(originally posted at TTAC in 2008 as GM Death Watch #189; reposted at CC on 5/21/2015)
In the ancient Buddhist text Visuddhi-Magga, “name” and “form” are described as powerless in their respective isolation. But when they propitiously combine and mutually support one another, they attain power and “spring up and go forth.” GM’s announcement that the 2010 Chevy Cruze would [eventually] replace the Cobalt marks a dubious milestone in its continuing struggle to establish a lasting presence in the all-important compact car market. The Cruze will be the recipient of the eightieth (or more) name that GM has used on one of its mid-sized or smaller sedans since 1968.
Why 1968? It’s the year Toyota introduced the Corolla. We could have started with 1973 (Civic), 1976 (Accord) or 1982 (Camry). But you get my drift: consistency and the lack thereof.
longest continuous name except for Corvette
A recent QOTD posed the question “Why are the Japanese so smart (successful)?” Smartness may have little to do with it. Try “tenacious” or “one-pointed.” The last Japanese soldiers in the Philippine jungle didn’t surrender until 1974, and then only after their [former] commanding officers were flown-in with written proof that the war was over. The soldiers’ rifles and ammo were still in perfect condition. I suspect strongly that my (possible) grandchildren might still be cross-shopping Corollas.
When GM’s obituary is written, it will be long and complicated. But this line alone would be adequate: “they failed to execute a consistent program of small car development and refinement.” Yes, there were random moments of transcendence: ….Opel 1900, and…. your nominations, please. Lots of these vehicles had one, sometimes even two uplifting features. The Vega, for example, was button-cute and handled quite well.
But GM’s utter lack of a consistent effort to cultivate any continuity, build name and, thereby, brand equity, is distinctly unenlightened. Even with its competitive Japanese captive imports (GEO), GM displayed ignorance. The current version of the Metro, Suzuki’s Swift, is a highly regarded sub-compact. It would likely beat the pants off the Daewoo-sourced Chevy Spark.
Despite GM’s claims to have learned from their mistakes, their (re)naming mania continues. The Cruze will supplant/replace the Cobalt. Is this a tacit admission that the Cobalt failed to live up to its makers’ grand ambitions when it replaced the Cavalier?
Instead, GM stumbles blindly down the same road of ignorance it has traveled so many times before. When the Cruze arrives in 2010, the Cobalt will continue as the low MSRP/fleet queen special. In GM’s high-priest Bob Lutz’s own words of prophesy, “the Cobalt is nowhere near the end of its life-cycle.” Great; think immortal Buick Century and Chevy Malibu. Classic fleet-mobiles. Not only is GM living in delusion about building name equity, it has become the Shiva of car names.
Ironically, GM religiously guards the one exception, the longest-lived continuous name plate in the whole industry: Corvette. Need I say more? The Corvette is the perfect antithesis to everything that has ailed GM in its passenger car programs. The ‘Vette offers its devotees– and they are legion– sixty years of focus and improvement, if not always in a perfectly straight line.
I’m not implying that name continuity guarantees success. But it tends to be emblematic of the pride and perseverance that a successful automaker commits to its cars. Think BMW 3-series. Mercedes S-Class. And it sure helps with top of mind name recognition: When a supplicant asks the auto-guru for a recommendation for a good compact car, he can always say “Civic” in an eye-blink without ever having to stretch the brain cells trying to remember what GM’s current offerings are called.
For what it’s worth, Toyota’s only name-and-form stumble corresponded with relatively weak sales. The all-new Yaris (European Car of the Year 2000) was inexplicably called Echo for North America, as well as suffering from an ugly trunk and mug. It ended a long streak of popular sub-compact Tercels. Anyway, Toyota’s eleven small and mid-size car names in forty years (Crown, Cressida, Matrix, Tercel, Echo, Yaris, Corona, Mark II, Carina, Camry and Corolla) seem downright profligate compared to Honda.
Civic and Accord. Name and form. Two of the consistently-best selling cars in the land have “sprung up and gone forth” for some forty years. Automotive immortality attained. Note to GM: endless reincarnation is not a goal worthy of aspiration. Bad karma.
