Badge engineering is nothing new to most mass-market brands around the world, as most have
indulged at one point in time, obviously being the art of rebadging and redesigning certain elements
of a car to be sold under a different brand. There are obvious examples throughout history,
such as the original Mini also being known as things like the Riley, Innocenti and the Wolseley,
or the Chrysler town and Country also being released as a Dodge, Volkswagen and Lancia.
However, it is easily debatable that General Motors is the king of rebadging, as they own
so many brands from so many different parts of the world. Now, while a rebadged car may appear
under 2 or 3 different guises in its lifetime, let me introduce you to the GM T-Platform,
a very imaginative name born out of the 1973 oil crisis. While I can’t name every model,
some of them include: the Opel Kadett, the Holden Gemini, the Isuzu Gemini, the Vauxhall Chevette,
the Chevrolet Chevette, the Grumett Chevette, the Saehan Bird, the Pontiac Acadian, the Opel K180,
the Daewoo Maepsy, the Pontiac T1000, the Buick Opel and the Bedford Chevanne just to name a few.
The T platform would go on to be sold under a ridiculous 13 brands across the world.
I’d say that’s lazy but it has to be hard going thinking of so many names for just one model.
Obviously there are a lot of Police forces out there which are notable for using more
outlandish vehicles to bolster their line-up, the one that likely comes to mind is in Dubai,
featuring things like Veyrons and Aventadors. However, despite usually appearing as very
boring and quite plain, the British Police Force have experimented with some more unique
offerings. Some examples include the Lexus ISF, the Rover SD1, a range of Mitsubishi lancer Evos,
the Ford Raptor, the MGB Roadster, and best of all in my opinion, a special one-off Ford RS200,
which definitely stands out against the sea of Volvos and Vauxhalls.
V8s usually come with the thought of huge, gas guzzling American muscle cars from the
horsepower wars of the 60s, or the modern supercar with perfectly tuned engines.
Ferrari also has a strong tie to the V8, with it powering many of their greatest hits,
but by far the most interesting V8 powered car they ever made was the 208 GT4, produced from
1975 to 1980. Simply put, it has the all-time smallest V8 ever fitted to a production car,
at a measly 2 litres, which seems comically miniscule. As a bonus fact, the smallest
V10 of all time was the 2.0 litre fitted in the largely forgotten 2006 Connaught Type D, and the
smallest V12 was also claimed by Ferrari in their first ever car, 1947 125 S, at just 1.5 litres.
The Corvette is generally known as Chevy’s long-lasting sports car dating back to 1953,
being produced continuously since. However, this is technically untrue. This is because
the C3 Corvette ended production in 1982, and the C4 Corvette entered production in 1984.
This left a grey area in 1983. The C4 was meant to be introduced in 1982 to quickly follow the
end of the C3 production cycle, however technical delays pushed the release back to 1983, which was
later revised again to a 1984 release. Therefore, 0 production Corvettes were produced in 1983.
One example remains today, on show at the National Corvette Museum in Kentucky, though it was built
as a test car. There were other Corvettes built in 1983, however these were destroyed in crash tests
and other developmental exercises, leaving one sole survivor of the 1983 model year. However,
due to it not being built for release, it does mean that the Corvette took a gap year,
ending the 30 year-long continuous production cycle which would be restarted in 1984,
which has continued until the present day. Bugatti being a huge name in the world of
hypercars today, they have had an incredibly rocky history, with multiple deaths and revivals,
most of which failed. The original company was founded in 1909 by the aptly named Ettore Bugatti,
going on to release cars like the Type 35 and the Type 73. This incarnation would die out in 1952,
though son of Ettore Bugatti, Roland Bugatti, would attempt to bring the company back in 1955
with the Type 251 race car, but this failed. The 60’s saw another attempt, this time by Virgil
Exner, who was trying to revive multiple brands including Packard and Duesenberg.
