Mercedes-Benz is shaking things up as far as its long-standing nomenclature system is concerned, as well as introducing a new name to the portfolio: Mercedes-Maybach.
The first Mercedes-Maybach, the Mercedes-Maybach S600, will make its way down the ramp during next week’s 2014 Los Angeles Auto Show. On the boot lid, the new sub-brand will follow Mercedes-AMG’s display pattern: Maybach on the left, Mercedes star in the center, model designation on the right. The ultra upscale sedan is expected to set the pace for Mercedes-Maybach as a sub-brand “that sets a benchmark for exclusivity and meets even the most discerning of requirements in terms of its appointments.”
As for the parent brand overall, with 30 vehicles set to be in showrooms by 2020 — including 11 all-new models — Mercedes decided it was time to do some housekeeping, with most of the attention going toward its SUV range. Thus, the following:
- GLA: GL A-Class
- GLC: GL C-Class; was the GLK
- GLE: GL E-Class; was the M-Class, or ML
- GLE Coupe: GL E-Class Coupe
- GLS: GL S-Class; was the GL
- G: No change due to lineage
The L serves as a linking letter between the main class and the five core classes, the latter remaining unchanged. Roadsters will be redesignated as SL beginning in 2016, following the same pattern as established with the G-Class. Engine designations also receive a reboot, and will be displayed in lower-case on the boot lid. Mercedes’ AWD system, 4MATIC, remains unchanged.
I have a winter coat that looks like this interior, $24.99 Walmart
With the quilting and the odd center armrest, I’m thinking the rebirth of the 1970s Cadillac Fleetwood Talisman. Just with more subtle material patterns than Caddy ever had.
Oh, that Talisman interior was shag-nasty…
http://notoriousluxury.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/1975-talisman-ii.jpg
Oh, that Talisman interior was shag-nasty…
Pimpin’ ain’t easy.
“Pimpin’ ain’t easy.”
… it is in a Talisman
Oh my God!
For the second time today, I want to do this:
http://images2.fanpop.com/images/photos/2700000/Family-Guy-Puke-A-Thon-family-guy-2772560-513-386.gif
Who thought that was a good idea!?
I didn’t even mention that cutting-edge “C”-pillar fixed window… Now where have I seen that before?
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2519/3921374744_eae272724b.jpg
1977 Ford LTD II
What is the bathroom vent looking thing in the roof in the photo of the rear lounge?
Fart escape
Button tufting. The Brougham is back!
What a half baked attempt to make this work. Here is my suggestion. Which centres on NEVER having a model name with three letters and to align everything within the A,B,C,E, S and G sizes.
I suggest:
A150 – 5 door
AC150 – 2 door
AT150 – Station wagon or T-wagon
AE150 – CLA type 4 dour coupe
AX150 – SUV
AL150 – Roadster
Same then for all the rest:
B180 – 5 door
BC180 – 2 door
BT180 – Station wagon or T-wagon
BE180 – CLA type 4 dour coupe
BX180 – SUV
BL180 – Roadster
C180 – 4 door
CC180 – 2 door
CT180 – Station wagon or T-wagon
CE180 – CLA type 4 dour coupe
CX180 – SUV old GLK
CL180 – Roadster
E280 – 4 door
EC280 – 2 door
ET280 – Station wagon or T-wagon
EE280 – CLA type 4 dour coupe
EX280 – SUV old ML
EL280 – Roadster
S280 – 4 door
SC280 – 2 door
ST280 – Station wagon or T-wagon
SE280 – CLA type 4 dour coupe
SX280 – SUV old GLK
SL280 – Roadster
And the G class stays as it is.
etc
This way you always have the pecking order first. The new SUV system does have the C, E and S in it but at the end, making it less obvious (and you have three letters).
EE280? That is not a Mercedes Benz, that is an engineering economics course. That naming scheme is not sexy at all.
People don’t need a badge to let them know if a car is a coupe or wagon. The car will display that. It is important to show which model and engine a car has though, in this realm.
I know its not perfect – and I put 2 minutes of thought into it. :-) In the UK EE is a mobile phone company! So EE280 won’t wash it here either.
It is just to show you CAN have a more logical system that makes sense to the general public. What the second letter is should be up to Mercedes.
Logic and luxury don’t necessarily go together. Look at MB’s number designations for example.