Postscript: Here’s the eighty GM small-midsize cars I came up with at the time. There likely are more, new ones and forgotten ones: CHEVROLET: Corvair, Vega, Monza, Chevette, Citation, Citation II, Sprint, Cavalier, Corsica, Beretta, Cobalt, Aveo, ChevyII, Nova, Celebrity, Chevelle, Malibu, Classic, Impala; GEO: Prizm, Storm, Metro, Spectrum SATURN: 300, ION, Aura, Astra PONTIAC: Astre, Sunbird, LeMans, Ventura, Phoenix, T-1000, J-2000, 1000, 2000, Grand Am, Sunfire, Vibe, G-5, Tempest, Ventura, Ventura II, 6000, STI, G-6, Grand Prix, OLDS: Omega, Starfire, Firenza, Achieva, Alero, F-85, Cutlass, Cutlass Ciera, Ciera, Cutlass Supreme, Intrigue, BUICK: Kadett, 1900, Manta, Skyhawk, Somerset Regal, Somerset, Special, Skylark, Apollo, Century, Regal, LaCrosse, CADILLAC: Cimarron, Catera, SAAB: 900, 9000, 9-3, 9-5, 9-2,
I’m pretty sure the list can be expanded to possibly 100.
It seems to me that GM got too cocky and drunk off of patriotism as well as a better than though attitude. Listening to the old guard is not always a good idea. Stop driving forward while looking in the rearview mirror.
Look at the success of the Plymouth Voyager, that coulda been you General Motors!
Look at the success of the Toyota Prius, that coulda been you!
Look at the success of the Honda Civic, that also coulda been you!
Look at the success of the Subaru Outback, AMC pioneered it, but the Big 3 dropped the ball.
Even the loathesome Ford Explorer, that success could have been you.
You had a Leaf-like vehicle, but you blew it GM.
Suburban is another old as dirt name.
Why do you label the Explorer “loathsome?” Sales proved otherwise.
The Plymouth Voyager is long gone, but the Caravan and Town & Country names endure.
After being discontinued, the short wheelbase Plymouth Voyager was briefly sold as the Chrysler Voyager in North America.
The Plymouth Voyager and later the Chrysler Town & Country minivan was sold in Europe as the Chrysler Voyager and the Chrysler Grand Voyager through 2011 (and in the U,K. and Ireland through 2015).
Beginning in 2012 it was renamed Lancia Voyager and Lancia Grand Voyager in European markets through also 2015 before it was discontinued.
The “Voyager” name isn’t gone all that long.
About the Eagle and Outback…GM developed an AWD system for the Pontiac 6000STE AWD that should’ve been plug-and-play to drop into the A-body wagons. Never happened.
Even though it was largely a parts-bin thing, it was an awfully elaborate one, and was really expensive compared to the FWD car. I assume the product planners considered a wagon application and concluded that A-body wagon buyers were not going to pay that kind of money for it. (Looking at the price and the sales, I think that was probably correct.)
It did in Australia. This is a Holden Adventra. There’s even a CC for it. https://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-australian-brands/curbside-classic-2003-07-holden-adventra-territory-enemy/
Would the Corvette have survived if moves hadn’t been made through the years to keep Pontiac from competing with it? Would various Banshees and the proposed twin-turbo, aluminum V6 powered Fiero have exposed the Corvette during its vulnerable third and forth generations?
GM certainly doesn’t learn anything. Have you seen the recent Buick advertisements? The concept is that new Buicks are so attractive that they’re not recognizable as Buicks. This is not your father’s Oldsmobile part DUH!
When I see one of newer Buick ads I wanna scream. Some Idiot looking for their friends’ car says “I don’t see a Buick.” Then jumps in to a random old Ford product, Meanwhile I’m yellin’ at the TV “HEY MORON, anyone who has been on Earth since 1942 can see the Buick, Look at the damned grille!”, Good Lord, Why did GM leave enough styling cues that make the cars LOOK like Buicks, then run ads implying that they DON’T look like Buicks!?!? End of rant.
