This reminds me of the story of Saturn within General Motors. As I understand it, it was created to compete with popular imports like Honda and was given a long

This reminds me of the story of Saturn within General Motors. As I understand it, it was created to compete with popular imports like Honda and was given a long leash from GM to be "a different kind of car company" (in the words of their marketing). The first generation of cars were a lot different from any of GM's previous compact offerings. GM started reining in Saturn and moving toward badge engineering. Eventually it became the same kind of car company, because at the very top it always was.