Hi! Billie Mays here!

Just look at this beautiful new Honda CrossTour!

It's roomy, has practical, has lots of cup holders, and it's a Honda, straight from Japan! You know the Japanese always make great stuff!

A little confused as to it's purpose?

Think of it as a subliminal way of weening soccer moms off of SUVs! Just give them a station wagon, but call it an SUV, and voila! The beginning of the end of the SUV soccer mom stereotype!

For 60 easy payments of $599.99, you, too, can own on these fantastic products! And you know it has to be good, because I'm endorsing it!

If you order now, we'll even throw in an extra serving of Honda VTEC douche! AT NO EXTRA COST!!!!!

But we can't offer this deal all day! Supplies are limited! So order now, and we'll even throw in an extra serving of Honda VTEC douche! AT NO EXTRA COST!!!!!

Not sold in stores. See your local Honda dealer for details. Beware of imitators from Toyota, GM, Ford, and Nissan.

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Oh, I'm a Plushroom. Right.

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The G6 and the Malibu have completely different suspension setups, as do the Cobalt and the SSR, The F-150 and the Expedition, the Silverado and the Sierra/Yukon/Tahoe/Suburban/Avalanche/Escalade, the 5-Series and the 6-series/X5/X6/5GT, and on and on.

It's not that that is necessarily a bad thing, but it is still badge engineering/platform sharing.

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it also seems hypocritical when you consider how many Lexus, BMW and Infiniti platforms are shared. You cannot possibly be telling me that most of Infiniti's lineup is "badge engineered" because many of them share the FM chassis.

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And I don't know what you find hyprocritical about my comment. If you re-read it, you'll note that I gave multiple examples of the same practice that is referred to as badge engineering/platform sharing, and indicated that there were many more to be found.

So, my comment seems hypocritical because I didn't create an exhaustive, three-page list?

I also indicated that it's not a bad thing, it just is what it is, and it just so happens to be called badge engineering/platform sharing.

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Badge Engineering is what happens when you have one car, like a Chevy Aveo, and then you turn it into the Pontiac Wave. Both are manufactured by Daewoo. I.e. take one car, and chuck on a different badge, maybe a new front grill, then call it a day.

Platform sharing is more difficult to define. When you have to modify a chassis so extensively that it has a different suspension setup, is it still the same platform? What about something like the Nissan GTR, which has, in essence, a heavily modified FM platform? Is the GTR platform engineered off a G35 then?

My comments about it being hypocritical is because most people tend to point out that some car is based off another car, except that this is not only untrue, but that all major car companies nowadays base cars off a few common "platforms", modified extensively to suit the vehicle on hand. This comment is directed at several people, not just you.

My question to you is, what exactly do you consider platform and badge engineering?

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I can understand your point with the GT-R, as there were significant structural changes done to the FM platform itself, and I would classify that as a new platform.

But to simply change the front suspension and different body panels is the not the same thing as creating a new platform. All that that amounts to is an extension of badge engineering.

More examples:

Euro Accord and Acura TSX

NA Accord and Acura TL

C-Class and GLK

DB9 and DBS

And the list goes on and on...

The suspension design may be different, but no changes have been made to the structure itself, meaning that it is the same platform.

Just because the MDX comes out of the box with full-time AWD does not make it a different platform than the Pilot or the ZDX or the TL or the Accord, as the same platform was designed with that level of flexibility in mind.

To make a long story short: Just because you use a given platform with suspension changes in two vehicles with two different exteriors and purposes does not mean that the resulting vehicles are different platforms.

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Honda = the next BMW?

Making less and less money, like everyone else, and building terrible cars that no one really wants, but everyone will buy anyways just because of the badge?

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Meanwhile, my folks have an '02 Civic, which is a cheap, hateful little car. I remember when Civics used to be a cut above the other (good) compacts; now they're just plastic crap.

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His psycho fuckbuddy? She drives an '00. She's rough with it, too - and it's looking at its second transmission, as well as God only knows what else.

Fifth-gen back, please.

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