Advertising never makes sense, because they’re not aiming it at us.
+1
I feel the same way about Toyota commercials! 🙂
That Buick ad campaign is horrendous. GM should have learned after the suicidal efforts at Olds in the ’80s and ’90s, but apparently they still employ far too many MBAs…I half expect Ringo Starr or Leonard Nemoy to appear in one of those stupid commercials. The sycophants will quote you increased sales numbers until they’re blue in the face, but I think the direction of Buick is a mess:
Verano: I literally forgot this car existed until I decided to make this post. Since I’m a 29 year old with disposable income that’s supposedly in the target market for this car, that’s an automatic fail. Now that I think about it, everyone I’ve seen driving a non-rental Verano has been old. It’s a redux of the FWD Skylark, which would be fine if the stated goal was to sell a downsized, lower priced car to retirees that still want a “prestige” nameplate, but that’s not the case. Effort would have better spent further improving the Cruze and ATS, both of which stand a better chance of snagging non-geezer retail buyers.
Regal – Why does this car exist? Don’t get me wrong, I actually like this car, but whatever sliver of the marketplace it occupies between a nice Verano and a cheap LaCrosse is further trampled upon by loaded Malibus and sweetheart ATS lease deals. GM is building at least one redundant model here. Also, after Bob Lutz’s counterproductive edict to eliminate all of Buick’s popular historic nameplates (LeSabre, Century, etc) Regal is the absolute last one I would have resurrected.
LaCrosse – This was a stupid name for a stupid car back in 2005 when GM realized it was slang for masturbation in Quebec and had to market it as the “Allure” in Canada. 10 years on, it’s still here. The current one is nice enough, but it’s made redundant by the vastly improved Impala and lame duck XTS. Kill this thing so the Impala has a future.
Encore – Always should have been a Chevy. Now that Chevy has the Trax clone (Is that the right name? I don’t care enough to look), this is more evident than ever.
Enclave – Why does this continue to exist alongside the GMC Acadia? Moreover, both have been in production without meaningful updates since 2007. That’s an eternity. Between these and the Traverse, 2 of the 3 need to die.
Buick was always my favorite of the GM brands, but it should have died (along with GMC) during the bankruptcy for the overall health of the company; It needs to become a China nameplate for the Chevy/Buick/Opel/Vauxhall/Holden mainstream, while Cadillac becomes the lone global premium brand.
My problem with the ad campaign is that Saturn did it already. And Mitsubishi just did it here in Australia. I feel like they could have communicated their message a little bit better.
And GMC is profitable for GM. If you killed it, do you really think all those GMC buyers would just flock to Chevy? It wouldn’t happen. We enthusiasts may know that a GMC is just a flossier Chevy, but a lot of people aren’t that clued in. And they are willing to pay more for something that looks different. As for Buick, yes sometimes it seems a little squeezed out, but it helps provide additional volume for Opel products.
Priced and positioned appropriately, Buick shouldn’t pose a threat to Chevy. I don’t think many Buick buyers cross-shop with Chevy, and where GM is taking the brand is further and further away from Chevy territory.
You can kill more brands, but that’s not going to strengthen those that remain. Look at all the Saturn and Pontiac buyers who left the GM fold.
I think most of the arguments for GMCs value as a brand are specious. The better question to ask is if you killed it, do you really think all those GMC buyers would just flock to Ram, Ford or Toyota? Also GMCs DON’T look different, it’s three red letters in place of a light gold bowtie, that’s why GMC is such an easy brand for enthusiasts to point to and say “that’s redundant”.
Except now GM is differentiating them more now. And, you forget the intangible values of brand image. I don’t understand why someone would have bought, say, a ’99 Sierra over a ’99 Silverado, but there are people out there who would have and indeed did. I think having just one full-size truck would make sense, so GM could say, “Hey, our full-size truck outsold the F-Series”, but GMC seems to have value to some people.
At the end of the day, 100% of GMC buyers wouldn’t switch to Chevy if GMC was axed. And there’s no reason to axe the brand other than, “Oh, it’s redundant” or “We could save marketing money”.
