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I work at an auto auction. I see this all the time, Suzuki XL-7 is the same as Chevy Equinox. I'm a big Nissan Maxima fan, I drive one myself. Nissan produces Infinitys. The M35 is the same thing as the Maxima only awd options etc. The Chevrolet Colorado is also manufactured with the Isuzu somthing. I can't remember the model.
I think it's different than the way it was. GM (and Ford) once had cars for different income levels.
You are partially correct but partially wrong. As far back as the '50's within their makes both GM and Ford (and even Chrysler) had virtually identical models that shared everything but the trim. They tried to make their makes more market definitive, true, but that seldom worked out the way they planned. Oh, their transmissions might have been a little different, but the engines, drive-trains, suspensions and bodies were interchangeable. Just ask any old time wrecking yard operator.
You are partially correct but partially wrong. As far back as the '50's within their makes both GM and Ford (and even Chrysler) had virtually identical models that shared everything but the trim. They tried to make their makes more market definitive, true, but that seldom worked out the way they planned. Oh, their transmissions might have been a little different, but the engines, drive-trains, suspensions and bodies were interchangeable. Just ask any old time wrecking yard operator.
Sorry.
No way!
This is a excerpt from Wiki:
"During the 1950s, 1960s and, 1970s, every General Motors division had their own engines, whose merits varied. This enabled each division to have its own unique engine character, but made for much duplication of effort. Most, like the comparatively tiny Buick 215 and familiar Chevrolet 350, were confusingly shared across many divisions. Ford and Chrysler had fewer divisions, and division-specific engines were quickly abandoned in favor of a few shared designs. Today, there are fewer than a dozen different American V8 engines in production."
No I meant what I sad, its a replica of the Lexus ES model look it up on edmund.com it should be there. I recently visit Nissan two weeks ago and got a pamphlet. It comes out this fall.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Boo2lowkey
I dont know if your aware but the new 08 Maxima is a replica of the Lexus ES models. They will be a base in the price range of 34k.
Maxima is a Nissan product... Lexus is the division of Toyota alone!!!! Let's not confuse the two. Replica? You probably meant rival! You're dealing with gear nuts and shade tree mechanics that have oil running in their veins in this section. Back to the original thread..... Thanks
Well the problem with "badge engineering" was a way to put a "dressed up" or "dressed down" model into a different economic range. In this case GM actually has a WINNER from all the sale figures (and units I see on the road every day. IIRC within a month of its nationwide release as a Buick and GMC (Enclave and Acadia) GM announced that they would expand it to Saturn (they really needed help) and Chevrolet.
In a way it's kind of interesting to see GM having some success selling vehicles. Odd that they come out with a copy of the Lexus RX 8 or 9 years after Toyota and the Malibu (??) 20+ years after Nissan came out with the Maxima. I guess they were waiting to see if the RX and the Max were going to catch on.
This will get some folks into a Chevy store, which with gas prices where they are probably aren't seeing a lot of truck shoppers.
Doesn't this partial quote from the Wiki report prove my point? "were confusingly shared across many divisions". I worked at three GM dealers and four Ford stores during those times and I knew where we got our parts from and what it said on the boxes. Mix and match was an everyday thing. Except for a few trim items and the transmission stuff. We looked at various build sheets on the new cars coming in and we could see exactly at what point a Chevy became a Pontiac or an Olds become a Buick. It was pretty obvious. Any of the last two could start out as one or the other and then be switched over to Cadillac. And at the Cadillac plant they could suddenly switch over to putting out Olds Rocket 88 four-door sedans for a law enforcement fleet, and then back to one line of Coupe De Villes. From what I saw. But I said you were partially right.
Back to the OT. This is not a new thing. And when you visit Europe you see even more of it. I believe it will just get worse.
Doesn't this partial quote from the Wiki report prove my point? "were confusingly shared across many divisions". I worked at three GM dealers and four Ford stores during those times and I knew where we got our parts from and what it said on the boxes. Mix and match was an everyday thing. Except for a few trim items and the transmission stuff. We looked at various build sheets on the new cars coming in and we could see exactly at what point a Chevy became a Pontiac or an Olds become a Buick. It was pretty obvious. Any of the last two could start out as one or the other and then be switched over to Cadillac. And at the Cadillac plant they could suddenly switch over to putting out Olds Rocket 88 four-door sedans for a law enforcement fleet, and then back to one line of Coupe De Villes. From what I saw. But I said you were partially right.
Back to the OT. This is not a new thing. And when you visit Europe you see even more of it. I believe it will just get worse.
I'm talking about engines, man!
Just an example, a GTO might have a 389 inch Pontiac engine. A 'Vette might have a 427 inch Chevy motor. A 4-4-2 might have a 455 inch Olds engine.
These engine had completely different architectures, and were not shared by the different divisions.
Car54 thought you were talking about the entire lines. Sorry. The specific engines you mention were for the most part kept separate, true.
But even though "many" engines were the way you say, "other" engines - read the whole Wiki thing again - were shared. EXAMPLE: The Olds Diesel V-8 was used by Buick and the small Cadillac, and by GMC and Chev in their 1/2 ton pickup trucks for a couple of years, remember? What a mess that was. There were other shared engines, but the bigger and sportier engines - and the straight 8's and 6's - were one off's, that's true.
Just an example, a GTO might have a 389 inch Pontiac engine. A 'Vette might have a 427 inch Chevy motor. A 4-4-2 might have a 455 inch Olds engine.
These engine had completely different architectures, and were not shared by the different divisions.
to some degree, but most of them had the same basic GM smallblock/bigblock/4bolt main/2bolt/etcetc. they diversified from the same basic cores for the type of vehicle they were dealing with
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