This also failed as little money was offered to fund the project. Italian entrepreneur Romano
Artioli then bought the brand in the late 80s with plans to create a new modern age Bugatti supercar
to compete with the likes of the Porsche 959 and the Ferrari F40, this endeavour resulting in the
Bugatti EB110. However, despite the car itself being well praised and many orders being placed,
the recession of the early 90’s quickly put a stop to any progress the EB110 was making,
adding another point to their tally of failures. They would strike gold a fifth time however, when
Volkswagen bought the company in 1998, which would of course lead to one of the most iconic hypercars
of all time around a decade later, the Bugatti Veyron, and the rest is, as we know, history.
The Toyota Century acts as the brand’s flagship model in Japan,
being that is its a luxury limousine. It contrasts heavily with Toyota’s usual goal of
building cheap reliable cars for the worldwide market, being that the Century is an extremely
exclusive executive car used by the important individuals in Japanese society and governance.
Despite being introduced in 1967 however, the Century has only gone through
3 distinct upgrades, one in 1997 and one in 2018, showing the longevity of the design.
The build process is also meticulous, with only 4 select Toyota employees being allowed to paint the
cars, and the phoenix badge at the front of every model supposedly takes up to 45 days to craft,
which takes the concept of hand built to a whole new level. As of now, it is also a Japanese
exclusive, which is understandable, as Toyota were supposedly only able to sell 27 second-gen
Centuries outside the Japanese market. Perhaps the Toyota badge isn’t able to
rival the likes of Mercedes and Rolls-Royce when it comes to luxury in the public eye.
This is a concept car from 1956 called the Chrysler Norseman. It was a fastback coupe
and had a 5.4L V8 making around 235hp, and other than the fact that its engine was mounted in the
front and it was RWD, we know little else about it. It was the brainchild of Virgil Exner, who
we have already heard from in this video, who was a designer heavily associated with the Chrysler
brand. Chrysler was aiming for a revitalisation of its brand appearance throughout the 50’s, and the
Norseman represented this, with very aggressive styling and by only using C pillars to connect
the roof, driver visibility was practically 360 degrees. Despite having a number of interesting
features such as a shatterproof windshield, by far the most interesting part of the car is how it was
lost to the pages of time. Because it was built by Ghia in Italy, Chrysler had to ship it across the
Atlantic in time to feature it as a centrepiece at their auto exhibit in 1957. It was to be
sailed across on the SS Andrea Doria, a ship that collided with the MS Stockholm on this voyage,
which was sailing to Europe. The Doria sank, and as well as 51 lives being lost to the sea,
the Norseman never saw the light of day again. It was partially rediscovered by divers in one of the
cargo holds in 1994, but had been eroding for so long that only the wheels remained recognisable.
While being the most mass-produced sports car in the world and a true icon of the motoring
landscape, the Porsche 911 was actually very close to meeting its end in the early 1970s.
Despite being introduced in 1964 and everyone singing its praises from the start, the 911’s
sales began to decline towards the end of the decade and especially when the gas crisis hit
in 1973. Serious considerations were spearheaded by managing director Ernst Fuhrmann to outright
replace the 911. The 928 was conceived as this replacement, the Front mounted V8 grand-tourer
being a stark departure from the rear mounted 6 cylinder of the sporty 911. Porsche believed
this setup would be much more popular with the wider public and perhaps even able to extend its
reach to new markets The 928 was also Porsche’s first ground-up design, everything else they
produced at the time was either an evolution of something else, or the result of a collaboration.
Even the 911 was a direct evolution of the 356. However, while sales of the 928 were admirable,
there was an uproar even from those at Porsche itself against the replacement,
and the 911 and 928 would go on side-by-side until the 928’s discontinuation in 1995.
Thanks for watching everyone. This is another type of video I wanted to trial. Its a bit easier for
me to make and allows me to cover some cool topics that wouldn’t take up a full video on their own,
so let me know what you think of it. Also a very special thanks to Ben Wright and Bryn Palmer, who
are very generously donating at the highest tier on my Patreon. Just £1 a month is an amazing help,
and I also have a Discord server and an Instagram page,
links in the description below. Again, thank you for watching, and take care.