GM is taking GMC further away from Chevy but it’s still a profitable enterprise. Look at the percentage of sales going to Denali buyers. And again, you axe GMC, those Denali buyers won’t just all flock to Cadillac.
Differentiating them more now in 2015 isn’t the argument, they weren’t well differentiated in much 2008/9 when it and Buick got a pass and Pontiac and Saturn were put to pasture. It bears discussion, “Oh, it’s redundant” or “We could save marketing money” are the reasons Oldsmobile is gone, Pontiac is gone, Mercury is gone and Plymouth is gone. It’s historically been perfectly acceptable to have a higher end vehicle like a Denali in a value brand like Chevrolet, the Caprice did just that for cars all those years ago, and Ford has managed to do so even longer.
Also you didn’t answer the question – where exactly would that 100%(which is a bold assumption) of ex GMC buyers flock to exactly? Chevy, Ford, Dodge/Ram, Toyota? I have to assume they’d cross shop their vehicle choice, and if what they desire is benchmarked by GMC their choice will be pretty obvious.
My understanding as to why GMC survived as a brand was, even though they were very subtly modified Chevrolets, their profit margins were significantly higher compared to their bow-tie equivalents at sale time. This is partially also why Buick survived; the fact that they were already sold in the same showrooms helped to ensure each other’s existance moving forward.
Matt, I think you’re misunderstanding my point, or I’m misunderstanding yours, or both. I was just stating if you kill GMC, the buyers won’t necessarily migrate to Chevy by default. Yes they will probably cross-shop and if they find the Chevy to be satisfactory, they will go there. But you forget about the intangibles of brand image and just image in general. And of course, maybe somebody thinks the Chevy is ugly but they know the F-Series is just as good a truck, so they go there…
GMC continues to exist for one reason – to keep Buick dealers out of bankruptcy court, For many the profits from truck sales are way more than enough to counteract ho-hum Buick sales.
GMC exists because it records the second-highest sales of any GM division. And it achieves those sales with vehicles that are restyled Chevrolet trucks and SUVs. GMC is a license for GM to print money.
At this point, Buick basically survives in this country because it gives GMC dealers a car line to sell.
Every time I look at the Verano, I see its’ snout grille and tacked-on trunk and wonder why we can’t at least have Opels offered to us in undiluted hatchback form. And then I realize that it’s because while Ford, Hyundai/Kia, Subaru, VW and Mazda sell substantial numbers of C-segment hatchbacks in America, someone at GM still thinks it’s 1998.
It’s even not 1998 in many parts around Michigan, and that’s usually where I see the Verano sells.
During the past few months up here I’ve been seeing a lot more Veranos. Mostly driven by seniors (my demographic). Still trying to figure out why that would be when the car was hardly seen shortly after being introduced.
I thought Regal and LaCrosse were built for the Chinese market where they do very well and are just here because GM has them and might as well sell them. Pick up a few extra units, etc. So what if there is overlap with other GM divisions. They are distinctive and nice looking in my opinion. And, per Consume Reports they are pretty good.
The Regal does well in China, and especially in Shanghai,were it is built by Shanghai-Buick, a joint venture with the local government and GM. It is thus used to ferry mid-high level officials around. You see them all over the place.
Officials use LaCrosse, and its reskinned Chinese derivative. Regal is more for family market when it gets smaller from the older W-Body.
Regal isn’t quite a good name to restart but it’s better than Century anyway, as any company has the name century realized the stigma of being associated with the past.
My wife and I landed at PDX one Saturday morning and had a choice of three rental vehicles: a Jetta and a Mazda 5, each of which I recognized instantly, and “some weird little Buick SUV” as I called it, which I did recognize as a Buick (due to the logo) but couldn’t name. I should have grabbed what should have been perceived as the most luxurious of the three, but went for the Mazda 5 (I just like the 5, I think it’s an interesting vehicle). Was the Buick the Encore? I didn’t walk over to it to find out.
Electra, Invicta, Wildcat, and Special were the best Buick names to me. I was never a fan of LeSabre or Park Avenue
Perhaps they’re saving Electra for the day they do a full electric. Makes sense, doesn’t it?
