Hooniverse Asks- What's the Worst Instance of Automotive Cross-Branding?

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Do you remember the Isuzu Oasis? How about the Hollywood Graham or the Sears Allstate? There have been a lot of cars over the years that have pretended to be members of one family when it was plainly obvious that they belonged to another clan.
Cross-branding has gone on almost since the automobile’s inception, and in fact it’s rumored that there was almost a Curved Dash Ford before there was a model T. Well, yeah I made that last one up, but it’s no crazier than the match-ups that really took place.
Of course, not every match is one that’s made in heaven and today I’d like your opinion of which of them you think was the least well thought out. Thinking of cars like the Aston Martin Cygnet and Cadillac Catera, what do you think was the worst instance of automotive cross-branding?
Image: Moto24

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  1. LEROOOY Avatar
    LEROOOY

    I understand why it was needed (bureaucracy, amirite?), but it’ll never be more than a rolling punchline.

    Its parent vehicle didn’t live up to the expectations of the lower-income youth market, but maybe it’ll appeal to the opposite!

    1. LEROOOY Avatar
      LEROOOY

      Update from Wikipedia: “The Cygnet was cancelled due to disastrously low sales, with the car reaching only 150 units in the UK rather than its annual target of 4000”

      1. potbellyjoe Avatar

        Collector’s item! Buy two, drive one, moth ball the other!

        1. Moparmann Avatar
          Moparmann

          I already tried!! Can’t seem to find one for sale!! 🙂

      2. Battles Avatar
        Battles

        Only 150 units sold?
        I know two people who have them. I already thought it was weird but now that I know the total number it’s even weirder. There are two permanently on display at the Edinburgh Aston Martin dealer too, one of which isn’t registered. So I can account for four of the total production run within twnty miles of each other. That’s super-weird…

    2. crank_case Avatar
      crank_case

      This was never meant to be a standalone car, I think the idea was that they’d flog em to existing Aston Owners as an “accesory” and try bring down their average CO2 rating. To be honest, I have no idea how Aston gets around EU CO2 average rules, no turbos, no hybrids, and unlike Ferrari aren’t part of some big conglomerate that can sell loads of Fiat 500s to balance out one F12

  2. potbellyjoe Avatar


    I’ll say it. This Toyota has been poorly cross-branded from the start. There is no distinct difference between them, even visually. It’s terrible. And HOW is it a Subaru? Because of the boxer motor? If it had something unique to offer, I’d understand the need for a the 3-tiered branding. But a Subaru that is $25-30K sits languidly in the showroom next to the spectacular and useful WRX, while the one built 9 times more often rots in Scion dealers.
    As a marketer, this one just made me angry.

    1. Battles Avatar
      Battles

      How is it a Subaru?
      Isn’t it made by Subaru for Toyota?

  3. Alan Avatar
    Alan

    There are several America-to-foreign rebadgings that I thought were especially awful.
    The Mitsubishi Raider (Dodge Dakota) is definitely not a Japanese compact truck. It’s an ugly, bulbous abortion.

    The Isuzu i-series of pickup trucks (based on the Chevy Colorado, obviously) was also clearly not an Isuzu anything, but it’s not like that brand had any integrity or original products by then.

    Its predecessor, the Chevy S-10-based Isuzu Hombre, at least pulled off the Japanese look a little bit.

    There was nothing about the Saab 9-7X that was even remotely “born from jets.”

    The Saab’s interior was especially terrible. Look at all that cheap GM black plastic just plopped in the middle of a bunch of fake wood. Blech.

    1. Alan Avatar
      Alan

      Goddamn I’m itching for an edit or delete function for these comments so I can fix the image width.

    2. Devin Avatar

      The Isuzu i-Series is even more confusing when you know that the Colorado/Canyon pair shared a platform with this:

      You can tell by the doors. So there WAS an Isuzu with different and more Isuzu front styling they just didn’t use.

      1. quattrovalvole Avatar
        quattrovalvole

        Here’s more GM truck rebadge madness: the Holden Colorado and the Isuzu MUX. Both are based on the Thai-made Chevy Trailblazer (which is a Colorado with SUV body)

  4. Devin Avatar

    The Dodge Attitude, just because they didn’t bother to take any of the Hyundai badges off.

  5. dimpl09b Avatar
    dimpl09b

    That Pontiac/Opel is still in production.
    Now called Daewoo Nexia and made by “Uz-DaewooAvto”

  6. Devin Avatar

    Does it have to just be cars or just brands? Because this Corvette really sucks.

    1. nanoop Avatar
      nanoop

      The C5 version will blow it out of the water.

  7. Amy Avatar
    Amy

    Chrysler TC by Maserati

    1. mark Avatar
      mark

      NO! I don’t want to remember!
      (brings knees up to chin & curls up into a ball on the floor)
      NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!

  8. engineerd Avatar

    Say it with me, “This isn’t a Chrysler 300. This is a Lancia Thema.”
    Repeat several times a day and you’ll begin to believe it.

    1. quattrovalvole Avatar
      quattrovalvole

      Let’s do the reverse. This is a Chrysler Ypsilon, not a Lancia

      1. Vairship Avatar
        Vairship

        Well, it DOES look a bit like a smaller PT Cruiser. Which was really a Plymouth…

  9. RoadworkUK Avatar
    RoadworkUK

    Low hanging fruit, I know. But:


    I’ve driven the 3.2 V6 versions of both of these plenty of times, and I’ve made my peace with Porsche having an SUV. But I can’t excuse the fact that the VW feels 95% as good as the Porsche.
    The VW always seemed several million times more honest.

    1. RoadworkUK Avatar
      RoadworkUK

      There should have been an image of a Touareg and a Cayenne there. NIBBLES: REGURGITATE!

      1. Rust-MyEnemy Avatar

        Dude, you so don’t know what you’re doing…

          1. Alan Avatar
            Alan

            It’s funny how much classier looking the VW version is.

  10. sunbeammadd Avatar
    sunbeammadd

    Dodge Alpine. The car was borrowed from Simca and the model name from Sunbeam.

    1. Vavon Avatar
      Vavon

      Where was the “Dodge Alpine” sold???

      1. Rover_1 Avatar
        Rover_1

        Spain, Turkey.

  11. Rover_1 Avatar
    Rover_1

    Honda Crossroad, The most unreliable Honda ever made. No surprise when just one glance shows that it’s a rebadged LandRover Discovery

    1. Rover_1 Avatar
      Rover_1

  12. Rover_1 Avatar
    Rover_1

  13. Rover_1 Avatar
    Rover_1

    Could someone leave clear instructions on how to post images?

    1. Devin Avatar

      It’s HTML like before, but if you have to adjust the width the width itself has to be in quotes, so it would say width=”500″. So between you would put img src=”http://thisis.theimage.iwant.jpg” width=”500″
      And it’d look like this:

      I hope that was clear, I don’t know how to make HTML show up as text rather than code.

      1. Devin Avatar

        Between the pointy bracket things.

  14. Tomsk Avatar

    Yeah, this thing TOTALLY made up for not putting the Microbus Concept into production…

  15. Rover 1 Avatar
    Rover 1

    The most unreliable Honda ever made. The CrossRoad.
    http://playswithcars.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/6.jpg