5 Times Manufacturers Milked Iconic Badges For Sell-Out Cars

XXs are supposed to be the most extreme, most hardcore, most uncompromising supercars on the planet, but the SF90 XX is a road-legal car. That means it's inherently compromised, yet it still has the XX name and, by association, dilutes the essence and impact of past XX vehicles. But there are other problems. Since buyers can take it home, how many of them will bother to bring the car to the circuit? What's a Ferrari XX that never hits the track? Pointless, if you ask me. I sincerely hope Ferrari included a clause setting a minimum number of annual track days.

The SF90 XX is also a limited edition, and that presents problems of its own. As a highly sought-after Ferrari road car made in low numbers, its current and future values will dictate how it spends its life, for fear of damage. That means it likely won't even be driven on the road, never mind the track. Don't even get me started on the existence of theSF90 XX Spider. With the first XX droptop, a bigger part of Ferrari's soul has been sold.

We love the idea of bringing back much-loved nameplates and creating a whole new generation of enthusiasts. TheAcura Integrais a great example of that. But we don't like it so much when those nameplates appear on cars that are nothing like those they call to mind, as in the case of theMitsubishi Eclipse Cross. The original Eclipse (and the first star ofThe Fast and the Furious) was very far removed from what we have now.

It was produced from 1989-2011 and was a highly tunable Japanese car. It didn't reach the same heights of fame as other unobtainable Japanese cars of the era because it was sold in America, but it still had a coupe or convertible body style and was available with the same 4G63T engine from the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution. Basically, it was an affordable but sexy two-door with loads of potential for modification. The Eclipse Cross that replaced it was similar only in name.

The Eclipse Cross currently on sale barely wheezes out 152 horsepower from its 1.5-liter turbo-four. The uninspired powertrain is one thing, the fact that the vehicle is a crossover is another, but the decision to equip the crossover with a CVT instead of a regular gearbox illustrates just how far the nameplate has fallen. It no longer represents something fun and stylish, something that your kids might one day want to drive.

事实上,它甚至不是那么好新生活s a family car. It's not all that ugly, it has a large cargo area, and the ride is comfy. But it feels old, the cabin is bland, the engine struggles, and in a world also populated by the likes of the Honda CR-V and theMazda CX-50, there's nothing about the Eclipse Cross to tempt you away from the tried and trusted recipes of other Japanese automakers.

Simply put, the Eclipse Cross was a weak attempt to capture some of the excitement of the original, and it shows.

This is a less obvious instance of an automaker disappointing its customer base, but it's still worth mentioning. The Chevrolet K5 Blazer was produced from 1969-1995 and was based on the C/K pickup chassis. That made it a proper truck, and even when it was renamed to remove the K5 denomination, it was built on a pickup chassis, namely that of the S-10. All good so far. The Blazer was a capable SUV with real truck DNA.

The new-ageChevrolet Blazerthat arrived in 2019 is a far cry from the original. Without a body-on-frame design, it will never be capable of reaching the kinds of places the original versions could, and with similar crossovers already available in the forms of the smaller Equinox and the largerTraverse, it's little more than a niche-filler. And it's going electric too.

The modern Blazer should have been aFord Broncorival. It's not, and that made it a disappointing means of reintroducing a legendary name.

I'm not going to say too much here because of two reasons. First, any article I write about theBMW XMlets my (extremely intolerant) feelings about it become very apparent, and second, Roger Biermann, the Editor in Chief here atCarBuzz, has alreadysummed up most of my thoughtsrather succinctly. Basically, he said that the XM is a cash grab that has nothing in common with the only other standalone M car in history, the M1 supercar. And you know what?BMW practically admitted as much. But my problem with the XM isn't its existence. Willing buyer, willing seller, and all that.

If people want to spend ludicrous sums of money on a massive SUV that beats none of its rivals, that's their choice. If people want to drive around in something that looks like the automotive equivalent of an Ed Hardy jacket, that's their prerogative. But it was BMW's prerogative to call it an M car, and that's the part that grinds my gears. The name itself is derived from Motorsport, and the XM will never compete in a racing series. Hell, it can't evenmake it past three corners at Pikes Peak. Worse still, it fails as a supremely luxurious SUV too.

This should have been sharper than theAston Martin DBX707or at least as comfy as aRange Rover. It achieves neither brief and is, therefore, one of the worst cases of badge exploitation in automotive history. I was going to use more colorful language to sum it up, but Roger said no.

This is another car whose existence is not irksome - the Ferrari 599 GTO was a bloodthirsty animal that turned a comfortable grand tourer into an apex-hunting beast, one that required full attention at all times. It was made using lessons learned in the development of the 599XX, one of Maranello's most extreme track-only cars ever. And it looked good doing all that.

But it's called GTO. GTO stands for Gran Turismo Omologato. Loosely translated, that means homologated grand tourer, and on the surface, that could apply to any long-distance cruiser federally approved for the road. But the actual meaning, asJD Powernotes, is that GTOs are meant to be road cars that have been modified and then homologated for on-track competition. That was the case with the original Ferrari 250 GTO, but not here.

After the 250 GTO, the nameplate appeared again in 1984 on the Ferrari GTO (which is often mistakenly called the 288 GTO since the similarly shaped 308 was what it was based upon). Like its 250 GT-based predecessor, this was built specifically to race, so the name was fitting.

But with the 599 GTO, Ferrari had no racing homologation obligations, and the car was given the GTO badge simply to try to capture extra magic. Look, it's a great car, and it helped Ferrari introduce new technologies to roadgoing cars, but it never raced. Like the Ferrari SF90 XX twins, it's a car that's been given a prominent name without showing much respect for what that name represents.

Either Ferrari should have entered it in competition (even if only for one season), or it should have chosen a more applicable name. Ferrari 599 GTX might have worked.

These are just a handful of examples of manufacturers watering down their heritage, but there are many more. Like the Chevrolet Blazer, we can't help but wonder if theFord Mustang Mach-Ewould have been better received if it was named differently. It's not that it's a bad EV or a bad crossover - it's actually pretty good - but the problem lies in giving it a name that calls to mind high performance, a low roofline, and the prospect of wasting Cars & Coffee bystanders. None of those things are provided by the electric SUV (unless you intentionally aim for crowds of pedestrians, of course). But at least Ford Performance doesn't put its branding on unmodified, base model EcoSports. Not everyone has the same integrity.

Mitsubishi is being called back to the headmaster's office because its Ralliart tuning department has been plastering decals all over really crappy cars,including the Mirageand crossovers like the Outlander. There have even been rumors that the Evolution name could return as an EV. Somebody make it stop.

Even the Corvette - which only recently fulfilled its destiny by becoming mid-engine - is rumored to soon find its nameadorning the back of an SUV. Nothing is off-limits anymore.

It's a sad state of affairs, but it's only expected to get worse as automakers try to reinvent model lines for the electric age. Just wait for the electric Mazda MX-5 SUV. I just made that up, but you never know...