Invicta was a great one though. It’d certainly make a nice replacement for LaCrosse, especially if the car is deserving of the nameplate. If they ever do a sports coupe, Wildcat would be perfect.
“Perhaps they’re saving Electra for the day they do a full electric. Makes sense, doesn’t it?”
Only if this new electric vehicle is 225″ long, has a padded vinyl roof with opera lights, and seating for six on two pillow-top velour sofas.
My guess is the Electra name died with Jane Mansfield…
“My guess is the Electra name died with Jane Mansfield…”
Except that she died in ’67 and the Electra nameplate didn’t perish until ’90. Her death, while gruesome, wasn’t the car’s fault, and any negative publicity had probably long since faded.
I don’t know why the Invicta name had such a short shelf life. It was one of their best. Ditto Electra. They’re my favorite Buick names.
I also like Wildcat, Regal, Enclave, and even Rendezvous and Rainier were nice-sounding and suitable names.
Well put. The Slonian ladder has been replaced by a mass/class bifurcation of the market, and there’s really no place for Buick’s traditional role here – or Chrysler’s for that matter. Which is why FCA is bringing Chrysler down to the “mass” level, after Daimler (a la the recent CC on the Pacifica) tried to raise it up. I don’t know if they can sell Chryslers and Dodges at essentially the same price point, but they’re trying to position Dodge as sporty and Chrysler as, uh, staid. We’ll see how that goes.
Worse still, the Véga, which was built in Ste-Thérèse Québec between ’73-’74, was nicknamed ‘Dégat’ and its brother Pontiac ‘DésAstre’ from their birth. Meaning respectively in English: ‘damage’ & ‘disaster ‘ .
“GM certainly doesn’t learn anything. Have you seen the recent Buick advertisements? ”
You are so on-point with this. The Buick of today isn’t Buick of the past because the Verano, Encore, Regal, and Cascada, simply put, are Opels. Do they really think switching out the grill and adding portholes to these cars will 1.) appeal to those of us who otherwise wouldn’t want a Buick, and 2.) retain legacy customers of the brand? If so, they are insanely naive. How exactly is this different from Saturn’s demise?
To be fair, the Verano and Encore are actually Daewoos instead of Opels.
How do you figure? If you mean GM Korea doing development work for the platforms in certain aspects, I somewhat see your point. That said, the automotive side of “Daewoo” has not existed in any form since 2011.
And the Verano isn’t even a GM Korea product: it rides the Delta platform, shared with the Cruze engineered in Korea, but its actually a Buick-badged Opel Astra sedan.
CJ just looooves to whip out the “Daewoo” card. Unfortunately (for CJ) most CCers are aware of how GM’s international engineering and design arms work (much like all the other major OEMs) and the alleged Daewoo slur doesn’t arouse the same ire here as it does on the other website.
@ geozinger, although I too know the facts you referred to, somehow I would have more confidence in a small car if I knew it came from Opel rather than Daewoo/GM Korea.
I know it’s illogical these days, but…..
There is absolutely nothing wrong with Korean engineering. They make the biggest engines in the world, and a very large portion of large bulk carriers, not to mention electronics, appliances and a whole lot more.
Ten years ago Korean cars were not as good. Even five years ago there was a gap but increasingly, that gap is being, or has been, closed. I was a prof in a Korean university for several years, and they are very quick learners and have a work ethic nobody here could ever hack.
My Kia Rio has surpassed all my expectations and I liked it more on the test drive than any other car I drove, and that was all the B, C and D series cars.
The Encore/Mokka is made in Korea, China, and Spain. Any guesses where ours come from? There is no German production line. The Verano was developed by GM do Korea and Chinese GM for China from the 2009 Lacetti. Anything else is GM obfuscation because they think there is some marketing value to saying the car was designed by their failing German arm.
