RE: (was A3 platform sharing)

[Eliot Lim <eliot@u.washington.edu>]

On Wed, 17 Apr 1996, Psycho Bob wrote:

> Personally, I couldn't see how Lexus, Infiniti, and Acura are different
> from their regular counterparts. If I recall, these names are only used
> in U.S. market --

> in other parts of the world, they have their own names
> like Celsior and Aristo for Lexus, and Honda just use Honda (Honda
> Legend, Honda NSX). Pure marketing gimmick.

lexus *is* sold as lexus all over the world.  they may not have the
same model lineup as the US, but the LS400 is sold as lexus
everywhere.

but i think you are right about infinitis and acuras (always hated
that name, so pretentious sounding) being unique north american
names.

> Come to think of it, if it
> works for Toymotors, Dat-son, and Honndas, why didn't it work with Audi-
> VW?

audi did not originate from VW.  audi used to be auto-union, which in
turn used to be a bunch of even smaller distinct companies.  at some
point in time audi got absorbed (?) by VW, so it still has some
distinct identity and heritage as compared to these synthetic japanese
marques which came out of nothing more than a marketeer's pen.

and audi has been around much much longer, and had its share of bad
publicity and bad reputation, so that's why they don't have the same
allure.  the syntho-japanese brands haven't been around long enough
yet to get tarnished.  after a while the allure will fade just like
everybody else, especially when the products are so dull.  the market
has already pretty much gotten used to acuras and the name no longer
has a special ring to it.  sales are way down last i heard.  how
appropriate to name a model "TL".... for "tasteless" of course!  :)


eliot