1993 Dodge Viper Rt-10 on 2040-cars

Auto blog

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

Watch the Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat verify its 204-mph top speed

The industry is producing some ridiculously fast four-doors these days, from the Porsche Panamera and Maserati Quattroporte to the Mercedes E63 AMG and BMW M5. But the fastest of them all doesn't cost six figures. It doesn't even come from Europe. It's made right here in North America, by a US automaker. And it starts at under $64k. We're talking about the Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat, the Pentastar muscle sedan with the 6.2-liter supercharged V8 and its 707 horsepower. Dodge claims it's the "quickest, fastest, most powerful [production] sedan ever," and they're not just blowing smoke... or smoking tires. During the final stages of development, engineers from Auburn Hills took a bone-stock, Hellcat-powered Charger out to a seven-mile oval for a top speed run and they filmed the occasion for posterity. The result? 206.9 miles per hour with the wind, 202.2 against it, for a two-way average top speed of 204.55 mph. Chew on that, imports.

Takata air bag recall list

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration confirmed yesterday that 33.8 million vehicles with Takata airbags are going to be recalled. It's the largest recall in automotive history. The already record-breaking rate of automotive recalls this year shows no signs of slowing down, especially since millions of cars with defective airbags made by global supplier Takata are under ongoing scrutiny. The federal government is warning owners that inflator mechanisms in the air bags can rupture, causing metal fragments to fly out when the bags are deployed. The faulty air bags have already been blamed for multiple deaths. How do you know if your vehicle is safe? The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration released an updated list of vehicles under recall. Sometimes however, the government's website will crash and the list may not be complete. Check your VIN at the NHTSA website to make sure. The list of cars affected by the recall has not been released, but seem to span multiple models over the years for many of the automakers.