Name it well and leave it alone

Bad car names are to automotive journalism what air travel is to stand-up comedy--a standby you can always go beat up for a few laughs. To be sure, naming vehicles is difficult. There have been a bunch of cars, and a bunch of consumer products that share naming territory with them, so there are considerable legal challenges.

Worse, car names can really only hurt. An average one makes no difference. A good one can make a difference, though not an easily quantifiable one. But a bad one can turn customers and wallets the other way, either because they don't know what to ask for, or because they just don't want a car with a stupid name.

Meaning at the Expense of Understanding
I've largely grown accustomed to names that "almost" mean something, like Aveo and Sentra. The ones that drive me nuts are the ones that do mean something, but hardly anyone knows what except the manufacturer.

Can I interest you in a B9 Tribeca? That's Subaru's crossover SUV, named for the TriBeCa (Triangle Below Canal Street) neighborhood in New York. Rolls right off the tongue, doesn't it? Did you know it was supposed to evoke sophisticated urban living? And is the "B9" supposed to convey safety? (They're dropping "B9" for 2008, by the way.) Such a stylish thing, too (cough).

How about a Touareg (pronounced TWAR egg)? It's Volkswagen's SUV, named for an African tribe. That might be appropriate, connoting ruggedness, independence, and the like--if anyone knew what the hell it meant. Did you until I told you? Did you know how to say it?

I get the feeling names like this see release because they're the pet causes of "important" people. They remind me of personalized license plates that no one but the owner understands.

Jettisoning Names Altogether
What do you notice about Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Audi, Volvo, Lexus, and Infiniti models? None of them are "named" per se: they're all a hodgepodge of letters and numbers. Consequently a guy with a 325i usually just says he has "a BMW." Other luxury manufacturers wanting to be called by their makes noticed this and followed suit (and I remember John Phillips of Car and Driver likening this to "beating your smart son until he's as dumb as your dumb son").

Floundering Ford luxury division Lincoln thought this was a good idea, so the car that was the Lincoln Zephyr is now the MKZ. Their version of the uncompetitive-from-day-one Ford Edge SUV is the MKX. In Lincoln's case it probably wasn't such a bad idea--names like "Continental" and "Mark VIII" sound 100 years old--but Lincoln's problems are considerably deeper than what their cars are named, and the new naming scheme is just more icing on a stale cake. It also makes me think they didn't learn anything with the Merkur XR4Ti, a fine car of 20 years ago done in partially by its awful name.

Acura, on the other hand, inexplicably jettisoned "Legend"--a name with which it built considerable equity over just ten years--and went with "RL" for its top sedan.

The Integra coupe (now discontinued altogether) became the RSX. The Integra sedan was replaced by a car called the TSX. The Vigor became the TL. The cars holding these names are generally pretty good, and there doesn't seem to have been any long-term damage, but I still question the wisdom of eliminating "Legend" from the U.S. market.

Did you know there's not a Miata on the market anymore? Mazda's iconic sports car has been called the MX-5 Miata by the company since inception, and the Miata by absolutely everyone else. But the new Miata is called just the MX-5. So Mazda threw the shirt in the fire and held up the empty Christmas box for all to admire. Uh, yeah. Good luck making that one stick, folks.

Interestingly, Porsche has run the other way with all of its latest models. The only number model it has left is the 911, and that number is as iconic as any name could be, so that's the right call. As for others, its lower end convertible is the Boxster, a combination of "boxer" (describing the horizontally opposed engine configuration) and "roadster." Its SUV, sharing underpinning with the Volkswagen African Tribe, is the Cayenne. The new hardtop version of the Boxster is the Cayman (perhaps the most beautiful new car in the world for the money).

The Best Names Don't Change
Moreover, they're usually words, not number-letter combinations, though 911 is a notable exception. The name "Corvette" is 55 years old. "911" is 44. "Accord" is 32. "Camry" is 25. Ford was on the way with "Taurus" until some numskull decided all of the Ford car names had to start with F and rechristened the large Ford sedan the Five Hundred. (In one of the very first executive decisions of his tenure, new CEO Alan Mulally announced that the name "Taurus" is returning for 2008.)

When a car company is too interested in what its cars are called, and particularly when it makes large and questionable changes like the above, I always think of a company that has a reorg every six months. What are they not spending energy on that they should be because they're occupied with this crap?

Thanks to carbuyersnotebook.com for the B9 Tribeca image. Thanks to acura.com for the 3.5RL image. Thanks to motordesktop.com for the Cayman image.