I am with Humph on this - I don't see the point in model badges. Having said that only seems to be certain makers that do it
My Seat Altea XL doesn't carry a badge saying that it is a Stylance, wife's Beetle has no marking saying its a TDI.
However, much to my annoyance, my Seat has A L T E A X L across the boot in individual chrome letters. Every one of them has sharp edges to catch a mitt or sponge in when trying to clean round. Would be tempted to remove them altogether!
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For a fresh take on this, an anecdote.
About six years ago I went to visit my Trinidadian costume band buddies in the run-up to Carnival at their camp (my wife refers to it as 'The Drones' casting me in the Bertie Wooster role). I took my fourth granddaughter in her pushchair and people were nice to her of course.
As we sat there smoking, drinking and bawling, little Mirabel silently got out of her pushchair and came up to me holding out a fresh disposable nappy. I tried to get some of the women downstairs to take an interest but they all seemed awfully busy for some reason.
So, I'd got to do it. 'I hope she's just had a bit of a slash,' I remarked as we left for the bathroom. My buddies, all bling and dreadlocks, chortled loudly. 'You're gonna get Boot, man!' they prophesied. Sure enough, I did. But fortunately remembered how to deal with it, and the nipper was as good as gold.
With that in mind, depending on the jalopy and your attitude to it, why not just have a huge blingy boot badge saying BOOT?
Just a thought and so on comrades...
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Your post has tickled me Avant ! I might, when "Betsy" finally expires, go for one of the new mondeo estates ( for reasons I've droned on about ad nauseam elsewhere )
I rather fancy the Titanium X model. Not for the badge but because the spec appeals to my sense of self cossetting. I shall now, however, never be able to read that particular badge without involuntarily inserting a hyphen........
You are a bad man Avant for an organist !
;-)
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"You are a bad man Avant for an organist !"
As a race, organists are beyond redemption: when everyone else is confessing their sins in church, we're looking for the next hymn or psalm.
I heard a vicar (not our vicar) say that the difference between organists and terrorists was that you could negotiate with terrorists....
Motoring connection - years ago, when the children were young and we had the Espace (one of the earlyish ones, 1988F and it did 120,000 trouble-free miles from new) I took six church people to a meeting, and could see them tightly strapping themselves in for fear of their lives - clearly thinking 'does he drive as fast as he plays the organ?'
I don't actually - I'm a relaxed driver who likes to get a move on - but you need to play hymns fastish to get people singing.
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I've no idea what the 'CD' in Vauxhall's range stood for, but they were certainly the highest specced, I seem to remember an orgy of gold metallic paint, brown velour and spoked alloys in a friend's Dad's Cavalier circa 1985.
They some way above the 'L' and 'GL'badges worn by the Ford cars my father used to drive ( I remember the day he came back with his new Ford, a D-reg Sierra 2.0 GL to replace the 1.6 L - heaven, especially with those big Robocop-style hubcaps). He never got to the 'LX' stakes, with the red inserts in the scuff guards, or the 'Sapphire' saloons.
Imagine the apprehension when the company his work leased cars from succumbed to the recession in 1992, which meant he would be getting a 'used' car at the next changeover instead of the new one enjoyed every three years without fail. The smile on his face when it turned out to be a straight-six black e30 320i.... Life was never the same again..
Edited by Toyota Red on 25/08/2009 at 22:44
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my daewoo has SE on the back cause it special. prove me wrong? it doesnt go wrong end of
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It stands for Superflous Extra - which is what all boot badges are!
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ive always debadged my boogie machines
the most famous one i remember was my fiat 132 absolutely nobody could work out the make or model till i lifted the hood and showed them my twinky
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Mine's got a dealer fitted badge.
It's skew.
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A jolly wheeze might be to take off the badges and replace them with those off another make which were same shape and size...ie, Fiat badges off...VW ones on.
Confuse the traffic wardens and have hours of innocent fun.........seemples !
Ted
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Wasn't the CD badge on a Cavalier for Corps Diplomatique?
Did they not use Diplomat on some of their Senator models?
I read somewhere a long time ago that BMW said there were big differences in the debadging proclivities of buyers from country to country...Germans debadged the very upscale versions or ones with the biggest engines because of modesty and not wanting the neighbours to know quite how expensive and over engined their car was...the Brits the exact opposite ie to disguise a 316i although sharp eyed people could do the double exhaust pipe check for a few years to spot 6 cylinder versions. I also remember at the time BMW were directly playing on British snob values through advertising that their cheapest models in each range had the same paint and assembly quality as the top of the range models.
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I had an old Fiat 850. The British ones were all made under licence by Seat I understand, mine was.
It was missing a piece of chrome trim that fitted across the front of car carrying it's badge.
One year, on holiday in Spain, I stopped at a scrapyard and got the part complete with Seat badge. It still had Fiat badging at the rear.
SWMBO wrote it off by driving it into the side of a car that pulled out in front of her. What fun that caused. One of the BIB was convinced it was a 'cut and shut' job.
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the local boy racers round here, seem to be of either type.
de-badge the car completely (no Vauxhall or specification), even though it obvious it still a Corsa
or
stick a VXR badge on a bog standard 1.0l Corsa
Yep, theres some right chavs around here .....
