Badge Engineering....OR.....What's In a Name...?

The "Chrysler" Crossfire is an interesting beast.  Designed by a corporate designer at Chrysler, produced in prototype for the show circuit, then conceived for production through the use of the Mercedes-Benz parts bin - rich in SLK parts, with purpose built parts unique to the Crossfire design, including incidental parts from AMG, and not so incidental parts from Karmann, where the body was made and the car assembled.

Now Chrysler is a fine name.  But when you open the hood, crawl under the car, look closely at the interior, you find that it's all Mercedes Benz.  Even the little fasteners that attached the trim parts in the hatch area have the tri-star on them.

I decided to give credit where credit was due.  At the same time I didn't want to go too over the top.  So I picked up a few little things that just carry the Mercedes-Benz name to the outside of the car.

I put the Mercedes-Benz Hood badge on the back fascia, to the left of the number plate.  I felt this was small and subtle enough that it did not spoil the look of the rear end.

On the windshield I put this small decal.  It has the Daimler signature and Mercedes-Benz tri-star.  After all, it says the same thing in the door jamb - why not carry it out to where it can be seen?

Just visible on the left in this photo, on the lower windshield...

And finally, I placed this "powered by Mercedes-Benz" badge inside the car on the bulkhead that separates the passenger seating area from the hatch area, where it can be seen when getting into the car.  I thought it was too intrusive to the design of the sides of the car exterior, and not visible enough under the hood.  This strikes a nice compromise and surprisingly gets noticed by people when they get in the car.