In Europe, the Corolla has been renamed the Auris.

Long live the Taurus. Bring back to Galaxy. Let the Crown Vic die a quick and painless death.

At the typically overhyped launch event for the Pontiac concept car called the Rageous, Automobile columnist Paul Lienert said quite loudly, “You should’ve called it the Diculous.”

Now THAT is funny!

At the typically overhyped launch event for the Pontiac concept car called the Rageous, Automobile columnist Paul Lienert said quite loudly, “You should’ve called it the Diculous.”

Opel Astra (EU etc)
Vauxhall Astra (UK)
Holden Astra (AU)
Chevrolet Astra (BR etc)
Saturn Astra (US)

Actually I think GM should expand on this strategy rather than messing with its ex-US brands. Develop one mainstream product line, and sell it using whichever brand is best established in a given market:

US – Chevy
UK – Vauxhall
AU – Holden
Europe – Opel
China – Buick

I think this would work a lot better than replacing all those brands with Chevrolet.

Take the Astra. They try to build name recognition for “Astra” – but how can you build a strong car brand when you badge the poor car five different ways?

Opel Astra (EU etc)
Vauxhall Astra (UK)
Holden Astra (AU)
Chevrolet Astra (BR etc)
Saturn Astra (US)

In all of these places Toyota Corolla is… er… Toyota Corolla.

What about the Toyota Scion and Lexus models? Shouldn’t at least some of them be included?

3. Give it a rich, sumptuous interior color-keyed to the exterior body color ,fill it full of “toys” and call it Bonneville.

Hear hear!

Although another commentator strenuously disagreed that a modern RWD full-size car can be built for less than US$35,000, so I’m second-guessing myself.

1. Offer it with the current dull black interior and call it Catalina. Take away some of the frills to get the base price down to Impala level.

2.The original GTO was a plain Jane car stuffed full of engine. Make a stripped-out bad-ass big V-8, 6-speed stick version with little more than comfortable seats, a radio with the now-mandatory MP3 port,manual everything, rubber instead of carpet on the floor, etc., and call this car GTO.

3. Give it a rich, sumptuous interior color-keyed to the exterior body color ,fill it full of “toys” and call it Bonneville.

To wit:

Corolla Wagon
Corolla FX16
Corolla Matrix
Talk about naming mistakes, Corolla being a type of cigar…

Camry
Camry Solara

Nice way to inflate model counts…

Originally when the Nissan Altima was released, it was the Sentra Altima, the Sentra part in very small letters next to the Altima letters. I guess they were REAL confident about releasing that one in to the wild. Or not.

These were the quick ones I could think of. The earlier posts about the mid-80’s Olds are exactly what the Japanese car companies have been doing. The various models of Corolla just muddy up the whole picture.

What’s in a name? Hard to say. When I buy a new car, I want a new car. What I really dislike(d) was when Pontiac renamed the old J-2000 to Sunbird, or more recently with VW doing the same to the Golf to Rabbit…

Cruze vs. Cobalt? Cruze has a new chassis, different motors, different styling… How is this related to the Cobalt? Why should it carry that name?

When it comes to monday morning quarterbacking, I try to restrain myself from thinking I could do better than the folks who have years of experience and education, but may not have come up with the optimal solution. Especially when I have the advantage of hindsight.

In this case, I can see the failure coming years away. I have ZERO reservations that I could not do a better job. It should be more fun to armchair these guys, but it’s not. Their complete and continued incompetence somehow saps all the fun out of second guessing them. It’s just sad.

“Just yesterday I was reminding a co-worker that around ‘86-’87 the geniuses at the General decided that it would be great to use the Cutlass name on no less than 5 different vehicles:

Cutlass Calais (N-body)
Cutlass Supreme (W-body)
Cutlass Ciera (A-body)
Cutlass Classic (G-body, the REAL cutlass)
Cutlass Cruiser Wagon (extended G-body?)”

How about Chrysler in the same time period with their multiple LeBarons?

