WHAT HAPPENED TO ALL OUR REBADGED IMPORTS?

Badge engineering is a long-standing tradition in the automotive world wherein you take a car from one brand, and sell it under another brand, sometimes accompanied by a light restyle. The Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra are among the most well-known examples, with the GMC being regarded as a slightly more upscale version of the Chevy, but typically, what you're going to see is a car being sold in a whole other region, seemingly completely divorced from its origins and positioned as a whole new model.

The thing is, though, there aren't that many rebadged imports available in the US these days. You've got the Dodge Hornet, which is actually an Alfa Romeo Tonale, but for the most part, cars are sold under their own brands in the US, even if the nameplates may be swapped around. So, what happened?

A Brief History Of Rebadged Imports In The US

It's not hard to find examples of rebadged imports in the US dating back to around the mid-20th Century, like the Vauxhall Victor, a British family car sold by Plymouth dealers in the US under its own name, and through Chevrolet and Oldsmobile dealers as the Envoy. But, the practice really took off in the 1970s and 1980s; Plymouth in particular, had a whole line of Mitsubishi models for sale around that time. The Mitsubishi Celeste became the Plymouth Arrow, the Mirage became the Champ, the turbocharged Starion fastback became the Conquest, and so on.

The appeal of badge-engineering comes down to adding a whole new model to your lineup and essentially only paying for perhaps licensing, marketing, and basic logistics expenses involved in importing the car. So, you're more likely to see an uptick in rebadged imports during times of dramatic change, such as the Malaise Era, when automakers had to meet increasingly strict emissions regulations, but might not have wanted to spend a fortune rushing new compacts to market to compete with the influx of European and Asian compacts.

Automakers no doubt liked the fact that they were importing proven commodities. A new car could well become the next Chevy Nova. The Starion was not only a winner, it was a winner in the US where it was already selling under its own name.

Rebadged Imports We've Said Goodbye To

If you could call the Malaise Era a golden age of anything, it was at least a golden age of rebadged imports. In recent years, these vehicles have become less common in the United States, with only a handful of examples to point to.

Ram ProMaster City

The Ram ProMaster City Cargo Van is actually an Americanized Fiat Doblò, selling in the US with a handful of tweaks since 2015. The ProMaster was built in Turkey, and exported as-is to North America, where the glass windows would be replaced with metal panels, and the engine was paired to a nine-speed automatic transmission. The ProMaster City was eventually discontinued with the 2022 model year, with Stellantis citing declining sales for compact commercial vans in the region.

Chevrolet Aveo

The Chevy Aveo was sold in the US from 2004 to 2011, and stuck around in Mexico until 2017. In the Aveo's homeland of South Korea, the car was launched as the Daewoo Kalos, before being renamed the Daewoo Gentra. In Australia, it's known as the Holden Barina. In the US, the Aveo was launched with a TV spot directed by Michael Bay, and wound up becoming the best-selling compact in 2006.

Buick Encore

The Buick Encore that ran from 2012 to 2022 was produced in South Korea and China, and sold in other regions as the Opel or Vauxhall Mokka. In the 1980s, the unrelated AMC Encore was actually a Renault Alliance, so you could call rebadged Encores something of an American tradition. When the car was redesigned for its second generation in 2019, we actually got a continuation of the first-gen model, which may have contributed to the car's dwindling sales, eventually moving just 5,887 units in 2023.

So, What Happened To All Our Rebadged Imports?

The Dodge Hornet is a compliance car, and that's not just us saying it, Alfa Romeo is on the record calling it a compliance car. That is, Dodge scooped up the Tonale and rebranded it as a Dodge hybrid in order to comply with emissions regulations. This pretty much goes along with what was happening in the 1970s and 1980s, with automakers selling imports under their own name simply to keep up with the letter of the law. In other words, one of the only examples we have left is one that was rebadged out of desperation. And sales haven't been going that well, with Dodge only moving 20,559 units in 2024.

Related

There are several reasons that could be cited for rebadged imports to have fallen out of favor. Some buyers feel that there's an air of dishonesty around rebranding another automaker's car, and buyers are better educated these days, meaning that someone who doesn't want a Mitsubishi isn't going to buy a Mitsubishi, even if you slap a Dodge logo on it.

Ultimately, what really drives the need for a rebadged import is a gap in an automaker's lineup. American automakers didn't have enough compacts on hand to compete with Asian imports in the 1980s, so they practiced a philosophy of "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em." In 2025, the problem is generally the opposite, and the lineups often feel a bit crowded. In the mid-size SUV segment alone, Ford has the Explorer, the Bronco, and the Edge. So the answer is ultimately so simple it's kind of boring: American automakers aren't rebadging imports anymore for the simple fact that they don't really need to.

While there has been a legislative push toward EVs and hybrids, making it easy to draw parallels to emissions regulations' effects on the industry producing the malaise era, American automakers seem to be more interested in developing their own models for these growing segments rather than letting Korea and Japan have all the fun.

Sources: Dodge, Ford, EPA.

2025-02-10T07:11:23Z