The "POWER" of the Turbo badge (Social Experiment)
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From: East Windsor, NJ & Scranton, PA
The "POWER" of the Turbo badge (Social Experiment)
So I was at the supermarket earlier this week and while loading my car with groceries I had some young guy come up to me, point to my turbo badge and say, "Is that thing Turbo!?...Damn yo!!!"
So I thanked him for his compliment and went on my way. Now this got me thinking...does simply having the turbo badge on a car really bring about that sort of interest?
I had been planning on debadging my car regardless and as a result I would have a spare turbo badge lying around. This got me thinking about performing a little social experiment. If I was to put a turbo badge on any car, would it produce the same response.
So I will temporarily mount the Turbo badge on some of my other cars for 1 week each and see if I get any unusual feedback.
The cars to be tested are.....
My 2004 BMW M3
This car already gets a fair amount of attention but I want to see how much more simply adding the badge will generate.
And a car which everybody ignores, my 2007 Honda Civic Hybrid. This one should create some very confused people.
This should be an interesting test as to how much of an effect simply the "Turbocharged" badge has on peoples views of performance. I will keep you all posted with the results.
Test Results
Day 1 - 3/5/09
Test Vehicle - BMW M3
A.M. Drive - Upon adding the badge, I had a drive of about 20 miles ahead of me. It required me to use Route 1, Route 130 and the NJ Turnpike. At first there were no unusual reactions...but then I got onto Route 130...Within seconds after turning onto the road, I had a Toyota Tundra with a 30 something driver pull up right behind me and tail gate me continuously for about 5 miles. Now normally this is just a standard bad driving practice, but he was clearly focused on my car with its shiny "Turbocharged" badge during this time. Further evidence of this was shown when I turned off of the road and his head followed my car with a long gazing stare until I was out of view. It was the kind rubber necking look you would give if you saw a knockout woman walking down the sidewalk in the opposite direction of your driving.
The second event was with an Sti sedan on Route 1.....This 20 something was driving quite fast and passed me going about 15 mph faster then I was. The unusual thing that got my attention though was about 100 feet past me, he stepped on his brakes very hard, lost speed quickly and proceeded to fall behind me. He then merged directly into my lane about 20 feet behind me and began to keep pace with my car. An odd thing then occured...he began to accelerate and decelerate rapidly and merge to the left and right side of me. I almost felt like one of those animals on those nature shows being surrounded by Lions getting ready to kill their prey. A little wierded out by this, I dropped some speed and to my surprise the Sti did the exact same thing. Clearly this guy was trying to edge me on to race or at the very least he highly intrigued by my car. This continued for the remaining 10 minutes of my drive on Route 1. Such an encounter never happened before the Turbo badge addition.
I had reached my destination and that ended the AM portion of the experiment.
PM Drive
On leaving for the drive home, I took the turnpike to avoid some of the rush hour traffic. While approaching the toll booth to pick up the pay ticket, a mid 90's Nissan Sentra pulled up next to me in the other ticket lane with 3 high school age passengers. In my side view mirror I could clearly see the passenger who happened to have a backwards baseball cap on point at my rear with his left hand, put his right hand over his mouth in what looked like a gawking "Oh Daaaammmnnn!" type motion. I then got my ticket and went onto the turnpike in opposing directions to these people.
On the Turnpike, it was surprisingly quiet as far as reactions from other drivers. Maybe this is due to the high traffic volume of the turnpike or simply that it did not stand out at highway speed driving. Leaving the turnpike however yielded my last unusual encounter. Getting back on to Route 130 for the final 5 miles of my trip, I reached a red light and was the first one lined up. On my right side, a very rusted and beat up Honda Civic with an exhaust that looked like it was from a top fuel dragster pulled up next to me. After staring at my rear for a few seconds , he slowly inched up to line up with me and quickly looked over the car along the way. He then revved his car very loudly at me. When the light goes green, he floors it and the car squeaks the front tires for about .1 seconds and he then proceeds to accelerate at a scarily slow pace. While starting what appeared to be his 15 second journey to 60 mph, it sounded like his car had a nuclear bomb under the hood. I actually felt somewhat bad for this individual and accelerated past him rapidly with about 50% throttle just to end his misery. When I reached about 55 mph, I let off the gas and with one hand on the steering wheel and a severely reclined seat, he immediatly took the U-turn in the median in what was a fairly reckless maneuver and loudly headed the other direction.
I then reached home without further incident and took off the badge. The first day proved some surprising results...a lot of people hounded the car now when historically only fellow BMW owners would take notice. The initial conclusion is that even though the car was never driven recklessly, loudly or over the speed limit during this time, the Turbo badge had a major impact on how the car was viewed among fellow drivers.
