You know what I miss that cars often had up until the ’90s or so, and are almost extinct today? Badges. Not the usual make/model badges, though, we still have plenty of those, I mean the highly-specific feature badges that cars used to proudly display. Actually, not even just features – also technical details.
You know what I mean, right? There was a time when carmakers were so proud of a particular technological innovation that they’d produce whole chrome badges crowing about something like how many camshafts the engine had, or the method by which fuel was delivered to the engine, or how many gears the transmission had.
You could roll up behind a car and be proudly told how many valves per cylinder that engine was sporting, if the fuel was injected, or if that engine was turbocharged, and if it was, if that turbo had a partner or not. It was glorious! You could see what the engineers were most proud of, all without opening the hood!
Modern cars, though, they don’t do this anymore, it seems. And it’s not like there aren’t plenty of technical innovations to crow about. But people seem less interested in the technical minutia, less willing to brag about how having four valves per cylinder than they are about what features and creature comforts and tech whatevers they have. So maybe we need to re-think these detail badges for a new era.
For example, a badge like this seems like it would be pretty damn important to a lot of people:
A Carplay Ready badge! Sure, there’d likely be an Android Auto Ready one, too. The presence of CarPlay capability is a dealbreaker for a lot of people, so you’d think owners would like to make sure everyone behind them knows what they’ve got on that center screen.
Here’s another feature I see on a lot of new cars, but one that’s generally quite hidden unless you’re in the car:
What’s the point of being able to set the ambient footwell lighting of your car to the perfect shade of plum if no one knows you can do that? This badge would solve that. PERMANENTLY.
Here’s a good idea: if you are stuck with a car that uses some kind of miserable subscription service so you can have access to things like heated seats or whatever, may as well let everyone know your pain, right? Put that shit right on the back of the car!
Here’s a good one for EVs:
How many gears your transmission has has long been something to crow about in chrome on your tailgate, and just because most modern EVs only have one gear, that’s no reason not to show it off!
You know what people really want to know about your car? I mean, at least as much as they probably wanted to know how many valves per cylinder you had? This:
USB ports! And yes, I think it’s important to break that down into the number of USB-A and USB-C type ports.
This one is maybe less of a feature and more of a warning:
I feel like I’d want to know this just by looking at the car, so I can judge accordingly.
For some reason, “twin” is always fun on a badge, whether it refers to camshafts or carburetors or turbos. So what’s a nice new thing we can describe as being twinned? How about this:
Twin cabin air filters! That’s living right there.
I’m sure there’s other good ones, so feel free to discuss, debate, debase, and defrock in the comments!
For BMWs:
Sensory Deprivation Steering
New Audis:
Piano Black Series
L87-equipped GMs:
EZ-Swap V8
i-Force Tundras:
i’m-Fuckt MAX
BYD put the 0-100km/h time in chrome badges on the rear of their “Performance” models – I think that counts? E.g. the BYD Seal Performance has a “3.8s” badge.
I feel like some people would misread it as saying it has a 3.8L supercharged engine.
They still make the metal script hotrod badges.
There are metal Cummins badges, not really discreet.
And million mile badges for those trucks.
Also a 500,000 mile badge for new owners.
I had a JDM Toyota Carina ED through Highschool and university. The badges on the back were as follows (excluding the Toyota and ED badges) 2.0 X Exciting Version. I still don’t know what exciting version meant but for a 16 year old kid from rural New Zealand it sure as hell was!
A favourite of mine was the Subaru Legacy/Liberty RS of the early 90s, with a sticker running the length of the back door with “CONSTANT 4WD QUAD CAM 16 VALVE FUEL INJECTED INTERCOOLED TURBO”
My folks had a Pontiac Parisienne with a “Radial Tuned Suspension” badge.
All these years I still have no idea what the fff this is
Bias ply and radial tires have different ride and handling characteristics, so suspension tuning was ideally different depending on intended tire type. Maybe they put that on a badge to remind the owners to replace their tires with those newfangled radials.
My 06′ has two such badges, a V8 and a traction control badge.
Do any 2026 cars have these type of badges anymore?
The back of my 2018 BMW X5 has nothing apart from the bmw logo, it doesn’t even have the xDrive40d on the side. Although it doesn’t have the naff MPerformance badge on the side skirt (I did not buy this new I never would have specced it with that!) My wife’s 2022 Volvo XC40 has “Volvo XC40 T4” which is very busy in comparison.
I really wish I could share photos here, so I could show you the MG Hector (yes that’s a real name) which has a “internet inside” badge on the back and a “brit dynamic” union jack on the sides. I’m not kidding.
Hard to see in this picture. But here’s the side script.
And here’s the Rear
The only badges that do seem to still exist are hybrid and AWD badges.
I saw a tiny Honda recently I presume was a Fit?
I couldn’t find a model anywhere
The owner could’ve debadged it. I know it’s fairly popular. Plus there’s no more tiny nee Honda’s, at least in the States.
