Questionable Adventures in Automotive Co-Branding

Mercedes-BenzIn early April, at the annual Milan Design Week in Italy, venerable 110-year-old Italian sport/luxury automaker Maserati unveiled a collaboration with venerable 127-year-old Italian furniture maker Giorgetti. Intriguingly, the collab went both ways, with Giorgetti lead designer Giancarlo Bosio and Maserati head designer Klaus Busse working together to create both a one-off version of Maserati’s battery-powered Grecale Folgore electric SUV and a suite of Giorgetti home furnishings. Both are meant to highlight the Italian brands’ shared commitments to detail, quality, and material uniqueness. MaseratiMaserati Grecale Folgore x Giorgetti.In their quest to be omnipresent in their customers’ minds and lives, and/or to trade their august respect for flashy young social media hits, automakers have collaborated in recent years with condo developers, boutique hoteliers, yacht builders, glitzy fashion brands, helicopter manufacturers, and all manner of artists. This practice, in the automotive realm, dates back at least as far as the appearance of a Cartier-branded dashboard clock in the 1969 Lincoln Continental Mark III, the result of a long-term connection between Edsel Ford and the French jewelry firm, which dated back to the 1920s. And while that collaboration carried on for decades, at least into the 2000s, not all of these co-branding exercises were as enduring. Or prudent. Or even intelligible.Lincoln1976 Lincoln Continental Mark IV Cartier Edition.To that end, we’ve gathered a compendium of some questionable automotive partnerships. Plenty of other co-pollination examples exist, but we’ve stuck to products in which carmakers have lent their imprimatur to non-automotive categories, as opposed to the other way around. Many of these are still available for purchase, so if you’re compelled, you can click-and-buy.
Maserati x Georgetti EditionThis interior collection will become a full, and perhaps ongoing, line of home furnishings. It’s said to be inspired in part by the Maserati “trident” logo (itself borrowed from Poseidon, the god of the seas), as well as from automotive design, and includes chairs, sofas, tables, rugs, blankets, ottomans, and duffels with unique curvature based on the ocean winds, as well as racing car seats and classic automotive fabrics. Are they comfortable? It’s difficult to discern from photos. But they are certainly sculptural and likely to make a statement in your statement home.MaseratiMaserati x Giorgetti interior collection.Mercedes Benz x MonclerWhy would the German three-pointed star brand loan the suburban status-symbol cachet of its rugged, militaristic G-class to Moncler, an Italian producer of extortionately priced, pleated, mass-market down jackets that have somehow also become ubiquitous suburban status symbols? Apparently, because people need a $2195 Chore Coat embossed with a Benz logo and a $495 T-shirt emblazoned with a muddy first-gen G and designed by Japanese multi-hyphenate musician and designer NIGO, famous for creating the Bathing Ape streetwear brand. Mercedes-Benz/MonclerMercedes x Moncler.Bugatti x Champagne CarbonReally, the last thing you should want drivers of a $4-plus million, 277-mph hypercar to be considering is alcohol. But that didn’t stop the pinnacle French/German/Italian automaker from partnering with a scion of the Devavry family, French vintners who founded their family wineries a decade or so after Ettore began making cars. Having tried a bottle of this $300 to $450 champagne—wrapped in 37 woven layers of its namesake plastic fibers—we can attest that the whole collaboration is less than tasteful on a literal level as well. BugattiBugatti x Champagne Carbon. Aston Martin x TritonThe market for personal submersibles may have seemed alluring in 2017 when Aston Martin first unveiled this $4 million James Bondian collaboration with the boutique Vero Beach, Florida, manufacturer Triton Submarines. Aston MartinAston MartinIt was thought that buyers could launch the little pod from their yachts (though probably not from the $1.6 million Aston-branded collaboration with Quintessence pictured below, as it’s too small). We’re unsure if any hand raisers came forward for this product. But the horrifying implosion of the Ocean Gate Titan submersible, although completely unrelated to this project, has likely had a chilling effect on any remaining market.Aston Martin/Max EareyThe Aston Martin x Quintessence powerboat. Lamborghini x BabolatBabolat is a high-end French manufacturer of tennis and badminton racquets. So it makes sense that, when it wanted to expand the performance of its signature product, it partnered with Lamborghini. It also makes sense that it leaned on Lambo’s expertise in constructing a racquet from carbon fiber, a lightweight structural material that Sant’Agata has been using since 1983. What doesn’t make sense is why either company would associate itself with the clamorous pseudo-sport of Paddle Tennis, or produce a Lambo-hued range of $600 carbon racquets for the silly game.BabolatLamborghini x Babolat.Jeep x Manly BandsSometimes, the name says it all. Manly is a Utah-based jewelry company. But since this is a category that some fragile men view as feminine, it has taken a distinctive tack. In addition to utilizing tough materials like tungsten, pressed diamond, exotic wood, and carbon fiber, it also has a strong licensing game, partnering with masc cosplay brands such as DC Comics, Jack Daniels, and Fender, to produce rings that won’t threaten dudes’ tenuous masculinity. Also Jeep, with which it cross-brands this $450 black zirconium Rock Crawler, which resembles a vintage off-road tire. JeepMcLaren x K-SwissDespite its European name, K-Swiss is a mid-priced California-based tennis shoe company that had its heyday in the 1980s and ’90s and has changed hands several times since. Its designs are generally old-school classic, drawing on its heritage in racquet sports. McLarenMcLaren Formula 1 x K-Swiss. None of these descriptors apply to upstart boutique British supercar manufacturer McLaren, except maybe the multiple owners. So the line of $55 to $150 slides and sneakers it’s peddling seems questionable, despite the lovely McLaren Orange accents that adorn their soles and uppers. Collabs from the C/D Archive