De-badging your vehicle... (truck, buy, replacing, Ford)

[Chango]

Personally I don't get why car manufacturers have to put their logos and crap all over their cars and being a man who's totally sick of advertisements everywhere I look, I don't understand why I should spend 20-50K on a new car and be a rolling billboard for the car manufacturers. I know what kind of car I'm driving and the cops can look up my license plate if they want to know so they can write me up ... so the only other reason to badge a car in the first place is for free advertising, is it not?

So would you (or have you) de-badged your car? Is it purely aesthetics to do it, "sticking it to the Man" by being anti-consumerist or maybe even some kind of reverse-snobbery? Whatdaya think?

[flynavyj]

I think it's a pride thing to some extent. Very "look what i'm driving!". I'm pretty sure that was the plan behind my mother's ford mustang (not by her necessarily, but by ford design) It had the word mustang matted into the rear bumper, along with it in the heritage stripes along the side, it was written no less than 4 times in the interior, and little prancing ponies can be found on the grille, steering wheel, and at least 2 glass panels...If you didn't know what car it was by the body lines, you would know when it left...

My VW has only two badges telling brand (front and back) and one telling model (back only). The decision to test drive my VW came from seeing one in my work parking lot. It was back in 06, and the new body styled jetta had only been out for half a year. While passing it in the lot, i was like "that's a nice looking car, must be a Passat" but had to look at the letters to see it was a Jetta...been 4 years of pure driving joy ever since.

I wouldn't mind debadging my car though. Removing the VW emblems front and back, getting a cleaner front grille, etc...It'd look pretty slick, and once again would have people saying "what car is that?" but i don't think that's anywhere in my future.

[HurricaneDC]

I like the badges, not to show off but just because I think they look good with them. Plus it usually seems like only rice rockets are debadged around here.

[Deez Nuttz]

If/when I go to get a new 5.0 Mustang, I want the 5.0 emblems left off. So far I've heard from 2 people, one being a Ford salesman, that Ford will not do it.

[PokerMunkee]

I replaced all of the "KIA" badges on my '11 Optima. I friggin hate their "logo" and KIA means Killed In Action to me. A lot of the guys on the Optima forums are replacing them with the "K" badges.

I also removed Optima and the EX GDI badges (shown in this week old pic). Looks great with a clean rear.

[Gerania]

"So would you (or have you) de-badged your car?..."

Yes, but it still looks like a Subaru, though I do have a Honda Type S and a few other badges stuck onto it.

[jambo101]

If all cars are debadged what happens if you see a car you like and want to buy one, could become problematic finding out what that car is and who sells it..

[stan4]

I don't let any of the dealership people put their name on the car. But I will leave the make/model on there.

I don't understand why anyone would want to advertise for a particular dealership with badges or license plate frames.

[ferretkona]

The owners who had the worse of it has been pick up truck owners. Up till recently it was a 2 foot by 5 foot banner across the rear end.

[duster1979]

I used to have a Grand Marquis. I took the "rquis" off the emblem on the truck so it said "GrandMa." Which I thought was fitting given demographic that usually drives the Grand Marquis.