What's In A Name
One of those odd bit of minutia that will get me thinking for a bit is car names. Several of them change over the years, but there's many that have stayed around. It seems that every year there's a Toyota Camry and Corolla and a Honda Accord. GM also likes to keep the names of the larger vehicles going, year after year, like the Chevy Malibu and the Pontiac Bonneville. Even Ford realized they had made a mistake by not continuing the familiar Taurus name when they introduced the Five Hundred. There will be a 2008 Taurus.
I'm sure that they create tons of marketing focus groups when they decide to name a new model, but the models that seem to get new names all the time are the low end, entry level cars. Gone are the Toyota Tercel, the Ford Fiesta, and the Dodge Omni. Heck, even the Ford Aspire - on my lists of worst names for a car, is gone.
The only consistent name I can think of is the Honda Civic. I had one 15 years ago, and the name was already old then. I'd also include the VW Golf, but they just recently changed back to the VW Rabbit.
Now we have the Nissan Versa, Ford Focus and the Toyota Yaris. Only one of these words is actually a word.
What happened to the Barracudas and Dusters and Le Mans? All good names. Certainly better than another car with some alpha-numeric combination.
Of course No one would return to the names Edsel, Pinto or Corvair (Unsafe at any speed) but certainly the VW Thing is a better name than Toureg. What happened to the Subaru Brat or the Dodge Hornet? I think those could be brought back as well. I think the GMC Jimmy should stay in mothballs, though.
Change might be good. Certainly changing from an infamous name is a good idea, like Ford's decision to drop the long standing Broncho name after the famous OJ Simpson drive down a freeway, but the replacement (as the TV show Arrested development notes) of the Ford Escape does leave you wondering what they were thinking.
Still, I'd love to have an convertible Edsel, probably because of the name - oh and the suggestive grillwork.
I'm sure that they create tons of marketing focus groups when they decide to name a new model, but the models that seem to get new names all the time are the low end, entry level cars. Gone are the Toyota Tercel, the Ford Fiesta, and the Dodge Omni. Heck, even the Ford Aspire - on my lists of worst names for a car, is gone.
The only consistent name I can think of is the Honda Civic. I had one 15 years ago, and the name was already old then. I'd also include the VW Golf, but they just recently changed back to the VW Rabbit.
Now we have the Nissan Versa, Ford Focus and the Toyota Yaris. Only one of these words is actually a word.
What happened to the Barracudas and Dusters and Le Mans? All good names. Certainly better than another car with some alpha-numeric combination.
Of course No one would return to the names Edsel, Pinto or Corvair (Unsafe at any speed) but certainly the VW Thing is a better name than Toureg. What happened to the Subaru Brat or the Dodge Hornet? I think those could be brought back as well. I think the GMC Jimmy should stay in mothballs, though.
Change might be good. Certainly changing from an infamous name is a good idea, like Ford's decision to drop the long standing Broncho name after the famous OJ Simpson drive down a freeway, but the replacement (as the TV show Arrested development notes) of the Ford Escape does leave you wondering what they were thinking.
Still, I'd love to have an convertible Edsel, probably because of the name - oh and the suggestive grillwork.