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Question of the Day: Most heinous act of badge engineering?

Badge engineering, in which one company slaps its emblems on another company's product and sells it, has a long history in the automotive industry. When Sears wanted to sell cars, a deal was made with Kaiser-Frazer and the Sears Allstate was born. Iranians wanted new cars in the 1960s, and the Rootes Group was happy to offer Hillman Hunters for sale as Iran Khodro Paykans. Sometimes, though, certain badge-engineered vehicles made sense only in the 26th hour of negotiations between companies. The Suzuki Equator, say, which was a puzzling rebadge job of the Nissan Frontier. How did that happen? My personal favorite what-the-heck-were-they-thinking example of badge engineering is the 1971-1973 Plymouth Cricket. Chrysler Europe, through its ownership of the Rootes Group, was able to ship over Hillman Avanger subcompacts for sale in the US market. This would have made sense... if Chrysler hadn't already been selling rebadged Mitsubishi Colt Galants (as Dodge Colts) and Simca 1100s as (Simca 1204s) in its American showrooms. Few bought the Cricket, despite its cheery ad campaign. So, what's the badge-engineered car you find most confounding? Chrysler Dodge Automakers Mitsubishi Nissan Suzuki Automotive History question of the day badge engineering question

MotorWeek proves '90s were awesome with Supra, Stealth, RX-7, Corvette, 968, 300ZX comparo

Oh, the heady days of 1993, back when the Clinton Presidency was just getting underway, and it seemed like every hot new rock band was coming out of Seattle. Sports cars in the US had finally shaken off the shackles that slowed them during the '70s and '80s, and you could buy any number of legitimately quick vehicles again. MotorWeek recently went digging into its archives to find this six-model test from 1993 showing off some of the best semi-affordable performance coupes that money could buy at the time, and it's priceless.
Featuring the 1994 model year Toyota Supra in twin-turbo guise and MY 1993 versions of the Porsche 968, Nissan 300ZX TT, Mazda RX-7, Dodge Stealth R/T Turbo and Chevrolet Corvette LT-1, MotorWeek definitely covered all of the bases. One thing that might surprise younger readers is these cars' performance. The video only provides 0-60 acceleration times, but several of these vehicles would still be considered pretty potent today - over 20 years since going on sale. The Supra is especially impressive, hitting 60 miles per hour in just 5 seconds. Even today, that's nothing to sneeze at.
Given their performance potential and still-attractive looks, it's amazing that some of these coupes are old enough to drink now. The progress of interior design and safety equipment in the intervening years is pretty shocking, though. In most of these models, having two airbags is touted as a big deal. Scroll down to watch a Throwback Thursday blast from the past about some of the '90s best sports cars.

Daily Driver: 2015 Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat

Daily Driver videos are micro-reviews of vehicles in the Autoblog press fleet, reviewed by the staffers who drive them every day. Today's Daily Driver features the 2015 Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat, reviewed by Greg Migliore. You can watch the video above or read a transcript below. Watch more Autoblog videos at /videos. VIDEO TRANSCRIPT: [00:00:00] Hey, everybody. It's Greg Migliore and today I am driving a 707-horsepower Dodge Charger. That can only mean one thing: I'm driving the Hellcat. Naturally, the spotlight feature of this car is the 6.2-liter supercharged Hemi V8. Makes 707 horsepower and 650 pound feet of torque. [00:00:30] Now naturally the engine sounds great and you can hear all of those horses going out the exhaust in back, which I think the Dodge guys have tuned really well. I think it's got one of the more unique sounds in the industry. All that horsepower will do that, but they've tuned it so there's a low kind of growl, and then it burbles and it's angry [00:01:00], it's visceral. I like it. It's intoxicating. It's different than other muscle cars. It's different than European exotics. I think it sounds great. I'm driving in sport right now which allows me to use the paddle shifters. I think it sounds a little better and the shifts of the eight-speed automatic transmission are a little bit more aggressive. For such a powerful car, Dodge did a nice job of tuning it to be actually pretty drivable. I just took a corner right there and the [00:01:30] steering offers you satisfying weight to your inputs. It's a little bit of a heavier steering, especially compared to some of the earlier generation Chargers. It's sporty, but it's not crazy. The design of the Dodge Charger is a critical element. That's why a lot of people buy this car, is it gives them that muscle car heritage look. The Hellcat has some special design cues that are also functional. You've got a couple of extra air intakes up front, keeps everything cool and breathing, the air flowing through; a nice spoiler in back [00:02:00] that helps keep the aero, and the downforce keeps you on the ground. The HID projector headlights really pop, especially at night, and in back you've got the LED taillights that spread out wide across the back end of this car like some of the great Chargers of the past. This car rolls on 20-inch black wheels with a spiderweb design. I think they look good. They're kind of low-key, which I think is great.