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Wasn't the CD badge on a Cavalier for Corps Diplomatique?
Could have been. Also heard it referred to as Co Diplomat.
And here are some of the other ones Vauxhall used:-
L = Lux
LS = Lux Special
GL = Grand Lux
GLS = Grand Lux Sport (or Special?)
SR = Sports Refinement (or maybe Sports Racer?)
SRi = Sports Refinement Injection (or maybe Sports Racer Injection?)
SXi = Sports Xtra Injection
GTE = Grand Touring Einspritz (German for Injection)
GSi = Grand Sport Injection
CD = Co Diplomat
CDX = Co Diplomat Xtra
Did they not use Diplomat on some of their Senator models?
Don't know, but there was a Cartlon and a Cavalier Diplomat special editions.
Edited by Dynamic Dave on 26/08/2009 at 01:38
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>> Did they not use Diplomat on some of their Senator models?
Yes - In a previous role I did not have a company car but they hired cars for me permanantly - no BIK paid.
One day instead of a 1.6L Escort Kennings turned up with a 2.0 Carlton Diplomat (I was a good customer). My first experience of automatic gearbox, climate control, leather, electric seats . . . . . . . . Impressed the chaufeurs at work who drove Senators(?) but they did not have the ice button for the auto box.
Our car at the time was an '83 1.6L Sierra.
My current company car just has the round Skoda badge ont he boot, others removed to make it easier to clean.
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A neighbour used to have a Skoda Felicia with the Skoda roundels removed and VW ones replacing them... A perfect fit, and as the pick-up versions of Skoda and VW both used the Skoda front end it was cause for many a double-take!
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you need to play hymns fastish to get people singing.
An organist after my own heart.
I've been to two funerals in the last few years with organists so dire that one couldn't even sing 'Abide with me'. That awful, superdirge, dragging but still managing to drag even more, rhythm. You sing a line doing your best to mimse, then after an awful pause at least a beat and a half too long, the carphound resumes even slower. Yuck!
Perhaps they were trying to cheer us up by making us want passionately to chop them slowly to bits outside with blunt, earth-covered spades. I certainly did, both times.
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re "SR = Sports Refinement"
nope SR is Sports Ratio (as in gear ratios), and SRi is Sports Ratio Injection
font of useless information me guv
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On mine, it says `van` - Punto van` (as in `Bond`- James Bond)
I glow with pride at the achievement, having aspired to own one for many years.
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Everyone - more or less, really - unless you practice & espouse aestheticism.
I as much (dis)believe those who say they don't care about their appearance or clothes or what other people think about them etc. etc.
We all have our little status signifiers - be it the extra little characters on our bootlids or registration marks or fancy watches; dilute to taste.
Those who take off bootlid model signifiers are usually those most acutely sensitive of their status value! Those with teeny-weeny engines & repmobile trim levels can be counted upon to be the most adamant they don't care & regard such vanity as demeaning & sad.
I will happily admit to the great pleasure that my bootlid engine/spec marker has in crushing the vanity & pretensions of other drivers when they pull up behind or follow my car on the road - all part of the fun isn't it!! ;)
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I will happily admit to the great pleasure that my bootlid engine/spec marker has in crushing the vanity & pretensions of other drivers when they pull up behind or follow my car on the road - all part of the fun isn't it!! ;)
But does it have any of those effects on others though ? I'm not so sure. If I'm sitting in traffic behind another vehicle I'm not particularly making any judgements about the driver of that car unless they are driving in a manner which would be regarded as unacceptable. I might admire the vehicle if it is worthy of that but no more. In truth I'm more likely to be wishing they were not there at all with their badges or otherwise so I could be further on with my journey !
Some manufacturers continue to festoon their products with badges and others keep them to a minimum so it's clearly not a subject on which all brand marketeers agree.
The sociologically diverting bit, to me anyway, is that if what you say is true, in that most people do care what's written on their bootlid then more fool them because no one else does do they ? A case of signage which patently fails in its intended purpose if that purpose is to convey messages, subliminal or otherwise to others.
For example, do you care what engine or trim level your next door neighbour has chosen, let alone a total stranger encountered by chance on a journey ? Of course not, why would you ?
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We used to have a local wine dealer, he had two vans, one red, the other white.
They were marked 'vin rouge' and 'vin blanc'.
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My Accord has just Accord in chrome letters on the boot along with the Honda logo but it also has i-vtec written in stick ons in the bottom of the rear window if anyone behind is bothered to look. The only other indication of the model is the two exhaust pipes .
What about those names on the boot they used to give ' special' models like the Citroen BX 'Meteor' I once owned for one day before taking it back to the garage with a smokescreen around me fit for a WW2 Naval convoy....
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The resurgence of dual exhausts is another marker of status, unless you have a longitudinally mounted V- or Flat- engine.
Extra metal = extra weight and cost.
For an inline 4/6 engine you'll get about 2/3 of nothing in the way of additional performance from 2 tail pipe, as the most important part of the exhaust is the manifold and front pipe.
