Perhaps there was once a time when the Chinese citizenry couldn't tell the difference between a Mercedes-Benz and a Honda. In today's car-crazy China, however, this is clearly no longer the case. That didn't stop police in Fangchenggang (part of Guangxi Province) from performing a low-tech badge swap on a Mercedes-Benz ML350 in a bid to make it look like a run-of-the-mill Honda, right down to CR-V emblem on the rear liftgate.

Car News China reports that the police did it to fool taxpayers into thinking that the department didn't spend big bucks on a Benz. An ML350 reportedly costs around 900,000 yuan ($139,000 USD), which is a lot more than Honda CR-V, which runs around 200,000 yuan ($30,000 or so). As you may have guessed, the ridiculous (and failed) cover-up attempt by the cops angered residents whole lot more than if they'd simply rolled out, baller style, in the Mercedes from the beginning.Chinese police caught rebadging Mercedes as Honda to avoid taxpayer ire originally appeared on Autoblog on Sat, 09 Jul 2011 16:39:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.


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