So after more thought and realising Mercedes has some niches not yet covered (the CLA and CLS four door coupe shooting brakes and the new X6 clone, MPVs and four seat cabrios). Also as stated EE was silly AND E is a range so had to replace E with something else so picked R (I kept C since it has always been Coupe for Mercedes even though it is also a range):
A150 – 5 door
AC150 – 2 door
AT150 – Station wagon or T-wagon
AR150 – CLA type 4 dour coupe
AF150 – CLA type 4 dour shooting brake
AM150 – MPV
AX150 – SUV
AZ150 – SUV 4 door coupe
AP180 – four seat cabrio
AL150 – Roadster
B180 – 5 door
BC180 – 2 door
BT180 – Station wagon or T-wagon
BR180 – CLA type 4 dour coupe
BF180 – CLA type 4 dour shooting brake
BM180 – MPV
BX180 – SUV
BX180 – SUV 4 door coupe
BP180 – four seat cabrio
BL180 – Roadster
C180 – 4 door
CC180 – 2 door
CT180 – Station wagon or T-wagon
CR180 – CLA type 4 dour coupe
CF180 – CLA type 4 dour shooting brake
CM180 – MPV
CX180 – SUV old GLK
CZ180 – SUV 4 door coupe
CP180 – four seat cabrio
CL180 – Roadster – old SLK
E280 – 4 door
EC280 – 2 door
ET280 – Station wagon or T-wagon
ER280 – CLA type 4 dour coupe
EF280 – CLA type 4 dour shooting brake
EX280 – SUV old ML
EZ280 – SUV 4 door coupe
EP280 – four seat cabrio
EL280 – Roadster
S280 – 4 door
SC280 – 2 door
ST280 – Station wagon or T-wagon
SR280 – CLA type 4 dour coupe
SF280 – CLA type 4 dour shooting brake
SX280 – SUV old GLK
SZ280 – SUV 4 door coupe
SP280 – four seat cabrio
SL280 – Roadster
NOT sexy at all on the whole BUT it has a German logic. Though there are very few sexy letters left if you have so many niches! I mean really who would drive a BP180 cabrio?!!? LOL (What will happen if you want to put fuel in it that’s not from BP? hehehe)
Though as I did now you can easily and logically add a whole range within a series with ease with just one letter. So a future [insert niche here] Mercedes of the size of a C-class can have the letter K and be called the CK200h and everyone will know that is a C sized car with a hybrid engine.
I hope the comments on this move are just as positive as the feedback Cadillac got.
You can bet on it ;-)
It’s nowhere near as big of a change, nor is it the second big change in under a decade……………….
I don’t see the relevance………………..
Someone will point it out to you shortly……………………..
Stop your fracking excess periods. You didn’t do this before a week ago.
I knew this was coming, lol
Well honestly. Typing regression.
Think it might be a defective “period” key?
Something is defective, yes.
+1
+2
So that Maybach will be an “S”? Why expect people higher prices when it is named the chrapet S?
And why give up the popular easy E, C etc.? Besides enthusiasts no one will know what is what. And enthusiasts don’t buy new cars. Ask Lincoln how well that works….
Maybach will be a sub-brand now, like AMG. In the way that an S 63 AMG is still a S-class, a Maybach S-class will be similar. Also, C,E,S aren’t going anywhere according to the chart above.
Going back to the article, AMGs have the model on the left (IEL E63) and the AMG is on the right. This means the Maybachs will be backwards with the badging.
I can see it now, over on Jalophose in the year 2021. “Why buy a new brown VW Diesel Wagon with a stick shift when you could buy this Mercedes-Benz S600 Maybach for the same money?”
My only problem with this is that the GLC was a tiny Mazda hatchback in the 80s. It wasn’t a bad car, it’s just probably not the image you want every baby boomer to think of when they are cross-shopping your luxury CUV.
Came here to say this, was beaten.
I think the “L” is unnecessary, except for the big guy (the current GL) because GS is already taken by Lexus. They should just have:
GA
GC
GE
GL
I agree. Especially since L stands for “Light” if you read up on where the SL name comes from. And putting L on an SUV really is very, very silly.
Not a bad little car? It was a great little car!
My family had two different GLCs over the years. I was hauled around in the back of either one of those OR a 240D OR a Honda Accord wagon for most of my youth. My mother absolutely adored it, and it lasted forever.
If only my Mazda3 experience had been as positive.
I will reserve judgement until I have seen the rest of the car, but the back seat has given me very low expectations.
