De-badge or not to de-badge

[andre3k]

Another one for the de-badging camp. It's not necessarily always about trying to hide it's RS underpinnings, for me it's about a much cleaner profile to the rear and front elevations.

Look @ the triangle of chrome - exhausts and rings...perfect.

[svassileou]

Mine was debadged at front, rear and rear doors. Coupled with the fact it was mugello blue, this made it quite subtle I thought.

[22B]

I've never understood the whole de-badge thing.
Personally, I'm really chuffed to drive an RS... why would I want it to look otherwise.

but each to their own, but its not for me.

[arnnie]

Its funny after my 1st post and reading the thread i have just asked the dealer to re-instate the missing RS4 badges to the front and rear of my car for when i pick it up

[MikeFish]

This is how it should look:

[Pyrotechnic]

I de-badged my Impreza, looked cleaner and *cough*hides the fact it's a non-turbo*cough*...

I kinda like the discreet look, get a little fed up of people asking me about it sometimes, I mean yeah, I'm proud of it, but sometimes I'd just like to go out without people asking how much it cost, how fast it goes, how much insurance costs etc, just wonder how many of those people would actually know it was an RS if it didn't have the badges on it?

[edge]

Over here the amount of RS4 TDIs floating about it crazy.... when I had the badges is common to be told it was a good replica......

I just prefer the blacked out look, so de-badge, black rings and smoke LEDs were on the cards

[PetrolDave]

I've never understood the whole de-badge thing.
Personally, I'm really chuffed to drive an RS... why would I want it to look otherwise.

The only people I've seen de-badge are normally folk who are trying to make their car look something that it isn't.

Well said.

[nij]

In Germany, they tend to de-badge large engine cars (e.g. Mercedes E500, so people don't know they’ve got a fast car). Unfortunately, in the UK we tend to de-badge small engine cars (e.g. Mercedes E200, so people don’t know you’ve got a slow car).

[Eashan]

Mine was de-badged when I bought the car but I thought it didn't looked right especially because of the spaces it left on the rear door. I put all the badges back on and carbon wrapped the red squares but people still ask me if it's real rs4 or not, so I'm thinking of just retuning to oem.

[sakimano]

I've never understood the whole de-badge thing.
Personally, I'm really chuffed to drive an RS... why would I want it to look otherwise.

The only people I've seen de-badge are normally folk who are trying to make their car look something that it isn't.

(I have a neighbour that's de-badged his basic Ford Focus !!!.... no, really)

Debadged is pretty simple. There are four groups who do this (not sure which group the MaxPower lovers from the70s will fall in though)

1. those who think the aesthetics are truly better...cleaner...simpler...less cluttered. It's just a 'that looks better' thing to some. That's a very small number of people mind you

2. the chronic debadgers - they even remove the Audi rings, etc. These folks are doing it to make a statement. I don't know what that statement is, but I see this with the JDM scene a lot. I find it ridiculous and the cars look like something's missing.

3. those who drive a 'lower range' model, and want to fool a few folks into thinking it's the upper range model. These folks are also likely to swap out their body coloured side mirror caps and replace them with silver aluminium looking S/RS signature style mirror caps. There's a black B6 around the corner from me with an S4 grille (no S4 badge though), S4 rear valence, silver mirrors and no rear badges (just Audi rings). My wife said 'what Audi is that?' not knowing due to the badges being removed. I said 'S4 drivers rarely remove their badges. I'll bet anything it's an A4'. As we got closer, I could see from across the street that the S4 Recaro seats were missing. Oops. Sure enough while walking the dog another day, it started up...and the familiar 4 banger clatter along with an aftermarket exhaust to accentuate the awful sound confirmed what I already knew...A4.

To me it's almost like upbadging with lots of the group #3 people. The silver mirrors in my mind are tantamount to putting an S/RS badge on your car. The silver mirrors don't actually look any better...they just look S/RS. Makes no sense to me. Further, the people they are going to fool with something like that don't likely know enough about the car to know what is special about an S/RS. The people who WOULD know that silver mirrors mean S/RS are also smart enough to know you're a poser.

4. the sleepers - these people want to fly under the radar so people won't know they've got a fast or fancy car. I have a friend who does this. Debadged his entire S4 (externally) to fly under the radar.

[HYFR]

im 1 and 4

[RS04YOB]

Maxpower

I went badgeless for the reason it made the rear in my view look wider and there is far too much going on in the front grill and just more subtle IMO





So I am 1 & 4

[arnnie]

This is how it should look:

DSC02039 - Copy.JPG

It kinda makes me laugh in away, you guys all go on about how de-badging is max power yet a guy posts photos of his car de-badged and with after market LED lights and no one makes a peep about the lights

On a personal note "MikeFish" i must admit i quiet like them

[RS04YOB]

This is how it should look:

DSC02039 - Copy.JPG

It kinda makes me laugh in away, you guys all go on about how de-badging is max power yet a guy posts photos of his car de-badged and with after market LED lights and no one makes a peep about the lights

On a personal note "MikeFish" i must admit i quiet like them

LED lights are another topic I guess