You know what is deceptively interesting? Badges. Car badges, specifically. Car badging is its own very specific and peculiar art, and while in modern times it’s largely been standardized to just camaker name/model name, there have been times where badges were seen as ways to call out esoteric technical details about your car, perhaps under the illusion that the people behind you actually care how many camshafts your engine has. So I think this will be an irregular series where we focus on some fascinating, two-fisted tales of car badging, or attempt to unlock the arcane logic and culture behind car badges. To start us off, I want to bring to your attention a really strange car badging event, one of the exceedingly rare times a carmaker has deliberately removed their own name from a car that they were actively building and selling and, seemingly, were not ashamed of. Volkswagen did this, not once but twice. I’ll explain.
First, a quick bit of history: based on some earlier research I’ve done, the first car to ever use the standard badging convention as we generally understand it today (badging that includes carmaker company name and model name) first appeared on the Peugeot Bebe in 1913:
Sure, the order is wrong as we grammatically understand car names (carmaker comes first, then model, unlike here) but it’s basically the kind of badging you’d expect. Badging didn’t really catch on in any consistent way until around the 1950s, possibly because adding all those letters was a good reason to add more chrome to a car.
Volkswagen had been pretty lackadaisical about badging the Beetle for most of the first half of its life. Beetles had round VW logos at the tops of their hoods, just before the windshield, but VW never had a badge that actually said VOLKSWAGEN until 1967. And when they finally did add it, they treated it with the same gravity they talked about all the other new features on the ’67 Beetle:
Now here’s where it gets weird. You’d think after making such a big deal out of finally badging a car, you’d stick with it. But, in 1968, the very next year, if you ordered a Beetle with the then-new semi-automatic transmission, you would have received a car with no VOLKSWAGEN badge at all, but instead this badge on the hood:
That’s a cool-looking badge, sure, with that vibrant and cavalier script for Stickshift, contrasting with the more regular AUTOMATIC. But, now the car didn’t say the manufacturer name on it at all, with only the VW logos on the hubcaps and hood to identify it.
Of course, if there ever was a car that did not need identifying, it was the Beetle. Which may be a factor in why this seems to be the only car this particular badging situation has happened to.
Now, even this is only a partial de-company-badging, because the Automatic Stickshift badge was only on cars ordered with that odd transmission, and even then the badge on the engine lid only lasted two years, 1968 and 1969, with the decklid badge returning to VOLKSWAGEN in 1970, for all Beetle variations.
But this only lasted five years, because once again, in 1975, VW decided to take their own name off their best-known car. And, once again, it was because of a technical innovation that I suppose they were very proud of. The VOLKSWAGEN badge came off, to be replaced with this:
Yes, FUEL INJECTION! The idea that VW had eliminated the carburetor and replaced it with a Bosch L-Jetronic fuel injection system was more important to VW than having their own name on the car. In fact, from this point on until the Beetle stopped being sold in America, this was the badge that the car (well, cars, Beetle and Super Beetle and Super Beetle-based convertibles) wore until the very end. Even weirder, is that VW had dropped the top-of-hood round VW badge in 1973, and in 1975 many Beetles came with the sport wheels you see there, so the only external VW badging was small and molded into those tiny black wheel hub covers. Really, for all practical purposes, US-spec Beetles from 1975 to 1979/1980 had no obvious VW branding on them at all!
That’s weird, right? I think so. Taking your own company’s badging off your car? It’s strange! Sure, we get you’re proud of injecting your fuel, but pretty much every other automaker just made little extra FI badges or EFI or something like that – they didn’t take their whole damn name off the car.
Again, though, if there was ever a car that could still be identified with nearly universal accuracy without a badge, it’s the VW Beetle. So, maybe it was a better use of the space to crow about the fuel injection.
It’s still funny to me, though.
Man, I need fuel injection back on my Type 4 so bad. I don’t care if it’s the rudimentary early fuel injection that came stock on the car. Anything has to be better than the single garbage Pinto carb that a previous owner slapped on it.
My 1972 Super Beetle had a Brazilian made Solex carb on it for years, and I could never get the damn thing tuned. Even after a rebuild, the idle would be off, or there’d be a flat spot, or hot starts would require a little more cranking than I’d want. I bought a rebuilt German carb off eBay and it feels like a whole different car. Is there a VW carb that would work on your Type 4?
Probably, but like…we have the technology. It came with fuel injection.