The next section of this experiment will begin tommorow on the same route...in the Civic Hybrid.
Day 2 - 3/6/09
2007 Honda Civic Hybrid
AM Drive - After placing the badge on the Hybrid, I began my trip. At first I got no unusual attention, but at the first red light I noticed in my mirror the man behind me in a Toyota 4 Runner leaning over the steering wheel attempting to get a better look at my car's rear. After about 10 seconds of this, he gave a very bewildered look and appeared as though the concept of a turbo hybrid was a very unusual setup for him to fathom.
After entering the Turnpike, the only car which seemed to notice something was different was an Infiniti G35 who pulled along side me on the highway and began to analyze the car in great detail. Whether or not he knew that this was only a badge was unclear but after about 20 seconds he went on his way. I then reached my destination without further incident.
PM Drive - The car received no special interest until I was stuck in traffic. A group of young people in a Mazda Protege S became VERY riled up once they saw the badge and they began waving and pointing at the car. The front passenger actually turned around in his seat to keep looking at my car as they were driving away. Being that this had never happened before, clearly the badge set something off in them.
Lastly, about 5 minutes from home, a man in a Nissan Quest minivan clearly took notice of the badge, pointed to my rear and began to chuckle. He appeared to be the only one who figured out it was not a real setup.
As expected, this car did not have the performance car fanatics respond the same way they did with the "Turbo" M3. Even so, these were interesting results which lead me to believe that a turbo badge on ANY car will yield signifigantly more responses from people then one without the badge.
So if you want your car to get some extra attention, put on a nice big Turbo badge!!!
So I thanked him for his compliment and went on my way. Now this got me thinking...does simply having the turbo badge on a car really bring about that sort of interest?
I had been planning on debadging my car regardless and as a result I would have a spare turbo badge lying around. This got me thinking about performing a little social experiment. If I was to put a turbo badge on any car, would it produce the same response.
So I will temporarily mount the Turbo badge on some of my other cars for 1 week each and see if I get any unusual feedback.
The cars to be tested are.....
My 2004 BMW M3
This car already gets a fair amount of attention but I want to see how much more simply adding the badge will generate.
And a car which everybody ignores, my 2007 Honda Civic Hybrid. This one should create some very confused people.
This should be an interesting test as to how much of an effect simply the "Turbocharged" badge has on peoples views of performance. I will keep you all posted with the results.
Test Results
Day 1 - 3/5/09
Test Vehicle - BMW M3
A.M. Drive - Upon adding the badge, I had a drive of about 20 miles ahead of me. It required me to use Route 1, Route 130 and the NJ Turnpike. At first there were no unusual reactions...but then I got onto Route 130...Within seconds after turning onto the road, I had a Toyota Tundra with a 30 something driver pull up right behind me and tail gate me continuously for about 5 miles. Now normally this is just a standard bad driving practice, but he was clearly focused on my car with its shiny "Turbocharged" badge during this time. Further evidence of this was shown when I turned off of the road and his head followed my car with a long gazing stare until I was out of view. It was the kind rubber necking look you would give if you saw a knockout woman walking down the sidewalk in the opposite direction of your driving.
The second event was with an Sti sedan on Route 1.....This 20 something was driving quite fast and passed me going about 15 mph faster then I was. The unusual thing that got my attention though was about 100 feet past me, he stepped on his brakes very hard, lost speed quickly and proceeded to fall behind me. He then merged directly into my lane about 20 feet behind me and began to keep pace with my car. An odd thing then occured...he began to accelerate and decelerate rapidly and merge to the left and right side of me. I almost felt like one of those animals on those nature shows being surrounded by Lions getting ready to kill their prey. A little wierded out by this, I dropped some speed and to my surprise the Sti did the exact same thing. Clearly this guy was trying to edge me on to race or at the very least he highly intrigued by my car. This continued for the remaining 10 minutes of my drive on Route 1. Such an encounter never happened before the Turbo badge addition.
I had reached my destination and that ended the AM portion of the experiment.
PM Drive
On leaving for the drive home, I took the turnpike to avoid some of the rush hour traffic. While approaching the toll booth to pick up the pay ticket, a mid 90's Nissan Sentra pulled up next to me in the other ticket lane with 3 high school age passengers. In my side view mirror I could clearly see the passenger who happened to have a backwards baseball cap on point at my rear with his left hand, put his right hand over his mouth in what looked like a gawking "Oh Daaaammmnnn!" type motion. I then got my ticket and went onto the turnpike in opposing directions to these people.
