Car Names That Can Never Be Used Again

Brand names are important in the world of marketing. Corporations spend millions of dollars annually attempting to find the perfect name for products.

Some names are worth a fortune, due to high brand name recognition and positive image. Others are worth less than a pound of sand in the Sahara, thanks to being outdated, tainted, or just plain bad to begin with.

The automotive industry has plenty of long-running strong brand names. From Suburban (the longest-running brand name), Corvette and Mustang, to 911, Beetle and Accord, there are plenty of valuable ones. For every strong name, however, there are two or three that can never be used again.

Here is the Four Wheel Drift’s Top List of Unusable Car Brand and Model Names:

Edsel — Reason: Bad from the get-go, Tainted: Let’s get something straight here: even in the original market research (it was the first car to use extensive focus group testing for development), the Edsel name scored abysmally low. Still, naming the car line after Henry Ford’s son was green-lighted. If that wasn’t bad enough the brand name would go on to be synonymous with failure. It will never be used again for cars…and if I were a member of the Ford family, I’d push to stop naming so many descendants Edsel, as well.

Luckily, the Edsel name never tainted the brand’s models, which included the Ranger (later used for trucks), Corsair, Pacer, and Citation. It took AMC to ruin the Pacer name and Chevy to destroy Citation with their respective horrible little import-fighters.

Pinto – Reason: Tainted: The Pinto was a good name attached to a pretty good car. A few exploding gas tanks, though, ruined it. In terms of brand recognition for a design flaw disaster, Pinto is second only to…

Corvair – Reason: Tainted: Thanks to Ralph Nader’s Unsafe At Any Speed, the Corvair name will never be attached to another vehicle. Of course, this a moot point, since the likelihood of GM ever producing an air-cooled gas-burning car is less than those for me being drafted by the Boston Celtics this year.

Midget – Reason: Offensive: Both MG and King Midget have used this name, which is now considered a slur towards dwarves. If the Chinese-owned MG wants to build a junior model to complement its MGF, it might consider the MG Little Person to be more politically correct.

LaFemme – Reason: Bad from the get-go: In 1955 Dodge released a sub-model of its Custom Royal Lancer targeted to the growing group of female drivers. With a pink and white color scheme and a bunch of standard interior accessories like a cosmetic case, color-keyed raincoat and umbrella, the thing was inherently a marketing disaster. When Dodge picked the LaFemme name, that just solidified it as a major blunder of epic proportions. After production of less than 1000 units in ’55 and ’56 (which was lavender and white), the car and the name were killed forever. Now if you want a car targeted to women with feminine colors and accessories, you’ll have to buy a New Beetle.

Actually, come to think of it, the Lancer wasn’t a really great name, unless your garage also includes a Ford Probe and a cabinet full of alcohol wipes and KY Jelly.

Chevette and Vega – Reason: Tainted: The Vega was a great name for a fantastic concept. The car looked good, performed well, was pretty comfortable…too bad it was less reliable than Lindsay Lohan’s sobriety. Same was the case for the Chevette, except that the mini-Corvette name would never fly in a modern image-conscious society.

Cimarron – Reason: Tainted: Actually, it was too goofy to begin with, often being called the “Cinnamon”, but Cadillac’s expensive version of the lowly Chevy Cavalier became the poster child for badge-engineering gone horribly wrong.

Dictator – Reason: Offensive: In the pre-WWII era, Studebaker had one of the greatest lines of product names. Studie’s names made sense: Dictator, Commander and President. It’s amazing how just a decade later, Dictator became associated with Hitler, spelling the end of the name’s use.

Wasp – Reason: Offensive: In the context of Hudson’s lineup, the Wasp made sense next to the Hornet. In a modern world the Wasp would be confused with the offensive acronym.

JAP – Reason: Offensive: JAP made motorcycle engines that were used in Morgan’s three wheelers, which is how it is eligible for the automotive list. (Yes, we know that the Morgan trikes were also considered motorcycles to get around British automotive taxes.) As an acronym, it is offensive to Jewish women. It is more associated with a slur towards Japanese…and in a modern world, that’s not considered at all cool.

Proposing alphanumeric model name rules for manufacturers

I’m going to get right to the point here: I can’t stand modern alphanumeric model names. They are more confusing than what you hear eavesdropping on a conversation between two quantum physicists speaking in pig-latin.

Alphanumeric model designations are as old as dirt…or John McCain, for that matter. Actually, they’re older — think 1922 Citroen 5CV or the famous Alfa Romeo 8C 2300. Back in the old days, naming a car model after a combination of number of cylinders, displacement and/or horsepower was standard practice.

