DriveTimes Five

Five models that are better than the cars they’re based on

Whether it be a deal to co-develop a car together (usually with one party doing all the work and the other suppling the cash), one car brand owned by another or a simple rebadge of another manufacturer’s model, we quite often see cars from different companies sharing all of their underneath bits and many outside bits as well. But sometimes the manufacturer doing the borrowing actually manages to make a better fist of the final product than the one who did the developing. Today we take a look at five of those times.

Based on: Mazda MX-5. OK, so let’s make this clear right from the start: the Mazda MX-5 is a thoroughly brilliant car that we dearly love. But the Abarth version of the Fiat version (yes that’s right) of the MX-5 is even better.

Looks are subjective, so we will leave those aside, apart from saying that the Abarth’s less subtle looks sum up the car’s driving experience and its differences from the Mazda nicely. Where the Mazda is a sharp, precise corner carving tool, the Abarth – with its more powerful turbo engine, stiffer suspension and limited-slip differential – is a wilder proposition. Where the Mazda is a friendly puppy doing your bidding, the Abarth is more of a pugnacious mongrel that makes you work for it. And, damn, is it fun!

Based on: Audi 50. The original VW Polo was literally a rebadged Audi 50, but where pretty much all of you reading this will have heard of the Polo, I would bet there are more than a few wondering what an Audi 50 is.

Only sold in Europe, the Audi 50 was introduced in 1974 and was largely identical to the Polo that was launched the following year.

However, the big difference between the two is the fact that the Audi was largely ignored by the buying public and dropped in 1978, while the Polo was wildly successful and VW is still making it today.

Based on: Opel Rekord. When it came time for Holden to replace its ageing HZ model, it looked overseas to fellow General Motors subsidiary Opel.

The Holden Commodore VB was pretty much just an Opel Rekord E with the nose of an Opel Senator grafted on to it, to make room for larger six and eight-cylinder engines.

However, quite a bit of work had to be done to strengthen the Rekord for the far harsher Australian conditions, with significant body strengthening and suspension work being done.

In fact Holden invested AU$110 million in making the VB suitable for local conditions, which would be around half a billion dollars today!

Based on: Mitsubishi ASX. You might think that a car like the C4 Aircross, with French styling but built by the Japanese, could almost be perfect. But it wasn’t, not by a long shot.

It was, however, a better car than the Mitsubishi ASX it was based on. Unlike the VW Polo that we label as the better car because of its success over its donor Audi, the opposite is true here – the Citroen was a failure, while the ASX keeps selling because Mitsubishi is a very mainstream brand... plus it keeps dropping the price. However, the Citroen not only boasted far more attractive styling, it also had a better interior, with higher quality materials. It still had the same awful CVT transmission and wheezy engine though.

Based on: Mazda 121. Ha ha! Just kidding, these were both awful cars. And so was the rebadged Kia version that was sold as the Pride.

Mazda was responsible for the design and engineering of this tripleheaded atrocity, but the Ford is actually the worst because it tried to fool you into thinking it was a far superior small Ford by having a name suspiciously similar to ‘‘Fiesta’’.

They must have fooled enough people, because the abomination continued into a second-generation car in 1993, but by then it was just Ford and Kia, because Mazda had the good sense to bail out and develop the Demio, which would eventually become the Mazda2.