Car Badges and What They (Don't) Signify

[Pete Kraus <Pete_Kraus@Emory.Org>]

I've been following this thread with some bemusement.  For years the
anal retentive side of my personality has gotten riled up whenever
manufacturers fail to observe their own alleged naming conventions.  It's
not a pretty sight.  How can they expect me, the car expert, to
remember all those exceptions?  THEY'RE NOT PLAYING FAIR!   Get
me wound up and pretty soon you don't want to be around.

Methinks Audi marketing honchos decided the number 5000's
association with five cylinders might play well in the U.S.  It's also a
bigger number than the competition was using (mine's bigger than yours
syndrome?)  Does that mean the four cylinder models should be, wait
for it, 4000s?  Well, why not?  Then Audi went and put the five into the
four's body and . . . there I go twitching uncontrollably again.  

I have a few M-B and BMW examples to add:  my aunt's '72 250 (small
body) with a 2.8 liter engine versus my mother's otherwise similar
properly badged '73 280.  My dad's '72 280SE 4.5 versus its immediate
successor which wore the 450SE badge that logically should have
accompanied MB's introduction of the 4.5 liter V8.  In the early '80s,
U.S. bound BMW 320s were equipped with 1.8 liter engines.  The
badge got changed later.  And while we're in the '80s, wasn't there a
brief appearance of a turbocharged 7-series model badged 745 whose
engine was a blown 3.5 liter six?   American manufacturers are not
immune.  Some Chevy SS396s were actually 402s.  Ford's 428 cubic
inch V8 was closer to 425 or 426, but those numbers were already
taken. 

Fact is, many companies break the rules at the drop of a wrench and
for reasons we'll probably never know.  I suspect they are less
concerned about inconsistencies than marketing, although they do
come up with a plethora of explanations ranging from plausible to lame. 

Pete
Pete_Kraus@emory.org
'85 4KSQ
'89 F250 4x4 diesel
'95 Z28