By Justin Berkowitz
September 5, 2008 -
Yes, we all hate the alphanumeric nomenclature, snaking over the auto industry like poison ivy. And with only so many letters and numbers, we always expect some repeats (Lexus LS/Lincoln LS, Chrysler 300C/Mercedes C300, BMW X5/Mazda MX-5). Has Hyundai gone a character too far? The car we North Americans know as the Veracruz is being introduced to Europe as the ix55. Not only is this a bizarre thing to say down at the pub (Oh, I drove my ix55), but it’s awfully close to, well, a lot of other cars. Hyundai’s new scheme for European car names is to begin with the letter “i,” because if it worked for Apple, it’ll work for them. Or Mitsubishi’s “i car.” The X we can assume refers to this vehicle being an AWD crossover, and of course the 55 is because it has a 5.5 liter V8. Erm, no. Instead, it sounds to me like a mish-mash of BMW (xDrive 50) and the 55 immediately conjurs memory of a trillion Mercedes AMG cars with 55 at the end, from C55 to E55 to S55 to CL55 to CLK55 to ML55 to G55). Besides, what was wrong with Veracruz?
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September 5th, 2008 at 11:37 am
Well, this makes sense, since it turns out that “veracruz” is actually Italian for “pig booger!” Unless, of course, that isn’t true, in which case this is some kind of silliness. At least they used the coolest letter in the alphabet, X. Rad move, Hyundai, and totally original.
September 5th, 2008 at 11:49 am
XR4Ti baby!
September 5th, 2008 at 11:57 am
Am I the only one who can make heads or tails of the MB nomenclature? It seems every year there are more Mercedes introduced to muddy the already opaque alphanumeric pond. Aren’t they going to run out of letters and numbers soon? By comparison I’ll know what an ix55 is until the ix65, ux32, mx77, etc. are introduced.
September 5th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
People are too lazy to come up with beautiful, original names for cars nowadays.
September 5th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
I used to know what the Mercedes names meant…knowing a little German usually helped. After SLK, I stopped understanding.
The Veracruz isn’t bad, I just looked it up on the Hyundai website. My question is: why would you get this over the Santa Fe? Larger engine I guess? I did a comparison of the two models and they are probably built on the same platform…but the Veracruz SE (mid-level) packs the same stuff as the Santa Fe Limited (top-level) yet still costs more.
The Koreans have more redundancy in their individual line-up than an American company. At least they have actual names in the US market. And they don’t seem to be bad vehicles, but are they a better value (long-term) than a Japanese car (maybe not Toyonda but Nissan/Mazda/Mitsu)?
September 5th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
Perhaps Hyundai knows that Europeans aren’t enraptured with tributes to the “Wild West”.
Anyway, alphanumerics have the advantage of not needing translation.
September 5th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
Why would you expect a European to recognize the name of a relatively small seaside city in Mexico (Veracruz)?
Then again, Caddy did have the Biarritz here in the States. And Chevy the Monte Carlo…
September 5th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
“The car us North Americans know as…”
Should read
“The car we North Americans know as…”
Sorry, sometimes my inner grammar enforcer can’t be held at bay.
September 5th, 2008 at 12:23 pm
Call Chevy, there’s at least a couple dozen good names for sale.
The Hyundai Cavalier
The Hyundai Cobalt (post 2010)
The Hyundai Beretta
The Hyundai Corsica
The Hyundai Caprice
The Hyundai Lumina
The Hyundai Blazer
The Hyundai Tracker
The Hyundai Prizm
The Hyundai Storm
The Hyundai Spectrum
The Hyundai Metro
My memory of Chevy names only extends to the late 80’s. Any others out there (just Chevy, not GM)?
September 5th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
Maybe it’s just Hyundai’s way of saying “955″ for the Roman buyers?
September 5th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
morbo :
… My memory of Chevy names only extends to the late 80’s. Any others out there (just Chevy, not GM)?
Well, Chevy’s not currently using Biscayne, Bel Air, Caprice, Citation, Corvair, Greenbriar (last seen on the Corvair-based van), Chevelle, Nova, Nomad, Vega, El Camino or Astro. How about one of these?
Ford is a little better than Chevy at recycling names — they’ve re-used Falcon, Maverick and Galaxie (Galaxy) outside the U.S. — but they also have some unused names that would be less ungainly than ix55. LTD, Country Squire, Torino, Fairlane, Ranchero and Pinto are all gathering dust, though I daresay that the last name on that list should probably remain in the auto nomenclature graveyard.