I could convert it to a dual-carb setup that would fuel more evenly, but fuel injection sounds so much better, especially with the difference in altitude between local farting around and like, the Gambler 500 in Big Bend.
I feel that. From what I’ve read about the Type 1 fuel injection, it isn’t super complicated and it really does run well. Assume the Type 4 would be the same.
Stef, get rid of the center single carb. Seriously.
Get yourself a nice little dual Weber 40 setup.
Those long runners on the single stacks are so damn finicky to get right. Even if you go with a progressive 32/36, they still aren’t quite right.
I just cannot fathom why anyone thought that garbage single-carb was an improvement in any possible way. So stupid. This is the second Type 4 engine with it on there, too! What is wrong with previous owners of Type 4s????
My guess is the previous owners “VW Buddy” had some parts laying around an was too much of a neanderthal or too stoned to actually repair the radically cool (for it’s time) fuel injection.
Some maniac ripped out the D-Jet FI from my 914 and put in a 32/36 center carb. I imagine I would have done a better job atomizing the fuel with a plastic straw and a cup.
I finally remedied the situation with dual Webers.
Maybe we need to start a support group.
“Save Type IV’s from Single Carbs”
YEP. I really want the stock system back because I’m just curious about how it works.
Is ‘Fuel_Injection’ German for ‘Push_Start’? Just asking 😉
A whole lot of people just called the beetle “A Volkswagen” and still do to this day.
Well, that explains it. Years ago I simultaneously owned a ’74 and a ’77 Bug and I don’t even want to think about the number of times I forgot the ’77 was a Volkswagen.
I can’t even remember the last time I heard someone in person call it a Beetle. Always a Bug.
This reminds me that when my ’00 Jetta got almost-totaled, after 4+ months in the shop, it came back without its JETTA badge on the trunk. Or possibly any badges at all? I mean, it surely had the VW in the middle, but the 1.6T badge may also have been gone.
Anyway, what’s funny is that I didn’t notice at first, but there was a vague sense that something was different—look at all that uninterrupted Baltic Green! Then I saw another Jetta’s trunk lid and the dime dropped. It was like I was the undercover Jetta.
Badges? We don’t need no stinkin’ badges!
So disappointed that I had to post this.
Please slap yourself gently so you can save us the trouble. 😀
A pet peeve of mine, just seeing how many different fonts/inconsistencies there are on badges today. Sure the “Automatic Stick Shift” is purposely stylized. The one I find most annoying today is the Honda CR-V Sport Touring Hybrid AWD. Which has 5 separate badges to delineate all of those, and the fonts/italics/etc are all disparate.
https://images.app.goo.gl/R7A67Vz5W8w93hbr5
Gah!
The “Automatic Stick Shift” badge was ahead of its time. You throw the second font on something in the late 80s or through the 90s, and that badge would have been right at home. Both fonts together wouldn’t have looked out of place, but the “cool” font would’ve been just right.
“this will be an irregular series” – that’s *every* Torch series, isn’t it?
My favorite useless badge was the little corporate “GM” logos they used to put in their cars on the 2000s. Like they had to remind you that your Chevy/Pontiac/Olds/Caddy was a GM product. How would you know otherwise?
Chrysler did a similar “maker’s mark” on its cars in the mid-to-late 60s, iirc.
chrysler also had one logo for all its brands for a good chunk of time in the 70s/80s/90s
I really dug those GM badges, I think partly because they reminded me of the GM seatbelt buttons from my parents’ Delta 88. But I also liked that it was sharp, understated, and in a slightly unusual spot, like contrasting stitching on a lapel buttonhole or something.
god i HATED those badges, felt like it instantly cheapened the car especially on the more premium models (case in point, i don’t recall the vette ever having one)
How about the “Body by Fisher” badge on GM cars? Who else would have built the body?
Fleetwood, maybe?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fleetwood_Metal_Body
And don’t forget that for just one year (1966), VW had the “1300” badge.
No more weak 40-horsepower engines!
I’ve always liked the LAMBDA SOND badge on the grilles of x40 series Volvos. That is a weird flex.
Well this is between different generations of vehicles, but the TJ Wrangler had no front Jeep badge, the JK had one, and the JL removed it again. One of few cars that can get away with no front badge.
Car Badging sounds like the auto equivalent of dogging.
You’ve been banging on your potts again, haven’t you? 😉
Nice idea for a series. Please PLEASE do the TDV6HSE, from the Land Rover universe, still the longest abbreviation I have ever seen on any car 😎
or maybe this one, which has a ridiculously long badge, but nice Futura looking font in chrome on black plastic.
