How Cars Get Named
atlasobscura.com
atlasobscura.com
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mazda_Bongo#Bongo_Friendee_.28...
So I am glad to have that finally corrected, have believed the wrong thing for decades.
In 1931, Dat Motorcar Co. chose to name its new small car "Datson", a name which indicated the new car's smaller size when compared to the DAT's larger vehicle already in production. When Nissan took control of DAT in 1934, the name "Datson" was changed to "Datsun", because "son" also means "loss" (損 son) in Japanese and also to honour the sun depicted in the national flag - thus the name Datsun: Dattosan (ダットサン Dattosan?).
The legend has it that the Japanese team wanted it to be the Stallion, but communications to the American Marketing department were less than ideal.
http://uniquecarsandparts.com/images/car_info/large/mitsubis...
Snopes remains undecided :
I had to google that, and got http://uk.complex.com/sports/2012/07/the-25-most-ridiculous-.... If that's a joke, it is taking it too far, so it just be true. => Apparently, the 'Lettuce' was a car, and they also sold the "Mitsubishi Mini Active Urban Sandal". Most cars there are Asian, so I guess this is a sign of a cultural chasm between 'the west' and 'the east'.
20 more problems.
And BMWs use a model series, engine size. 325i. = 3 series, 2.5 l engine. Unless its the sporty version then its just M+series (EG M3)
I have a honda element, I have no idea how it was named, but leads to bad jokes about being in my ______.
http://members.iinet.net.au/~felsche/Bernd/trivia/vwcars.htm...
Compare that to Merc. There's the C, E, and S-Class which come in Sedan, Coupe, and Roadster variants and increase in price in that order. There's the CLA which is their entry level Sedan, except they call it a Coupe. There's the CLS Sedan which is more expensive than the E but cheaper than the S, and again, is called a Coupe. Then you've got the Maybach name which means luxury, and the AMG name which means performance. Most models have an AMG trim. Add in the E wagon, the AMG GT roadster, the S and SL roadsters, and the GLA, GLC, GLE, GLS, and G-Class SUVs. And the B-Class electric.
Owning an M4 I didn't realize how often I'd have to explain this to random folks at the gas station when they wondered what the hell an M4 is when they've only seen M3s.
> "3 series coupes and 4 series sedans"
shrug
That's how I think of it.
There's a little method to the madness, though I don't know if this is on purpose. Odd numbers are the more "luxury" models, whereas the even numbers are the more "sporty" models. M-series models are only available on the even numbers, with the exception of the 3-series.
In the UK around this time the Cortina was the best selling car. Of course, Google Translate wasn't a thing back then.
The tagline totally ruins the effect of this. "How a jumble of numbers and letters came to convey fanciness, while cute names came to mean value." Kind of gives the game away, even if I didn't recognize any of the cars.
(As it happens, I only recognize Yaris and Fiesta. I might have guessed based on those.)
Ford F150, Chevy C1500, Mazda CX3
There's also monikers in the performance category that aren't models, but are alphanumeric, like Z28, GT500
And older cars, like Datsun B210, Datsun F10, Subaru XT6
In the US, they used to use three-digit numbers for their family sedans: 323, 626, and 929. Well, they never did that in Japan: they were called Familia, Capella, and Luce/Sentia (Luce was used before 1991, Sentia after), respectively. There was also the Mazda 121 in Europe, which depending on the generation was either a rebadged Ford or came from Mazda's Japan-only Autozam marque (the Autozam Revue, specifically).
But then they rebranded in the '00s. The three-number names were replaced by single-number names joined to Mazda's own name. We now have the Mazda2, Mazda3, Mazda5, and Mazda6. Well, they also rebranded their cars in Japan at the same time... but they just rebranded them to other names: they're known as the Mazda Demio, Mazda Axela, Mazda Premacy, and Mazda Atenza, respectively.
French brands on the other hand usually go all the way from small, cheap cars to expensive executive cars, using the same naming scheme for the whole range (like from 108 to 508, C0 to C6, or Twingo to Talisman).
For example, the Lexus LS400 was sold in Japan as the Toyota Celsior, and the Infiniti Q45 was sold in Japan as the Nissan President.
Toyota didn't introduce the Lexus name and alphanumeric naming to Japan until 2006.
Nissan still hasn't introduced the Infiniti name to Japan. In fact, the Infiniti G and M are still sold in Japan as the Nissan Skyline and Fuga, respectively.
Edit: And while Honda made Acura switch to alphanumeric names in the mid-90s, they never applied that to Japan, where the models are still sold as Hondas with regular names. For example, the car that's called the Acura RLX in the US is called the Honda Legend in Japan.
The Toyota Crown is probably Japan's most historically significant luxury car, and it's always been sold as a Toyota alongside cheaper cars like the Corolla and Yaris (fun fact: a huge chunk of Toyota's cars are named after the Crown, including both the Corolla and the Camry, plus cars that aren't too well known outside of Japan like the Corona and Carina).
Another interesting tidbit about the Japanese market: you know how American car companies used to practice badge engineering? That is, they would sell the same car under several different marques, each with its own dealer network; an example of this would be the GM's W-body cars from the 1990s where the Chevrolet Lumina, Pontiac Grand Prix, Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme, and Buick Regal were all pretty much the same car, but different dealer networks would sell them (though Pontiac and Buick eventually merged dealer networks). Well, Japanese manufactures did that too in Japan, except they put all the badge-engineered versions under the same marque while selling them through different dealer networks! For example, Toyota has something like four different dealer networks in Japan, each one gets to sell about 1/4 of their cars, all their cars at all their dealer networks are badged as Toyotas (or at least they were until they introduced Lexus in 2006), and it's not uncommon for two different dealer networks to each get a car that's identical to the other in all but name and minor styling differences. A classic example of this is the Toyota Corolla and Toyota Sprinter. They're pretty much the same car, but they have slightly different styling, and they go to different dealer networks (fun fact: the Sprinter styling was available in the US during the '90s, badged as the Geo Prizm). With that said, Toyota has been cutting down on this lately, just like how GM has also been cutting down on their badge engineering (mostly by killing Oldsmobile and Pontiac).
They haven't introduced the name, but they do use the logo. See, for example, what the front of the Skyline looks like: http://www2.nissan.co.jp/SKYLINE/exterior.html
http://assets.atlasobscura.com/article_images/40992/image.jp...
What happened?
Depending on if you hit a person or a wall.
Having something smooth and easily deformed mitigates both of these.
Based on the horse theme, it seemed fairly legit. Turns out, there might even be some truth in the "Stallion" that never was!
The Starion was sold alongside the Cordia and Tredia. Tredia was an abbreviation of "three diamonds", the literal English translation of Mitsubishi (and note that their logo references this too). Cordia apparently was a portmanteau of "cordorite diamond".
So I can totally believe that Starion was a portmanteau of "star Orion".
Mitsu just had a really weird naming sense back then.
EDIT: And on the same tangent: Musk's S3XY... which in this case was fully intentional.
But it's often genuinely not an issue.
Naming is a pain in the neck. I've been through it several times. And there's a huge amount of effort and no small amount of money often involved. It's hugely difficult to come up with something that is available, searchable, not confusing, works across languages, and that none of the major stakeholders especially hates.