September 5th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
Why would you expect a European to recognize the name of a relatively small seaside city in Mexico (Veracruz)?
Why would they need to? I’ve never heard of the place either, but I still know that a Veracruz is a big Hyundai SUV.
September 5th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
By far the worst alphaneumeric names are the new BMW X6 series. Who the f#&k thought it was a good idea to name a car X6 xDrive50i? Was X6 5.0 too simple?
September 5th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
That’s nothin’… until the Chinese show up to the party. Witness the Xingyue ITA-150 Super Charge 150 YX scooter. Yes, you read correctly: displacement mentioned twice in the same badge.
September 5th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
Huh, I’ve always liked alphanumerics more than names. Car names are almost always either gibberish (Qashqai, Kalos), stolen (Aspen, Malaga, Monaco, Monte Carlo, Fifth Avenue, St. Regis.. these are places, not vehicles) or just plain silly (Sunny, Cherry, Crown Victoria, Avenger.) Alphanumeric codes may be boring or unimaginative, but they aren’t as embarrassing as stupid names.
September 5th, 2008 at 2:17 pm
I believe that most of the good car names have already been taken. Once a car is given a name, doesn’t the name belong to the company manufacturing the car? Using alphanumeric names is the cheapest and easiest method of creating a new car name. The possibilities are, quite literally, endless.
September 5th, 2008 at 2:42 pm
Maybe my synapses are shorting out again, but I seem to remember reading a long time ago that the Marlboro name was used in Europe after much research since Europeans had a positive image of US western stuff. I guess the folks who did that study have moved on, or maybe Hyundai has a different ad agency, or maybe it’s just more Hyundai weirdness.
September 5th, 2008 at 4:25 pm
The Hyundai Marlboro! Why don’t they just call it the irA55 and be done with it?
September 5th, 2008 at 5:11 pm
Do not go to Brazil and say that you once in your life drove a car named “Pinto”. Please belive me, don’t do that. Nowadays, with the internet and speed of communication in this global environment, names have to be chosen wisely.
September 5th, 2008 at 5:17 pm
I prefer car names, but for a company that is selling car around the world it does make more sense to name it with a letter/numbering nomenclature so you avoid all the name changing in different countries due to the language differences.
Now why they don’t do it everywhere is beyond me. Hyundai has always had different names for every vehicle in different countries, some of which seem rather silly.
September 5th, 2008 at 5:42 pm
One thing I despise is arbitrary numbering. If it doesn’t have a 5.5L engine (or something extremely close to it, ala Mercedes AMG), don’t call it a 55. This disdain also extends to the Shelby GT500, the Mercedes SLK280/C280-3.0L or S65/SL6-6.0L, the BMW 323/328-3.0L, all Lexi hybrids,and any other car you can name that has a number on the trunk that has nothing to do with the car.
September 5th, 2008 at 6:27 pm
The Shelby GT500 isn’t entirely arbitrary, it is the GT500 because it has 500 horsepower.
September 5th, 2008 at 6:44 pm
>partypooper/partypooper<
September 5th, 2008 at 6:55 pm
Sigarets are something different from cars. America has a good name in making sigarets but their cars are, atleast in the eyes of Europeans, bad so you don’t want your car to be associated with America. And Veracruz is a name that calls that up.
September 5th, 2008 at 8:35 pm
I don`t care if the nomenclature sneaks over like a poison ivy, as long as it is destined for the Ivy League in sales and quality charts, I couldn`t care less. Period.
September 5th, 2008 at 9:31 pm
Ack. Taggery…
i10 ~ Atoz
i20 ~ Getz
i30 ~ Elantra Touring
ix35 ~ Tucson
i40 ~ Sonata
ix45 ~ Santa Fe
i50 ~ Azera
ix55 ~ Veracruz
i60 ~ Genesis
i70 ~ Genesis+ (aka VI)
September 6th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
@TEXN3
My question is: why would you get this over the Santa Fe? Larger engine I guess?
Available V6 diesel (I4 diesel in the Santa Fe) in this and more space (3rd row).
September 6th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
I wonder how GM let the “ETC” name get approved.
The classic (fictional) is still the 6000SUX.
September 20th, 2008 at 9:27 pm
I was referring to the original GT500, which was not 500ci or 500hp. Legend goes that it was 500 paces from Shelby’s office to some thing or other so he decided that would make a good arbitrary name for the GT350 successor.