upbadge

In the automotive industry, upbadging is when you are driving a lower-trim or entry level trim version of a specific vehicle and you decide to add custom badges, decals, and/or logos from a higher trim in order to make your vehicle look faster/more powerful/more expensive than it actually is.

For example: adding Hellcat badges to an SXT Dodge Challenger is indeed upbadging, and definitely the most godawful of them all. This is because a Hellcat V8 can put out 707hp while a V6 SXT only has 305hp. You drive an upbadged SXT and try to race an actual Hellcat, you're gonna look stupid and you're gonna get called out. Don't do it. Either be proud of your ride or save up for the real deal.

Upbadge

Changing the label on a product to make it look like a more valuable version. Most often occurs with cars, whose owners “upgrade” the “badge” of the vehicle.

Many car owners aspire to own a model that can be more expensive, better equipped or rarer.

They often procure an original car logo/sticker and add it to their cars in the exact way it would be on the real car they are trying to imitate.

Often, the other details are omitted (rims, exhaust, spoilers, engine, body styling), making it an obvious “fake” to those who are familiar with said models.

This is sometimes also a strategy to sell a car for more than it’s worth to unsuspecting/uninformed buyers.

Anyone who knows what the badge means, knows it’s fake.

Everyone else doesn’t know and doesn’t care and won’t be impressed.

That guy upbadged his diesel with a ///M and thinks he’s cool!

My grandma drives an upbadged AMG Mercedes and doesn’t even know what it means because she bought it like that. At least the dealer didn’t try to sell it for the price of an actual AMG.

There are more upbadged M cars in Poland than the number that BMW actually produced !