But there's an argument to be made that if you're proud of Hyundai and the car, you would want people to know what it is...
I hear what you're saying - but the car that get rebadged mostly - the Kia Optima - is a very well-known car. Everybody knows what it is. Again, if you don't remove the "Optima"
badge - who's being fooled? An eye-catching vehicle like the Palisade - everybody is going to know what it is - it's only a matter of time.
Here's why I'm so "with" the idea of rebadging... I live in South Florida and live near an outdoor mall named "City Place". For years, the
Genesis Coupe and Sedan were sitting outside in the main area. Hyundai actually did this at a lot of places down here... I hang out at City Place quite a bit - and did so during this time.
I spoke with a lot of people about the two cars sitting there. Every time I either arrived or left, I'd bump into people walking around the two vehicles - and I'd start a conversation. Oh, and guess what? The dealership had the winged
Genesis badges on them. Nowhere did they say Hyundai.
Here's what happened... When I told people they were made by Hyundai too quickly - they lost interest right away. Some people were even embarrassed to have liked them! Just like Lexus when people learned they were made by Toyota years ago...
If I allowed people to walk around the car - and didn't say anything until they were already convinced enough to research later - and walking away - by then it was too late. They had already fallen in love with one of the cars. Even after they learned the car was made by Hyundai, they were surprised, but impressed.
The people who I told too quickly never gave either car a chance... Rebadges tend to allow people who may not normally "take" to a brand, to become comfortable enough with it that they change their way of thinking. This is how you win people over into a brand that's not well-known to be desirable...
It's ironic that a few months ago when I saw my first
Telluride in the wild (in a parking lot that is), as I spotted the owners unlocking the car to get in, I gave them some prompts and they excitedly had me walk over and check it out. The first hing they pointed out was that they ordered some special type of kia badging that has a fancy K shaped
emblems instead of the 'KIA'. You guys might know what it is but I hadn't ever heard of it. I guess it's an actual Kia
badge used overseas which is a little different but it looked pretty good.
There are two types. Once "K" is called KLexus, or Kia 3.0... It's
aftermarket and modeled after the Lexus
badge. The other type is called "Vintage K". That's an official Kia design and was used in Europe... The Vintage K uses two-lines for the top portion of the K. Some people like to call it "broken K"...