Those ads drive me nuts too, it’s like they never learned a thing. It’s hard to believe there was a time where a GM division (Cadillac) embraced their heritage by showing late models in their brochures, whether or not new Buicks or old Buicks, or Oldsmobiles for that matter were indeed good or bad throwing the past under the bus as they constantly do does not help their image. It’s one thing for Domino’s to run a “we suck but are slightly better now” campaign, it’s cheap trash pizza regardless so what difference does it make? Marketing a semi-premium brand of car that costs $40k is not exactly settling for the person potentially writing the check though. How long is it until your brand new Opel, err, Buick gets thrown under the bus?
They screwed up when they killed the LeSabre nameplate. Yes, it sounds like a name for a land barge.
News flash- Buicks are land barges! I love my LeSabre for that- Let’s not kid ourselves here: you’re not BMW or Audi.
Quit trying to tell me that Granny can’t recognize the new Buicks. Out here, that’s 80% of Buick’s market.
The problem is though land barges may have their fans, but it’s a shrinking audience. Go for the growth markets. Opels are great cars, and can’t be sold as Chevys. “You can sell a young person’s car to an old person…”
As William Stopford notes, the land-barge market is dying off – literally.
In 2015, the families who would have purchased a large sedan are now buying crossovers. Hence, the importance of the Encore and Enclave to Buick right now.
CJ, yours is the comment of the day.
To me Buick died when they stopped building the 3800.
I haven’t seen those ads — but I did read a funny bit about Buick advertising (and by extension the brand’s oldster customer base) in some recent issue of C/D or maybe R&T I killed some time with in my mechanic’s waiting room. The article was about how Buick was, after so many years, again offering a manual transmission on one model, to demonstrate their seriosity about the younger, sportier image the company is attempting. The journo registered his pleasant surprise at this performance-oriented development at the division with the quip, “Buick, whose slogan until just recently was, ‘Get off my lawn!’…”
When your advertising theme is, “Sure our old stuff was crap, but we’re better/different now, WE PROMISE”, it doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.
I suspect that the schizophrenic name changes in GM’s small cars is a symptom of the effort GM put into the cars themselves. GM never emphasized small cars. One failed small car begat either a new car with a new name, or even more cynically, a not-new car with a new name in the hopes of fooling enough folks into buying.
For comparison, you mention “Corvette” as an exception. I think we can add “Suburban” and even “Tahoe”. GM has consistently put real effort into the Suburban et al and as a result, built vehicles that they could be proud of. This built a lot of name equity. Nobody would seriously suggest that the new Suburban should be called the Chevy Daktari or some other change of identity.
Perhaps the realization finally did set in, and that’s why they’ve pulled Malibu and Impala back off the shelf and, more importantly, stuck with them. The first reincarnated Malibu (1997 IIRC) was as bland and rental-grade as they come, but they didn’t change the name when it was redone. And they continued to refine the car until the 2008-2012 generation was near the top of the class. The current model may be a bit of a step back, but they’ve stayed with the name. So now you have 1965 to current, albeit with a “break” from ’84 to ’96.
Same with Impala, even more so. While it did the typical “GM slide” where it premiered at the top of the line, then was bumped down and down again until its discontinuation, it still had name currency. Then revival one, the 94-96 SS, which generated a lot of buzz. When the B-body was cancelled without replacement the Lumina was mid-cycle, which forced another hiatus, until its return in 2000, and there it’s stayed. ’58 to ’85, ’94 to ’96, and ’00 to current – while it has two hiatuses (hiati?) you’re drawing on 47 combined years of history.
With the small cars it’s a little harder though. Impala and Malibu were candidates for revival because they had graced some truly great cars over the years, and even the lackluster mid 70’s ones weren’t truly bad. Would a (second) Nova revival have been too nonsensical though? Granted, the NUMMI Nova appeared and disappeared in the 80’s, but as a Corolla in drag it certainly wasn’t a bad car, if rather appliance-y. And 70’s Novas gained a somewhat rednecky/hooliganish association in the 80’s. But that was old news by 2004 when the Cobalt bowed. One could argue that killing the Cavalier nameplate after 22 years was a bit schizophrenic when the revived Malibu and Impala were rediscovering old nameplate currency, but the last Cavs were pretty archaic and definitely had a bad case of “GM doesn’t care about small cars” disease. But for a clean slate, why not Nova?
