Graham reminds us that the idea of badge engineering has a long history.
Way back in the 1970s, when the classic car movement was in its infancy, quite a few traditionalists began to complain about Badge Engineering – where one car would be lightly facelifted, given a different front grille and a new badge, before being launched as a new model. Austins became MGs, Jaguars became Daimlers and Sunbeams became Singers in this way – and they all sold well.
Even so, some of the loudest to complain never really realised that this trend was not new, nor earth-shattering, for so-called badge engineering had been around in the USA since the 1920s, and had appeared in the UK by the 1930s. Today’s theme, therefore, is to recall some earlier examples.
First of all, in the 1930s I reckon there were three very different concerns – Daimler, Nuffield (which really means Morris) and the Rootes Group – who got involved. Daimler not only cloned a Lanchester Light Six from a BSA Light Six, but their BSA 10hp shared a complete bodyshell and running gear with the Lanchester Ten. Oddly enough, the Hillman Minx used the same bodyshell as well, the link here being Pressed Steel (still an independent company in those days) who provided the same shell to both Daimler/ Lanchester and Hillman, who each knew about and approved of this arrangement. Also, the Hillman 16 and Hawk types were effectively the same as the Humber Snipe, but Nuffield took the gold medal for making their entire late-1930s Wolseleys dependent on the contemporary Morris Series II and III, apart from different engines and front grilles.
So please don’t get too excited by what happened in the British motor industry of the 1950s and 1960s, for it had all been tried before, and refined successfully by Detroit’s car-makers. Here in the UK, both Ford and Vauxhall might have enjoyed tapping into their US masters’ expertise, but had no alternative badges to use. Standard seemed to be determined to keep their Triumph brand visually separate, which left only BMC (Austin, Morris and more) and the Rootes Group (Hillman, Sunbeam and more) to carry the practice into the postwar years.
Even before the big merger of 1951/1952 inspired the birth of BMC, Nuffield started the new trend by selling MG Y-Types as visual evolutions of the Morris Eight, but then came the forced marriage which produced the MG ZA Magnette/ Wolseley 4/44 duo, and the Riley Pathfinder/ Wolseley 6/90 pairing. Big Austins soon gave birth to big Vanden Plas Princesses, but it wasn’t long before Rootes chimed in with Hillman Minxes which became Singer Gazelles, both of which gave birth to Sunbeam Rapiers – and in later years a Humber Sceptre sub-type was added too. In a modest way, Jaguar also joined in at this time, for it was not long before the Jaguar Mk2 of 1959 was joined by the Daimler 2½-litre saloon, where the only real difference between the two was the engines.
Then came what we seasoned old cynics called the BMC Blitz, for not one but five different versions of the Farina-styled B-Series platform all appeared in 1959. Then came Austin, Morris, Riley and Wolseley versions of the Mini, followed by Austin, Wolseley and Princess versions of the same new big saloon. It was not until the FWD 1100 types – Austin, Morris, MG, Riley, Wolseley and Vanden Plas – all appeared that many observers (and customers too, I reckon) all cried ’enough.' If BMC had not then disappeared into the maw of British Leyland and their profits disappeared down the drain marked ‘union problems,’ who knows what might have happened? By then, after all, Alvis, Jaguar, Triumph and Rover had already joined the same conglomerate...
That, though, seems to have been the height of the madness, for in the next few years the British trend was not to badge engineer, but to choose one model, then to offer it in a mass of different derivatives. Ford, of course, was a master of this process (Capris of the 1970s were available in 1.3, 1.6, 2.0, 3.0, and 3.1-litre form, for instance), while even limited-production makers like Jaguar took a similar route – XJ6 and derivatives were available with 2.8, 3.4, 4.2, and 5.3-litre engines plus two-door or fourdoor bodies, not to mention Daimler badges that further richened the mix.
Later of course, ruthlessly logical product planners slimmed things down even further by killing off entire brands completely. At British Leyland you probably don’t have to be reminded of the demise of Morris, Riley, Triumph and Wolseley, while at the Rootes/Chrysler Group there were no more Hillmans, Humbers or Sunbeams and it was a case of binning all the different grilles, badges, brochures – and dealerships too.
Today, it is all very different, for a quick study of the price lists shows that very few British brands now survive at all, but if you are rich enough you could choose between seven different Land-Rover/Range Rover types and six different Jaguars. This diversity, by the way, is dwarfed by 18 different BMWs and 20 different Mercedes.