an observation about european cars vs the rest of the world....

[Peter Wong]

In case no one has answered this one, the answer is that you will likely see
more automotive companies moving towards the "European" standard.

More and more car companies are seeing the importance of branding and image.
 It's been determine via research and focus groups that the use of numbers for
their vehicles (as opposed to actual names) brings more focus on the brand as
opposed to the individual cars.

Therefore, goodwill associated with one model is more likely to cascade to others.
 Numeric model numbers also more likely causes customers to refer to their car
as an "Audi" as opposed to the individual number ("I own a 5000").

It's why Acura changed the names of all their vehicles and why Lexus and Infiniti
also do not use any names for their line.

Conversely, if you want to distance a car from the brand itself, then you would
want to build up the name more so over the brand.  Corvette is a good example
of this, so is Viper.

Purely brand imaging...

Thanks,
Peter

>Something I have noticed recently while driving....
>
>I cant think of a European car imported to the US that has an off the wall

>name.  It seems all the cars coming from Audi, BMW, Volvo, ect ect have
>model names like A4 or 325i or 740L.  
>
>In comparision, Ford, GM, Dodge, Honda, Toyota all have off the wall names.

>Some are after animals, Impala and Mustang to name a few.  Others are
>abstracts like the Focus or Neon.  Others are named after races, LeMans is

>one Gran Prix is another.  I wonder why European manufacturers treat the
>consumer like we actually know something, and the American ones treat
>everyone like idiots?  I mean come on... WIDE TRACK?  Spare me the rhertoric

>and just point out things about your car that I might like, dont come off
>like most of us know nothing about anything.
>
>Hhehehe sorry about the rambling, but I just wanted to mention what I had
>been thinking about :)
>
>Rob
>
>86 5ktq
>87 5ktq (SOLD)
>89 200 tqa
>