For those like me who grew up before the era of Japanese and European automobile dominance, alphanumeric names were the exception, not the rule. Model names showed the creative prowess of domestic product marketing. My family had relationships with LeSabre, LeBaron, Special, New Yorker, LTD, and the neighbors had Corvette, Duster, and even a Beetle and Rabbit.

My parents still live in the same house, but now the carport is home to a Lexus ES300 and BWM 335ic. One neighbor put his ’63 Corvette in storage, and instead drives his Mercedes Lexus LS430.

As an automotive guy holding a Bachelor’s Business Marketing (who whooped-ass in every competition against MBA candidates taking the same courses from the same professors), I certainly understand the perceived benefits of alphanumeric designations.

Among the upsides:

It prevents model identity from eclipsing brand identity

Enables dealers to have a better chance at upselling to more expensive cars and more options due to product benefit confusion.

Provides upsell potential due to envy of higher numbers that come with a more expensive car in the lineup.

Makes a model year-oriented designation publically obsolete (ES 300 vs. ES 330 vs. ES 350) much quicker, causing consumers to either lease or buy new cars on a truncated schedule to keep a new-appearing model.

Minimizes problems and demarketing costs associated with curing negative name recognition with failed models, such as with Pinto, Pacer, and Aztek.

When looking at the benefits, one immediately understands why this is now common practice among the mass-production luxury car brands.

But Alphanumerics have huge downsides:

Lack of convention translates to lack of model recognition and identity.

It becomes very hard to differentiate the intersections between product lines, products and options.

Most importantly – AN designations often lead to customers linking a model with the wrong manufacturer.

The market has a right to be confused. In some cases, the letters represent the product line, while the numbers indicate a displacement or other option category. This is true for Mercedes, which offers the S, SL, C, E, CL, CLK, GL, SLK, ML, as well as other product lines with a bunch of engine options, which gets you something like a S550 or S430. Lexus (LS, LX, GL, GS, GX, IS) and Infiniti (Q, G, M, QX) follow Mercedes lead with first the letters, then the engine displacement.

Acura once relied on AN model names — flipping the Mercedes/Lexus/Infinity convention by listing the engine size then the model line, as in 3.2TL. Now, however, they also just offer the RL (which used to be the 3.5RL), MDX, RDX, TSX.

BMW uses a different methodology. Its product lines are numeric or alphanumeric – 7, 6, 5, 3, 1, Z4, X3, X5, and M (in 3,5 and 7 guises, as well as “M Roadster” and “M Coupe” forms of the Z4s). BMW used to also attach a number indicating the total displacement of the car’s engine and a letter for the body configuration, so a 740iL was a 7-series sedan with four-liter fuel injected V8 and a long wheelbase. Now the numbers no longer always identify the displacement, as the 3.0L sixes in the 328 and 335 prove. (For the record, the 335 has the twin-turbo engine, while the 328 has the normally aspirated engine.)

Audi uses yet another letter-number methodology. They have the 8, 6, 5, 4, and now 3 series lines. Most can be had in A (standard) or S (sport). One can have a four-cylinder engine, six-cylinder or eight-cylinder in the 4 and 6 lines. Oh, then there’s the Q7 and R8…which has a V8 now, but will have a V10 next year.

Since seemingly all the foreign luxury brands went away from real names, so are Caddy (DTS, STS, CTS) and Lincoln (MKZ, MKX). If I were an executive for Ford, the brain surgeons who decided to rename the Zephyr to MKZ just a year after the product launch would all be blackballed from holding any marketing or product management positions anywhere. In fact, I’d ensure the only things out of their cornholes was “Welcome to M-C-D’s, would you like fries with that?”

The FTC needs to mandate some type of naming convention, so car shopping (or in my case – helping people car shop) is less like trying to pick up a girl in a bar who doesn’t speak English.

So this is what I suggest: When using alphanumeric model designations, the letter must identify a series (product line) and the number following it must either represent the number of cylinders or engine displacement. Displacement can represent the total, or in traditional Ferrari-style, of a single cylinder. A letter can follow either the number or initial letter to designate a body style.

While we’re at it, companies should be banned from using an “I” to indicate fuel injection anywhere in the model name. BMW – when was the last time someone thought your cars might be equipped with a carburetor?

I’m not a guy who likes to yearn for “the good old days”, because as Billy Joel once said “the good old days weren’t always good and tomorrow ain’t as bad as it seems”. My kingdom, however, for a model line of clever names like Studebaker’s President, Dictator and Commander.