Considering most have a common front/middle pipe and then split into 2 tailpipes, it just reeks of marketing-man nonsense trying to separate the 'lesser' models from the 'better' ones.
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I once came up behind an Astra estate,in a traffic light queue,with a badge which said 'Disastra'.He cared enough to have it done in the original style.
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Wasn't there an Astra model called the 'Merit'? If you had the diesel version, it was an Astra D-merit.....
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Some years ago when Opel Kadetts were sold in the UK (in direct competition to the near-identical Astra - well done, GM) someone, probably out of despair, had written on the back of the car an H before OPEL and ESS after it.
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They were marked 'vin rouge' and 'vin blanc'.
My little Renault Fourgonnette has Van Blanc stickers on both sides and above the back door, on the lifting flap.
Ted
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I've mentioned this before here when the subject of badges came up.
When my parents went to look at the brand new Mk 1 Ford Orion freshly manufactured to order and waiting in the delivery area at the Halewood factory, they found that the Ford badge on the boot had been fitted upside down. Can anyone be that dyslexic?
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I once asked the big chief of Ford, when the Ka made its debut, if an Si version would be part of the lineup?
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When Rover was desperately trying to survive and went all chavvy, one of the young lads there had an idea to space out the letters and move them around, so they started coming out as:
R O V E R
45
and looked ridiculous, I see some chavs thought it was sick dan and have done such tricks to their other makes of car.
Edited by Hamsafar on 26/08/2009 at 23:14
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I once asked the big chief of Ford, when the Ka made its debut, if an Si version would be part of the lineup?
RTS was a long established trim level for Renault, which for some strange reason was never applied to the Clio...... ;-)
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>>They were marked 'vin rouge' and 'vin blanc'.
Early versions of the Citroen C15 were similarly marked but using the vin/van pun.
Edited by Bromptonaut on 26/08/2009 at 23:16
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They once served a purpose other than advertising, as in Italy (also France and Spain IIRC) there was once a bhp limit for new drivers and so the local carabinieri could check with the badges on wings or boot that Giacomo wasn't getting ahead of himself in Mama's 45 hp Strada. I once had a Spanish Renault 5 which boasted "5 velocidades" in rather large letters (the idea being??)
The Jaguar XK 120 driver really did need to warn following drivers of its novel all-round disc brakes, so Jaguar fixed a badge to the boot. Early ABS-equipped cars likewise carried a warning and increased car-to-car distance, although 3rd brake lights and the now ibiquitous "Baby on Board" sticker now fulfil that role (i.e. absolutely nothing).
But now it's all about showing off (Wayne and Sharon's Turbo/GXL/24v/ABS/Nighthawk Death Ray Alarm equipped Daewoo 2.5 V6 Ghia) and manufacturers turning cars into mobile advertisements for engine technology. Twin Port and Stilton, anyone?
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All of my Audi's have been ordered with the "no decal" option ticked. (it's a no-cost option). Not because I wanted to pretend it's something it isn't (they were all high spec motors anyway - 3.2 quattro, RS4 etc). More because it looks much neater imo.
On the subject of dealer advertising.....
I remember a good few years ago I gave a GF a lift to collect her brand new Fiesta XR2i up from the dealer. The car was covered with advertising - there was a sticker in the rear window, a silver decal badge on the bootlid, a black advertising border around the numberplate, tax disk holder etc. It looked well over the top.
She made them take every single one off before she signed and accepted delivery.
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We used to have a local wine dealer he had two vans one red the other white. They were marked 'vin rouge' and 'vin blanc'.
You don't live in Southport, do you Tom? I can remember seeing vans like these. I think they were Citroens - the ones based on the old Visa if memory serves.
Back on topic, the only badges on my Megane are a Renault logo and 'Megane' name on the boot and 1.6 16v on the rubbing strip on the driver and passenger doors. No mention of the model name at all.
My brother once bought a brand new Saxo 1.1, but got the supplying dealer to change the badges on the side to 1.5D ones, reasoning that the local low-lives would be less likely to want to half-inch a diesel.
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We did use to have such vans in Southport, but I can't remember which business had them.
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we had/have them in devon. i think it was/is majestic wine. ring any bells?
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www.citroenet.org.uk/utilities/c15/c15-2.html
i found this but it's not quite what i'm thinking of. i'll keep looking.
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We did use to have such vans in Southport but I can't remember which business had them.
I've been thinking about this all weekend. Not that I've not got better things to do, you understand...
I seem to recall one being parked outside Augustus Barnett (as was) on Liverpool Road, Birkdale by the junction with Shaftesbury Road if you know where I mean.
Just out of interest, where in Southport do you live? Maybe we could have a very geographically specific Backroom Meetup? :-)
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Back on topic the only badges on my Megane are a Renault logo and 'Megane' name on the boot and 1.6 16v on the rubbing strip on the driver and passenger doors. No mention of the model name at all.
Mine has 'RXE' on the passenger side and '2.0' on the driver side rubbing strip, so Renault haven't exactly been consistent there. At least they've left out anything to do with volts or valves! At least they're discreet without all that drivel stuck on the back.
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