Automotive World

And truth to be said, most of the times, your average buyer doesn't know what's hiding under the sheetmetal nor if the vehicle in question is identical in many ways to a model bearing a different badge, because what he or she sees and feels are indeed different.

The trouble starts when carmakers engage in blatant badge engineering, simply placing a different grille and a new logo on the steering wheel and calling it something else.

And that's where the problem lies for Fiat and Chrysler. The automotive alliance recently revealed a trio of Lancia models in Europe: the Thema sedan, Flavia Cabrio and the Voyager MPV, which are nothing more than rebadged versions of the Chrysler 300, 200 Convertible and Town & Country respectively.

“See it Through” is a 1917 poem by Michigan poet laureate, Edgar A. Guest. The carmaker says that it's appropriate since it exemplifies the comeback of Detroit and Chrysler.

Of course this does not mean in any way that we don't appreciate some raw American V8 power, and there's a lot that going on with the conceptual Chrysler 300S 426 that is on display at the 2011 Los Angeles Auto Show.

The concept is a joint project between Chrysler and its Mopar brand, which basically dropped a 426 cubic-inch [equal to 7.0-liters] Hemi V8 crate engine under the hood of a Chrysler 300S.

The company didn't release any performance figures, but our guess is that it's either the all-aluminum 426 Generation III Hemi V8 that is rated at 540 horsepower and 530 lb-ft of torque, or the more recent 426 Gen III High Output HEMI V8 with a monstrous 590-horsepower on tap. Either way, that's a whole lot of ponies…