Maybach = Brougham for the new generation.
Call it Brougham. Its more honest.
Just sayin’…
Also, stop trying to make Maybach happen; its never going to happen…
They really should have designated any non-AMG V12 engine configuration as Maybach. That would set the stage for engine branding without displacement numbers. A V8 could become a Grosser, and a V6 could be called a Pullman.
It certainly wouldn’t be any sillier than this naming scheme, and would p*ss everyone off just the same.
That is sooo Maybach!
A few things I see from new naming scheme:
One: CLS is not named correctly for a car based of off the E-class. It should be the CLE.
Two: we are getting an ML based “coupe” SUV abomination.
Three: MB is willing to trade in almost 20 years of history on the ML and SLK names for them to make more sense. How much confusion or loss of sales will this cause when people go to trade their cars in and no longer have the option to replace them with the same thing. (I know they are the same thing with a different name, but some customers don’t.)
Four: Mercedes is following the crowd instead of leading it.
The W124 Merc used to be called 200E, 230E etc when it came out. That got changed to E280 and E300 etc. And? Did Mercedes sales fall from a cliff because the average buyer was too thick to realise what is what? It certainly did not. Mercedes is big enough and their customers hopefully clever enough to handle a name change like this. But then they should do it properly and not as half baked as this.
It was still an e-class though. At the dealer I work for we still have people asking about buying a new clk…
The quilty leather, yes I like. It evokes luxury. The button tufting I dislike. It evokes old Broughams. As well, the pattern of the button tufting nearly matches button placement on a double-breasted suit – which is just as out of date.
I think the name change is a mistake. They’re making it too long and complicated, just like BMW has done with all their letters.
One of the fundamental flaws of systematic naming is it inherently limits your product line. If they want to introduce something actually new, it throws a wrench in the works, and the once logical, ordered nomenclature turns to rubbish. See: BMW.
It would be an interesting study about people’s emotional attachment to various types of names. We already know certain names have value: Corvette, Escalade. We know certain non-names have value: S-Class, 3-series. It’s reasonable to assume that if someone can’t recognize/associate a name, it will have less value to them. I suspect that’s also true for number strings (it’s certainly harder to remember ISO specs that are only numbers than API specs that mix numbers & letters). So, the question is at what point do names/non-names lose value because of lack of association? I expect a 3-200-1-4 wouldn’t stir any emotions, but for some reason a 320ix does.
All I can say is that for myself, these conventions are nothing more than part numbers like I’d use to spec an o-ring from a catalog. Knowing what it means (or that it means anything at all), isn’t enough for me to feel anything about it.
It’s cool to see SLC back, even if it’s not being used the same way as it used to be.
As my admiration fot MB knows no bounds, they can name a galumphing CUV after the Mszda GLC for all I care, just like they copied Mazda’s phablet on dash.
Mr Walrus Mustache, your’re da man.
Darn, still didn’t fix *the* stupidest nomenclature of all: 4MATIC, soooooo dumb! Even VW’s 4MOTION is slightly better, since it at least suggests that the “4” has something to do with the car’s “motion”.
quattro was taken.
4Motion was taken.
X-Drive was taken. (I don’t get it personally).
What are they supposed to call it? The Mercedes-Benz Z71 package?
What was wrong with using what Subaru does: “All Wheel Drive”.
Isn’t that good enough?
Yes, a diminutive “awd” on the trunk would certainly be better than 4MATIC, which sounds like a Mercedes 4-speed Powerglide or something.
Oh don’t forget Mini’s “All4”, ugh.
“X-Drive was taken. (I don’t get it personally).”
Visually, the letter X sort of looks like “all four corners are connected to the power (via center diff, natch)”
I used to think all 4MATIC-badged Benz’s were touting a long-proven 4 speed auto inside… Took a while to realize it was the AWD.
Yup… I’ve also always thought 4Matic sounds more like a gearbox than a drivetrain. Silly name.
The only one of those that pre-dates 4-Matic is quattro. Mercedes uses “Matic” and “Tronic” suffixes for most of their proprietary systems.
I just hope that MB includes instructions on how to remove these badges without damaging the paint. The “Clean rear” look is more upmarket to my eyes. And for those of you who bought the car just for faux prestige reasons, the smooth derriere leaves your admirers guessing. (Maybe Maybach?)
If they’re like the current model badges, they will remove themselves for you.