1) Bébé Peugeot is the correct order. You say baby doll, not doll baby. Baby deer/bird/cat etc rather than the reverse in most cases.
2) I had no idea beetles ever got fuel injection, much less as far back as 1975.
3) the language in that brochure is hysterical. It gives me Steven Wright vibes.
I’ll be watching this series with anticipation.
+1 for Steven Wright.
“The other night I came home late and tried to unlock my house with my car keys. I started the house up. So, I drove around for a while. I was speeding and a cop pulled me over. He asked where I lived. I said “Right here, officer”.”
And Turbodiesel on the 300D since everyone had to know that your boat was faster than the regular diesel!
“We squared off the engine hood and straightened up the place that holds the rear license plate to make it easier to read.
For the police.”
Huh? Nice feature?
Simpler times, simpler times.
Badges? We don’t need no stinkin’ badges.
Was waiting for this.
That’s what happened to Oldsmobile in the last few years of operation. GM took the Olds name completely off the cars like the Intrigue and replaced the ages-old logo with an oval. Focus groups liked the car, but couldn’t tell it was an Olds, let alone a GM product. I think the entire line-up was done this way until the Olds brand was canceled.
I visited the Petersen last week and was reminded of another barely-extant delighter of nameplate fetishists: the coachbuilder’s badge. That museum has a great collection of cars with Ghia, Pininfarina, Mulliner, and other logos, almost always discreetly down by the rocker or running board.
Just speculating here, but VW at that time was a company where their brand, this product, and its trade dress were effectively all the same to the general public. So they may have been the only car maker who COULD monkey around with the badging without confusing anyone or harming their intellectual property.
Maybe Jeep could have gotten away with it as well.
I’ve always thought this was stupid and pointless (still do). However, I will accept ‘turbo’ logos on everything. That, and maybe they should start also adding ‘touchscreen’ so others know to stay away from them while in motion.
This whole thing makes me think it came from a Seinfeld episode or something.
I’m keen for turbo badging, but only if it differentiates from the plebian non-turbo option
In the particular case of my daily driver, the 2015-18 Jeep Renegade 1.4T, the fact that it has the turbo motor also means it has a manual transmission.
Weird, I don’t why VW would want to distance itself from their name. They’re just an automaker who just makes cars and stuff for the people. Nothing out of the ordinary. The name itself isn’t referencing a very specific group of people or anything!
Unrelated but is the podcast going to continue for season 2? I really enjoy you guys and the guests in the podcasts. I know you all have a lot on your respective plates, I’m just hoping it’s not done for.
Yes! We even started and have some out!
On another well-known car, I’m torn on Mustangs now omitting the Ford blue oval entirely. I get that the car is just that iconic/recognizable, but at the same time, I like mine’s little offset rear oval (and for most of the Fox body era, Ford omitted the various pony badging entirely).
The Mustang will be joining Corvette (and Ram) as a standalone brand soon enough. This technique for marketing is key to minimize any shock from additional Mustang-branded vehicles (given it’s iconic history) to come as general consumers will have seen the pony badge on the Mach-E enough to accept more sporty Ford electric vehicles, particularly whatever comes after the S650.
In the meantime we will hopefully see many, many trim packages of past ‘stangs coming soon to the likely last V8 pony car ever. Mach 1 (paired with a Mach-E upgrade twin), Bullitt, KotR (more power than whatever Dearborn is cooking for the top model), Cobra…hell maybe a limited run of Maroon (did they come in any other color?) LX-5.0s to drum up sales midway through. Ford can’t let nostalgia get away from them in this decade and can ride the coattails of the Hellcat.
Hopefully they give coordinating IP updates to these models (and make them available to current Gen owners) that go with the slick Fox-Body display in use currently.
ha, not quite, there is a big ford oval badge on the windshield sunstrip (not blue as it is black, but still); source: my s550.
Cool! I had no idea, I’ve never looked closely enough at one but will totally end up staring at some stranger’s car in a parking lot today. It’s like the inverse of the 25th anniversary model that had a single galloping pony on the dash.
Simpler times, really. I don’t think I miss the concept specifically, so much as the era they were common in. But it’s almost baffling in hindsight what manufacturers thought was worthy of a badge/decal.