Military import keis are a thing.
The van I drove to Denver came in that way.
Wheels looked like 12 inches, but Fit seems most likely.
My Camry looked huge next to it.
The 2025 Maverick refresh removed both the hybrid and AWD badges
Had to double check. Absolutely wild that they did that. Looks too plain.
Oh oh oh
For my EVs, I need a “save the manuals” sticker with a sticker gear shifter
Jason Cammisa claims a 1 speed EV is a manual. Doug DeMuro claims it is an automatic. (Somewhere, on YouTube.)
Here’s my idea: https://imgur.com/a/GwhKUOr
You can’t take electric cars seriously without gears.
counterpoint: an important part of a manual transmission is that you are providing the force with your hand to physically disengage/engage the gears inside the gearbox.
So, in an EV, if you’re throwing the old mechanical switch to close the circuit for drive/reverse, it counts as a manual.
but if you’re pressing a button (or worse, a touchscreen) that sends a signal to the computer to electronically open/close the contactors, it’s an automatic.
NapMode Enabled for Tesla drivers
My couch has nap mode. The footrest (reclining couch) goes out, the dog hops up there, and we take a nap.
For EVs the natural badge would be battery capacity – 32.6 kWh, or 54.2 kWh
Polestar does this, it’s nice
IIRC Tesla did that with the model S for a while, right? 90D I seem to remember seeing for a while
These are hilarious! Main technical badges I see now are hybrid/EV ones or some made up tech branding meant to sound hybridy even if it’s not (looking at you Skyactiv).
Skyactiv makes me think of what chloroflourocarbons do to the atmosphere.
That label should be required on coalrolling brodozers.
Mazda really should have given that engine label a bit more thought. It really doesn’t mean even a thousandth of what “zoom zoom” means.
Yeah, the engineering is pretty great but the marketing was pretty meh and has remained so since, part of why most consumers don’t see Mazda as having any particular identity these days.
What? No bonus points for identifying the model car? You mentioned absolutely nothing about those cool mobius-strip infinity tail lights.
Spoiler alert – It’s most likely a BYD Atto 2. (or Yuan Up in China)
“The presence of CarPlay capability is a dealbreaker for a lot of people, so you’d think owners would like to make sure everyone behind them knows what they’ve got on that center screen.”
While this would be true for me and probably only me, since I do not own a mobile phone, I think you meant to write ‘absence’.
FWIW there’s a lot of people that would buy a car because they saw “Heated Steering Wheel” on the back.
“MASSAGING Seats” lol
“Hitachi Wand Inside”
I would be any one of these on an appropriate car. I guess I could rock the Carplay Ready one currently.
Sure sounds like a good merch idea for y’all!
The USB port and 1 speed ones made me giggle.
I would strongly consider the 1 speed if I had an EV. Heck, I’ve got a CVT, so I guess I already could. Lol
It really should be something cautionary to other drivers like Autopilot.
Counterpoint: we have too many badges all over. Think I give a shit that my car is bragging about “SKYACTIV-G“? Screw that
..I do dig the USB ports tho
My Skyactiv 2012 CX-5 2.0 gets better fuel economy than my non-skyactiv 2006 NC MX-5 did. I’ll look at the blue engine cover proudly when I remove it to media blast the intake in about 20000kms
V-Tech YO GTI STI R Type AMG S SRT WTF BBQ
+1 for WTF BBQ which I don’t see enough of these days. Darn kids not using slang from my time.
i was hoping some fellow “olds” would get a kick out of it.
Mmm, BBQ. P:
Since the driving experience is ever more screen-based, how about some trendy but useless badges relating to it?
“Haptic Feedback”
“Digital Driver Display”
“15-inch Vertical Interface”
“8-inch Secondary Interface”
“Physical volume knob/HVAC controls”
Sounds like one that companies would actually put on now.
“Manual Glovebox Door”
TWIN KNOBS We don’t know if its talking about the infotainment or the two idiots sat in front.
Isn’t ‘digital driver display’ just the driver giving someone the finger?
I love this nonsense! When I was in marketing at a publishing company I really wanted to tout the fact our books were, “Sequentially paginated, and featured both a FRONT and BACK cover at no additional cost.
In light of a different Autopian post:
DEF Defeated, so choke on my exhaust and die already!
Good warning for those of us on two wheels or with only 1 cabin air filter!
Back in the day when technical feature badges were more common, I often though of how funny it would be to also have badges for outdated tech/base model features. “4-cylinder” badge on the grille; “Single-barrel” in a text box under the model name; a heckblende with “Naturally Aspirated” etched across it; door decals saying “no power steering”; a heraldic emblem on the c-pillar with the word “CHEAP” written in some old-timey looking font. That kind of nonsense. These badges reminded me of that ridiculous idea I once though could be a legitimate business plan at the time.
Our 2000 Ford Falcon proudly wore a SOHC intec badge on the side
A Renault 4 could barely move under the weight of all those badges.