A story this week from Car Magazine about how Mercedes are "simplifying" their car naming structure. You have to read it to believe it - it makes no sense whatsoever. They are trying to make their naming system which uses letters to identify the postion the model has in the range more logical.
They are failing spectacularly.
Maybe they should rethink the whole letters and numbers thing and just use names instead. They will need to be careful though - GM's Nova for instance didn't do too well in Spanish-speaking countries where "No va" means "doesn't go".
Ford's Pinto had similar problems as this is allegedly slang for "small penis" in South America.
Ford had better luck in Britain naming their cars after "gentlemen's magazines" like Escort and Fiesta.
All of the names in my little picture above are real car names - except one!
There's a prize of much kudos for anyone who spots my fake one.
Some names are so good that several car companies choose them independently of each other. For example, my profile picture is of an Austin Metro but anyone sitting at a computer on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean will expect a Metro to be a Geo Metro - so for those people - here's a nice picture of one of them...