LeBaron sedan (K-body)
LeBaron coupe & convertible (J-body)
LeBaron Town & Country (K-body wagon)
LeBaron GTS (H-body)

These were not produced in exactly the same model years like the Cutlass’s but they there was some overlap or they were made one after the other that the avereage car buyer must have been confused.

James2:

“Dr.Z won’t do it, but Mercedes really needs to cleanup its lineup.”

Maybe they can think up a name and tie it in to it’s letter designation, which could be it’s class or body type. Remember, the Aries and Reliant were changed to Aries-K and Reliant-K. So you could have the Aspiring-C and the Almost-There-E and finally I-Have-It-Made-S. Maybe throw in the Mid-Life-Crisis-SL.

I almost spit coffee on my monitor on that one…well played, sir.

Oh, and I have to add, I’ve actually seen little kids named Tercel. Yeah…

Acura had some great, memorable names –Legend, Integra. But, no, some Marketeer decides that upscale quasi-luxury cars simply cannot have names just because the Europeans (the Germans in particular) don’t use ‘em.

Acura goes alphanumeric and, worse, botches it royally. IQ test–what doesn’t belong here: RL, CNN, TL, ESPN, TSX, DVD, RSX, MDX, MP3, RDX, ABC, CBS, NBC. Acura’s rhyme has no reason, either: an RL should be ‘alphabetically’ above a TL, but it isn’t. If the model has three letters does that imply it’s better than a two-letter Acura?

Then there’s M-B, which suffers from Acura-itis. A CL is a high-end car, but there’s the CLK, which is low-end. SL > SLK. What’s a GL and how does it compare to the ML? WTF? The CLS is actually a chopped-down E-Class… what happened to EK or EL? Probably even the Germans won’t touch ELK with a ten-foot pole? I forgot the SLR, which was a total flop, and is an abbreviation better left to a camera. Dr.Z won’t do it, but Mercedes really needs to cleanup its lineup.

I understand that finding a good name that already hasn’t been trademarked or means something obscene or comical in a foreign language is tough, but jeez it’s getting ridiculous.

Dealers can have a device that would spit out plasticized appliques to be glued to the vehicle’s sheetmetal.

The Ford Fred!!!!

Chevy Carl or Christie or Jerome.

Easily done!!!!!

Heck, any name could be used (likely have to follow some censoring)

I’d love driving a Buick Battleship!!!!!

For the emo crowd how about a Chrysler Crypt?

A Saturn Slow-as-a-Slug?

The options are endless!!!!

How about the late 1970s “Opel by Isuzu” which was sold at Buick dealers. I don’t think it had a model name, but NADA shows a model “Y69″ for the 4-door and “T77″ for the two door. In other markets Isuzu sold them as the Gemini.

Speaking of which, since GM owned 1/2 of Isuzu for a long time and largely controlled them, just about all of Isuzu’s offerings also count. GM counts 100% of it’s joint venture unit sales in China, so why not? GM also provides most of Suzuki’s current US offerings from the ex-Daewoo factory. Yikes, what a branding mess!

Edit: Just thought of another one. The Oldsmobile Calais from 1985, which became the Cutlass Calais in 1988. More confusing is the fact that from 1965 through 1976, Calais was the name of Cadillac’s lowest level car.

There’s only so many symbols of virility/naval ship types/military terms to go around.

Alrighty then ! Howabout DREADNOUGHT

Advertising copy to go something like

” Get the girl of your dreams with a DREADNOUGHT ”

The most politically incorrect IMPALA could be pronounced IMPALER.
Definitely Not pedestrian friendly

Then there’s Celica which sounds like ‘Silly Car’ or is that just me ?
T2

Okay, the article made a good point. But it’s all part of the same thing. Bad management bordering on the fraudulent.

I’m on the side that feels a good car, nurtured over time, can overcome even a not-so-great name. If the Nubria was decently made, got good gas mileage, had excellent support and retained some value, we’d all say “Dumb name, good car. I’ll take one.”

Or why no ships have been named Titanic since 1912.