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Automakers may have been guilty of
stylistic excesses in the 1950s, but Dar still remembers fondly tri-tone paint
jobs, 4-door hardtops and fins that soared into the sky. He also loved the names of 50s vehicles,
like the nomenclature affixed to the 1956 Dodge Coronet Custom Royal Lancer,
shown here.
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| Cadillac, as well as Lincoln, recently joined other luxury automakers and name their new models using a combination of capital letters, not a “noun.” Gone are Cadillac Coupe de Ville and Lincoln Town Car. Say hello to ELR (new plug-in hybrid by Cadillac, shown) and MKZ (Lincoln’s replacement for the Zephyr.) |
Here’s a question for the readers of this column. Given a choice, would you prefer that
automakers name their vehicles with letters and numbers (referred to as an
alpha-numeric name) or with nomenclature based on a usually common word?
Do you like the sound of a car being named A8 or Coupe de Ville? Does 328i ring your bell louder than Mustang
Boss? It appears that car buyers are
opting for the alphanumeric lingo. In
the past ten or twenty years, it seems that almost all the automakers –
especially those selling luxury vehicles – have abandoned using nouns or names
and all have embraced using a blend of letters (mostly capitalized) and numbers
(some making sense – like indicating size of engine or length of the car and
some signifying nothing).
Credit has to be given to the three major German luxury
brands for marketing their vehicles using alphanumeric names over a long period
of time and becoming extremely successful.
While A4 Audis, C-class Mercedes-Benzes and 3 series BMWs are selling
like hotcakes, I for one, really wish that automakers had stuck with using old
fashion names for their vehicles.
I have a couple of reasons for feeling this way about
vehicle names.
This may only be a problem for me, but I have a devil of a
time remembering car names that aren’t nouns.
When Cadillac started switching its car model names to all capitalized
letters it was fairly easy for me to remember their offering’s new names.
The Deville Touring Sedan became the DTS, the Seville
Touring Sedan became the STS and the Catera became the CTS. That made some sense to me. I wasn’t happy that Deville became DTS but at
least I could remember the name.
Then Cadillac introduced the SRX crossover and the XLR
roadster. It took me a long time to
remember those two new names. The X
used in SRX was a good reference, because most of the new crossovers were
probably all-wheel drive and X is often used by automakers to identify that
feature. But what the heck does SR
stand for?
And then along came the Corvette-based XLR. It didn’t have all-wheel drive but still had
the X in the name. I eventually
remembered the new names, but they don’t come to me in an instant.
The new names must be working for Cadillac because the GM
luxury marque isn’t giving up on using the three cap letters to name their new
models. At the recent Detroit auto show,
Cadillac introduced a new model called the ELR.
Can you guess what those letters stand for? In some ways, the name ELR makes some
sense. The ELR is Cadillac’s version of
Chevy’s Volt plug-in hybrid model.
Unlike the 4-door Volt, the ELR is a two-door sporty coupe. Can we assume that the E stands for electric
and the L stands for luxury? Now if only
the ELR was a little convertible, I could than make the argument that the R
stands for roadster.
As it now stands, I have no idea what the R stands for and I
guess it doesn’t matter, as long as I can remember the new car’s name.
Again it may be my age, but I’m from an era when there were
cars built and sold that had really wonderful names. I recall going to the dealer in Lapeer and
sitting in an Eldorado Biarritz convertible or seeing in the catalog the photos
of the Cadillac Eldorado Seville and Eldorado Brougham. Just saying those Cadillac names would make
folks feel wealthy and important.
Over at the Dodge dealer you could put you money down for a
Dodge Coronet Custom Royal Lancer (the Lancer indicated it was a hardtop.) My tongue and brain feel better saying Coronet
Custom Royal Lancer than saying 750i or Q50?
I’m really pleased that domestic makers are still coming up
with new names that don’t have cap letters and numbers in them. Chevy moved from Cobalt to Cruze in naming
its most recent compact car. The Bow Tie
brand still calls its family sized cars the Impala and Malibu. They didn’t even think of changing the Corvette’s
name when the seventh generation of the iconic sports car was introduced in
January.
Dodge likes to use names from the past. They have the Charger, Challenger and just
brought back the Dart name. That was a
good move. Chrysler uses numbers in
calling its full-size sedan the 300 but that makes sense. The highly regarded 300 letter series performance
cars of 1955 to 1965 have defined the brand.
Ford and Chevy has introduced new models in the past with
names that start with the letters F and C respectively. For a period of time back in the sixties,
all Chevys had to start with the letter C.
There was the Chevy Corvair, Chevy II, Chevelle and Camaro.
Ford followed suit with the Falcon and Fairlane. They broke the “F” tradition in 1964 when
choosing a name for their pony car.
Instead of Filly, they selected Mustang. Chevy weaned itself of the C tradition with
the Monte Carlo and later the Lumina, Malibu, Monza and other models.
Of late, Ford is back to naming new offerings using the
letter “F.” The Focus and Fusion being
current examples.
Perhaps the automakers are drifting into alphanumeric names
and away from using nouns because the good ones like Mustang and Impala are
already taken. Of course, if you are
Toyota, you can always just come up with interesting sounding names like Camry
and Yaris and find buyers galore. I
checked my dictionary and neither of those words are listed.
Are there still good names available for automakers to use? I think so.
I don’t have time to leaf through the dictionary to find some examples but
somewhere in my Funks and Wagnall there must be a winning name that we can all
pronounce, spell and relate to.
We can then look forward to the introduction of a new Chevy
Arapahoe pickup and not a Chevy MPUX4 (that stands for massive pick up with
four-wheel drive, in case you wonder).
I’m going to post this article on my blog site (see address
at end of column). I’d like to hear your
feedback on my auto names observations.