On the Turnpike, it was surprisingly quiet as far as reactions from other drivers. Maybe this is due to the high traffic volume of the turnpike or simply that it did not stand out at highway speed driving. Leaving the turnpike however yielded my last unusual encounter. Getting back on to Route 130 for the final 5 miles of my trip, I reached a red light and was the first one lined up. On my right side, a very rusted and beat up Honda Civic with an exhaust that looked like it was from a top fuel dragster pulled up next to me. After staring at my rear for a few seconds , he slowly inched up to line up with me and quickly looked over the car along the way. He then revved his car very loudly at me. When the light goes green, he floors it and the car squeaks the front tires for about .1 seconds and he then proceeds to accelerate at a scarily slow pace. While starting what appeared to be his 15 second journey to 60 mph, it sounded like his car had a nuclear bomb under the hood. I actually felt somewhat bad for this individual and accelerated past him rapidly with about 50% throttle just to end his misery. When I reached about 55 mph, I let off the gas and with one hand on the steering wheel and a severely reclined seat, he immediatly took the U-turn in the median in what was a fairly reckless maneuver and loudly headed the other direction.
I then reached home without further incident and took off the badge. The first day proved some surprising results...a lot of people hounded the car now when historically only fellow BMW owners would take notice. The initial conclusion is that even though the car was never driven recklessly, loudly or over the speed limit during this time, the Turbo badge had a major impact on how the car was viewed among fellow drivers.
The next section of this experiment will begin tommorow on the same route...in the Civic Hybrid.
Day 2 - 3/6/09
2007 Honda Civic Hybrid
AM Drive - After placing the badge on the Hybrid, I began my trip. At first I got no unusual attention, but at the first red light I noticed in my mirror the man behind me in a Toyota 4 Runner leaning over the steering wheel attempting to get a better look at my car's rear. After about 10 seconds of this, he gave a very bewildered look and appeared as though the concept of a turbo hybrid was a very unusual setup for him to fathom.
After entering the Turnpike, the only car which seemed to notice something was different was an Infiniti G35 who pulled along side me on the highway and began to analyze the car in great detail. Whether or not he knew that this was only a badge was unclear but after about 20 seconds he went on his way. I then reached my destination without further incident.
PM Drive - The car received no special interest until I was stuck in traffic. A group of young people in a Mazda Protege S became VERY riled up once they saw the badge and they began waving and pointing at the car. The front passenger actually turned around in his seat to keep looking at my car as they were driving away. Being that this had never happened before, clearly the badge set something off in them.
Lastly, about 5 minutes from home, a man in a Nissan Quest minivan clearly took notice of the badge, pointed to my rear and began to chuckle. He appeared to be the only one who figured out it was not a real setup.
As expected, this car did not have the performance car fanatics respond the same way they did with the "Turbo" M3. Even so, these were interesting results which lead me to believe that a turbo badge on ANY car will yield signifigantly more responses from people then one without the badge.
So if you want your car to get some extra attention, put on a nice big Turbo badge!!!
Last edited by agent007kimball; Mar 7, 2009 at 05:25 PM.
New Member
Joined: 12-16-08
Posts: 92
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From: Massachusetts
I saw a kid once in a mid 90's toyota camry with the v8 magnum logo on the back of it, and I thought to myself how stupid it made the kids look to someone who knows that there is no way there is a dodge magnum v8 in a mid 90's camry. I also saw a kid outside walmart sticking a cursive "turbo" logo on the back of his toyota solara. The kid was about 17 and I felt the need to ask if it really was turbo even though I jsut as well figured it wasn't. Of course he answered yes, and when I asked him what kind of aftermarket turbo kit he used he said K&N and I said "wow cool" and left. The point is, most people might be like "damn a turbo car awesome" but is it worth it at the expensive of some going "wow that retard peeled the badge off of a cobalt and stuck it to a bmw". So im actually interested in seeing how this goes.
Member
Joined: 11-01-08
Posts: 262
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From: Weymouth,MA
the M3 im sure will fool a lot of people people think all quick cars are turbo, the civic you might get people trying to strike conversation saying they have a turbo hybrid to.I cant waite to see what people say
Member
Joined: 09-14-08
Posts: 342
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From: Virginia
hahahaha that is ******* hilarious hahaha i had my parents prius up to 90 once i could of swore the car was swearing at me haha
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Joined: 08-24-08
Posts: 121
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From: danbury ct
this sounds like its going to fun
i debadged my car and i still get questions "is it a turbo" and it doesnt matter what i say i still get same answer "WoW Really!!!" there is to many potheads where i live and they are so easy to mess with
i debadged my car and i still get questions "is it a turbo" and it doesnt matter what i say i still get same answer "WoW Really!!!" there is to many potheads where i live and they are so easy to mess with
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Joined: 12-29-08
Posts: 99
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From: Arlington Heights
but yea this should be good cant wait to read some of the results
New Member
Joined: 09-13-08
Posts: 142
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From: SOuth FLorida
but yeah sig it, it's pretty funny
