This is an open letter to car manufacturers -- a request, even a plea. Stop with all the numbers.
I’m not talking about 0-to-60 times or horsepower ratings. I’m speaking of the gobbledygook, alphanumeric model names that more and more carmakers are using.
Consider this month’s Frankfurt Auto Show, where we got a first look at new models and concept cars. For every cool, easily recognizable name like the Aston Martin Rapide, we saw many more like the Audi A3 1.2 TFSI and Lexus LF-Ch.
Are these cars or alphabet soup?
I feel like John Nash, the character in the movie “A Beautiful Mind,” trying to ferret out hidden meanings in the wash of code. What is behind such encryption-worthy Frankfurt monikers as the RCZ HYbrid4, L1, BB1 or DS3?
Traditionally, upmarket European brands like Jaguar, Mercedes-Benz and BMW relied on combinations of numerals and letters. But there was generally an internal, if hoary, logic behind the numbers, reflecting the size of the car or its engine.
The new Ferrari 458 Italia follows this thinking. Its 4.5- liter, eight-cylinder engine makes for the 458 designation. Inside baseball, but fair play.
The logic can get squirrelly. Lamborghini’s Gallardo coupe is named after a bull, but the company prefers that the latest iteration be referred to as the LP 560-4.
Posterior Placing
The reason, clearly, is that the V-10 engine is placed longitudinally in the posterior (LP), and puts out 560 metric horsepower -- which is 552 horsepower the way we Americans measure it. The “4” stands for the number of driven wheels, an all-wheel drive. Duh?
To stir the murky waters, other brands have joined the alphanumeric game, including Lexus, Infiniti, Acura and now even Cadillac and Lincoln. Their naming conventions often aren’t even tangentially connected to the engineering.
“The letters don’t actually mean anything,” said John Watts, senior manager of product planning at Acura, which makes the RDX. Acura once had models like the Integra and Legend, but dropped the names in favor of the more “upmarket” letter system in the mid-1990s.
“Studies showed that the Legend name was more highly recognized than the Acura brand itself,” Watts said. “We wanted to change that, and over the years it has definitely worked. We’re now in-line with the other luxury brands.”
Acura sells the RDX, MDX, TSX, TL and RL. The ZDX crossover is up next.
Spectacular Clunkers
“It can be confusing,” Watts admitted. “The older generation still struggles with it.”
Once upon a time, American brands were known for the naming bravura of their big-block cars. Consider the Thunderbird, Barracuda, Charger and Firebird, not to mention keen alliterations like the Mercury Marauder and Hudson Hornet. The Lincoln MKT doesn’t roll off the tongue quite the same.
There were spectacular clunkers. I half blame the death of conventional names on the Ford Aspire, a tin-can economy car with an unwittingly truthful name -- any consumer in their right mind would aspire for something better.
Other unfortunates included the Dodge St. Regis (spiffy!), Renault Le Car (yes, it’s a car), Daihatsu Charade (ouch), Dodge Swinger Special (hey, it was the ‘70s) and Kia Optima (not so much). Entire marketing teams must have been fired.
“There have been some great cars with crappy names and crappy cars with great names,” said Matt DeLorenzo, editor-in- chief of Road & Track magazine. “These days, companies prefer to stress their brand name rather than individual car lines. I’d like to see the names come back. We’re poorer for their loss.”
Alphanumeric Soup
Meanwhile, the fight for alphanumeric soup has become intense.
“You have to register them far in advance,” said Watts. “Most of the good-sounding combinations have been taken.”
Clearly, or maybe we wouldn’t have wacky pilings-on like the RCZ HYbrid4, a concept car from Peugeot, or BMW’s X6 xDrive50i and the Mercedes-Benz GL320 BlueTEC SUV. (Note the random capitalizations and deliberate misspellings -- cues perhaps from the world of hip-hop.)
At the Frankfurt show, the onset of electric and hybrid concept cars put some manufacturers in a playful mood. See the Citroen REVOLTE, Hyundai ix-Metro, VW E-Up! and Audi e-tron. (If any of these cars make production, the names probably won’t.)
Isn’t there a better way?
“The truly high-end cars still use names,” DeLorenzo said. “Look at Bugatti and Bentley. Rolls-Royce is showing the Ghost at Frankfurt, and that’s a great name. So maybe there’s a chance we’ll swing the other way.”
One can hope, because the alphanumeric system is beginning to feel like a nuclear confrontation -- a showdown where all models end up sounding the same. So let me make a suggestion. Gentlemen, the next time you’re looking to name a new model, consider this one: eNUFF.
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