BMW still brags to this day that their cars all have fuel injection, for some reason even putting the badge on their cars that don’t even have combustion engines
It’s interchangeable with ‘ions’ now
I enjoy this from more recent times too. Like Honda’s insistence on telling you it’s a V6 (hardly an unusual engine here in the States) or how any badge calling out a safety feature is invariably laughable within 5-6 years.
Still, engine-details badging seems to have some lasting cool, perhaps b/c most people don’t get it. I don’t care what anyone says, “twin-cam” and “DOHC” still look good/fresh.
How about Acura and their “super-handling all-wheel-drive”? Not enough to advertise the car has “AWD”, it has “SH-AWD”!
There really should be legislation to eliminate option indicators being longer than the model name of the car.
Super Handling Independent Traction didn’t land as well with the focus groups.
Neither did Front Undercarriage Corrision Killer.
That’s not much worse Toyota misspelling TURD PRO on their trucks
It’s so Japanese sounding; like on the JDM Honda version it was actually Super Handling Happy Fantastic Number One All Wheel Drive but for the U.S. market it was shortened a little.
I will confess I think Mercedes’ “4matic” looks cool on decklids though.
Honda lead the pack on bringing torque -vectoring (Prelude Type SH) and SH-AWD systems to the masses (not in some boy racer rally car mind you) so deserves a pass. I wish Honda leaned more into the Type-‘X’ descriptions for certain trims as they did in the JDM (Europeans apparently love their many letters and hyphens such as XRi-S, 2.0 ES-i and whatnots).
The V6 was the highest cylinder count Honda ever came to in a production model, so noting it as such showed top tier model status. This is particularly the case once they stripped away the trim designation (LX, EX, etc ). Even Honda is accordingly modest with their top trim Touring and Elite names are pretty generic when you think about it, but the age of these buyers still care about that status, even on a Honda.
I do miss these details regarding engineering tech being modestly (or brashly – looking at you HEMI) on a vehicle and agree with your cool remarks. 🙂
With that said, Caution should also be used. Skyactiv badges on a Miata are just…dumb. Should be a spot for a factory Miata-script badge… maybe updated.
My knock on Skyactiv is that it’s not immediately obvious to what it’s referring. I first thought it was some kind of eco thing (which it kinda is I know, but I mean more blatantly so).
Yes a ton on more script badging! One of my favorite little touches on the current Supra is the ’90s-ish name badge.
Skyactiv is like a catch-all for everything Mazda was doing for efficiency. Skyactiv engine, Skyactiv transmission, Skyactiv platform… it’s all a bit redundant.
YES to the Supra badge!!
I think manufacturers originally badged features that were perceived to be higher value (and were priced at a premium) but were invisible to the public. If you’re going to pay extra for a feature, your neighbors should know about it!
Engines: V8, fuel injection, turbo, diesel, DOHC, Olds 4-4-2 (which covered its carburetor, transmission, and exhaust)
Transmissions: automatic (in very nice script on ’60s and ’70s BMWs), overdrive, 5-speed
Brakes: “Disk brakes” logos used to appear on GM pickups
Suspension: Triumph TR4A-IRS (independent rear suspension)
Drive mode: 4WD, AWD
And for EVs, battery capacity: (Tesla Model S) 60D, 75D, 90D, etc.
I’m surprised that EV range hasn’t made it into badging. “Sparkmobile 350”
Tesla plaid badge.
I think my favorite GM unnecessary badge is ESC Electronic Spark Control – it was so obscure they had to spell it out.
The turbo on Porsche Taycans is truly invisible.
May I point out the “Ride-Engineered” badge inside certain late 70’s/early 80’s Lincolns and Mercurys?
Placed there to perhaps remind you that the feeling you’re feeling isn’t Ford’s fault at all?
My grandpa’s Zephyr had that. Always wondered what it was supposed to mean. Perhaps engineered to the level of carnival rides?
I believe it referred to the Lincoln/Mercury ad series dating from the early 70’s where they have a diamond cutter from Cartier working in the back seat of a Marquis Brougham, then later where Marquis and Lincolns were judged better to ride in than Cadillacs.
I always assumed manufacturers did this for that reason. Like for customers perusing car lots, easily being able to ID the trim level or premium engine. “This one’s a pretty color, and hey look it’s got the V6 too!” Or spotting a new model year of a car you already have, seeing a V6 or 3800 badge when it wasn’t available before, and thinking it’s time to upgrade.
Ford has only just stopped telling the world which motor and transmission options you picked when the new generation Ranger came out
3.2 6 speed is the best
2.2 6 auto was horrific