12 Cars That Resulted From the Weirdest Automotive Partnerships

The Passport was one of several badge-engineered cars that emerged from Honda's partnership with rival Isuzu. The Passport was essentially an Isuzu Rodeo SUV underneath, built in Indiana.

Though McLaren and Mercedes are now separate competitors on the road and on track, they once joined forces to create a car: The SLR McLaren. Mercedes owned 40 percent of McLaren in the early 2000s, and developed the super-GT together with a massively powerful supercharged V8 and swing-up doors.

The Arna, built in the early '80s, was the result of a collaboration between Alfa Romeo and Nissan. Alfa was losing money at the time, and needed a small hatch to compete with the VW Golf. It hoped using Nissan would make the car come to market quickly and cheaply. The body panels were built in Japan, while the car was assembled in Naples.

Who would've thought Aston Martin, builder of ultra-luxurious sporting GT cars, would end up selling a rebadged Scion IQ? Well, thanks to emissions regulations, that's exactly what it did. Perhaps even more unexpected is the one-off V8-powered version the company built for this year's Goodwood Festival of Speed.

Way back in 1995, Acura saw how popular SUVs were getting but wasn't quite ready to commit to developing its own. After all, those SUVs could have been a flash in the pan. The better idea was apparently to rebadge an Isuzu. Sure, it got a few upgrades to make it more Acura-like, but it was still an Isuzu Trooper wearing an Acura badge.

If you're not into the Miata's looks, and would rather rock something retro, consider the 124 Spider. It's built alongside the Miata in Japan, and comes with that car's brilliant chassis. Best of all, it starts at a cheaper price than the Miata. Here's a used Abarth model listed for just over $24,000.

When the Japanese showed up in the United States with cars that featured groundbreaking features like "quality" and "reliability," the folks in Detroit realized they would need to find a way to compete. Not all of those plans ended up working out perfectly, but you can't blame GM for trying this one. Instead of developing its own car to compete against the Toyota Corolla, it put a Geo badge on the Corolla and called it a Prizm.

Despite deciding to start calling all of its cars Infiniti Q-somethings, Nissan's luxury brand hadn't been selling quite as well as Audi and Mercedes. It also needed something to draw in younger buyers. The solution was to build a subcompact CUV with a lowered version that would be considered a hatchback. Instead of developing its own platform or borrowing one from Nissan, the resulting QX30 was developed in collaboration with . . . Mercedes.

The Aston Martin Cygnet is certainly a head scratcher, but if any car on this list is going to give the Cygnet a run for its money, it's the Kia Elan. Yes, it has the same name as the Lotus Elan, and it looks like the last-generation Lotus Elan, but the name says Kia. Why? When the Elan ended production, Kia bought the rights to continue producing it, selling it in South Korea with a Kia badge until 1999.

Just because General Motors killed off Geo didn't mean the philosophy behind the Geo Prizm died with its brand. No, GM tried the same approach again, this time with a hatchback. GM and Toyota built the Matrix and Vibe together in a plant in California (which is now owned by Tesla) in a partnership that wasn't long for this world.

Fiat isn't the only company to raid the Mazda lineup when it needs a car. Toyota did that here with the Scion iA. Now it's the Toyota iA (RIP Scion), but whatever you call it, it's really just a Mazda2 sedan with a Toyota badge and a gaping maw slapped on the front. That may not sound like much, but it actually worked out really well. We liked the iA quite a lot when we drove it.

This one is weird on several levels, not the least of which is that Volkswagen somehow came to the conclusion it needed to get into the minivan business. Instead of developing its own van, VW called up Chrysler and asked nicely if it could please have the Town & Country. Thus the Volkswagen Routan was born. Considering how poorly it sold, VW probably made the right call to collaborate on the Routan.