each time I see a completely badgeless car I think it looks ste, you know it's an old Golf or Vectra and removing the badge won't make me wonder if it's something more exciting, because I can see it's an old Golf or Vectra.

My previous car had the model name deleted and the manufacturer name moved central under the badge. They then facelifted the car with this arrangement a few months later. My current car has the manufacturer name deleted, just leaving the badge which looks a bit tidier and easier to clean. Plus everyone should know what manufacturer it is because there's a double chevron at the front, and if they don't recognise that I'm not sure they really care and nor do I.

[TVRJAS]

I bought a Jag three weeks ago and noticed it was debadged and not sure if to put a badge on it.

I could well be perceived as trying to convince car enthusiasts that I'm not actually driving an X350 3.0 petrol,so watch it guy's it might be an XJR. Not helping the fact that it has an upgraded XJR front mesh grill( But you wouldn't know that from sitting behind).

Doing some research on Jags after I bought it I stumbled across a long term test by "FleetNews" and it's the car I just bought explains why I have no badges.

http://www.fleetnews.co.uk/cars/reviews/jaguar/xj6...

Picture taken about 1hr ago.



Really not sure what to do......

[ajprice]

I'd say leave it as it is.

[KingNothing]

My focus is debadged at the back, will likely take the other badge off the front when I get round to it. Makes it easier to clean more than anything.

[jayemm89]

I usually leave cars as they are, I've made two exceptions.

1. I had a Yellow 996 with a genuine GT3 kit and wheels. Unfortunately, it also had GT3 wheel centres and a badge on the back. They went straight away and I bought a "Carrera 4" badge to go on the back as I don't like a car pretending to be something it's not. Anyone who knows what a GT3 is probably knew that it wasn't one.

2. My Z4 M Coupe. They don't have any Z4 badges, but three ///M badges on the outside, none of which look very neat. So I took them all off. And put a pistonheads smiley on the back.

[anonymous-user]

TVRJAS said:

Really not sure what to do......

Leave it as is, looks perfect to me. Nice car btw.

[AH33]

[BaronVonVaderham]

daemon said:

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

But then the Renault diamond is not centred on the panel and looks really odd.

[veccy208]

Just my own opinion, but I think some cars look a bit 'bald' without badges. The Evo and the Merc being the exception, they are a bit plastered with badges. Make and model looks ok I think.

[Matt Harper]

I replaced my unacceptably Euro-metric fender badge with a less braggardly one - and added the hood emblems, because 'murican cars displacement should be in freedom-inducing cubic inches, goddammit.

[TVRJAS]

cb1965 said:

TVRJAS said:

Really not sure what to do......

Leave it as is, looks perfect to me. Nice car btw.

Thank you cjprice and cb1965 for the leave it alone comments. I guess it was bothering me slightly as last week I entered Jag badges in google to put it back as it should be. Reading both of your comments I will leave it as it is for now.(Thanks for the reply)

CB1965,

Thanks for the Nice car comment Early days yet,only about 400 miles covered so far. But what a lovely 400 miles they have been,love it.

[k-ink]

I've de-badged almost all cars I've ever owned. They we pretty much all top of their range. It is not about the spec. All cars look cleaner without badges. They are merely ugly dirt traps. Minimalism needs no excuse. I cannot believe the mentality of leaving them on! Displaying ones car spec via plastic tat is just sad imho.

[anonymous-user]

TVRJAS said:

CB1965,

Thanks for the Nice car comment Early days yet,only about 400 miles covered so far. But what a lovely 400 miles they have been,love it.

You're welcome. I had an XJ8 for two years a couple of years back. One of the best cars I've ever owned. Lovely place to be, you will love it. Enjoy!

[craig2003]

The rear badges have recently been removed from my RS4, I did think about sticking a set of more stealthy carbon or black like the Audi badge but changed my mind. I am undecided as to whether it looked better with or without

[anonymous-user]

My dad started asking dealers to de-badge any new car he bought in in the late 80's and into the 90's. When I asked him why, he said it was because he was walking back to his then new E30 BMW 320i one day in a car park in 1987, and saw a chap looking at it, who then went round the back to have a quick look at the badge to see what model of 3 series it was.

My dad said he then decided it was "no one else's business what model he had bought" so he took to de-badging everything after that

I de-badge cars simply because badges and stickers offend my eyes and make cars look messy and cluttered. I generally remove all window stickers, model or spec badges such as 2.0 or TDi, and I buy number plates that are completely 100% plain apart from the registration number of course...

[AshBurrows]

Symmetry good. None central badges bad.
Removed from my m3 because of this.

[bomma220]

I took the badges off my Sierra Cosworth 2.0 16v 5 speed turbo nutter bd cd autochanger because I thought it was less shouty to car thieves. I know some can tell the difference between a Cosworth & a 'cooking' model, but mine was never stolen or vandalised.... maybe I was just lucky? Anyhow, I knew what it was, never needed a badge to remind me

[Troubleatmill]

Life is too short....
Leave the badge.... let the world know what you bought.

Spend some money on petrol and just find a nice road and drive....

When I see a debadged car.. I think.. "Oh dear.. the driver of that car does not have any confidence in his social stature, and is trying to disguise what he can afford"

I have never thought... "Hmm.. that car owner is a cutting edge trend setter... it is clearly a top of the range beast..."

Buy the car... just drive it and have fun..

The best fun car James Hunt ( and I would bet a gonad he was a better driver than 99.9999% of this forum ) said he had was some stty Austin A10 (or A35??)

Edited by Troubleatmill on Friday 15th April 00:14

[sebhaque]

Troubleatmill said:

Buy the car... just drive it and have fun..

With all due respect, I think that's what a lot of PHer debadgers are doing. They just want to enjoy their car, without every boy racer from here to Hanoi trying to drag race them away from the traffic lights.

I debadged my old Volvo S60 T5. The car was a daily for me, and I have no intention of proving I could accelerate faster than a CTR on the way to work. It's amazing how much attention some people pay to badges. I like to look at what spec some cars (e.g. Merc C-class or Porsche 911) are, but I don't instantly thing, "OMG, GT2, must have a race!!!!!" I did notice that after debadging, my racer friends dropped off somewhat.

Interestingly, my Mercedes C180 (i.e. bottom of the range) is debadged even though it has the AMG kit. Nobody looks at it twice, in fact the only car I've had try and race it is some tt in a taxi cut up the hard shoulder just to get in front of the 3 cars he was originally behind. They pulled off at the next junction, which to him obviously meant the M25 became Santa Pod.

Debadging in general - I understand it, I don't agree nor disagree but if someone wants to, I'm all for it. If you've spent £x on your car and want to make sure it's used for your enjoyment only, there's no problem.

[Black_S3]

Even as a car lover I couldn't care about a c220, 118 or the likes. Disguise a GT3 as a C4S and there's a chance I'd end up on some sort of register though