I recall hearing that Nova was a problem because in Spanish it means “no go”. I heard that Osco Drug Stores had a similar problem because Osco loosely translated into “bad food” (as in spoiled).
Urban legend: Even Pemex names one of its fuels “Nova.” Check out snopes.com on both words.
Looks like you’re right on “Osco”. But not so much on “Nova”: https://translate.google.com/#es/en/no%20va Perhaps no one at Snopes took Spanish in high school.
pdq: Don’t get me started on this tired dead horse. The word “nova”is also used in Spanish. “No va” is two words, which do mean “don’t go” in Spanish. But the accent is on the second syllable and every Spanish speaker instantly knows the difference. Read the snopes post; it will tell you why it’s not a reality.
I always use this line: if you visit a “therapist”, are you afraid of being raped? That’s the same logic behind “nova/no va”. A Spanish speaker doesn’t hear “Chevy Nova” and think “Tee hee, Chevy No-Go!”
We had a classmate who drove a 73 vintage Nova and we used to tease him; “tu carro no va.”
Umm, Osco has never had a problem with its name. It is a U.S. based company founded in 1942, and is an acronym for a preceding name. If your reference is regarding Spanish, the U.S. had a negligible Hispanic population during the company’s first forty years.
GM built reasonably competent small cars outside the US just not in the US so the main problem is entirely home grown
This about sums it. GM’s small car efforts are best forgotten; Had GM not miles the J-car for 23 years, perhaps there would be some merit in keeping the Cavalier nameplate. Etc, etc.
The Malibu and Caprice/Impala names never should have died and, at minimum, Chevy could have squeezed out quiet a few more sales over the last 30 years without the confusion over a new, stupid name every model cycle.
The real naming mess right now is at Cadillac, where they’re about tho throw out the limited brand recognition they have for more soundalike garbage. All thanks to the same guy who ruined Infiniti…what the hell is a Q50? Who would have thought the Lincoln would be the one to get a clue first and bring back the Continental?
Speaking of Ford, GM really doesn’t deserve sole blame here. Ford’s made a complete mess of every market segment they’ve competed in over the last 40 years, save for full-size trucks. They shuffled family car nameplates more often than anyone in Detroit until the ’80s. Their oldest passenger car nameplate is Taurus, which is probably about to be killed off (again). Well, anything that isn’t an LX is probably more irrelevant than ever.
But at least the new Cadillac and Infiniti naming systems make a lot more sense than what they had. Both had already been dealing in alphanumerics, but the progression made no sense. ATS, CTS… XTS? Wha? G, M, Q? Nonsense.
I don’t like alphanumerics much either, and it’s interesting to see Lincoln may be ditching them, but at least de Nysschen’s system makes logical sense. Q for cars, QX for crossovers and trucks. CT for cars, XT for crossovers and trucks. The higher the number, the higher the position. Makes perfect sense.
Do the naming schemes make more sense? Sure, if you sit down for a few minutes and try to determine the overall hierarchy. But why do a brand’s model names even need to have a hierarchical structure?
Buyers know what a CTS is, and the name is going to coexist with the upcoming CT6 until the next redesign. That’s really confusing. And what’s the CTS replacement going to be called? CT4? Who knows. All you do know is that your CTS is going to be worth less because the nameplate is dead. I don’t know about you, but that’s enough to make me go looking at other luxury brands with better more stability.
It’s even more laughable that Nissan pulled the same stunt with Infiniti when they never fully recovered in the U.S. or Europe after dropping the Datsun name for no reason other than pure ego. And why “Q” for everything? I could understand “I” Infiniti or “G” because it’s their most recognized model. But “Q” as in Q45 that was a complete flop from the start? Please.
I suspect it was a case of Q being chosen because nobody else was using it.
nlpnt: Audi is using Q. Q5 & Q7 for their SUVs…
Infiniti uses QX, too….
Infinity going to Q honestly confused me way more than Lincoln’s move to the MK_ names, which I find more stupid than confusing. The G35/37 were probably the most successful, widely appealing and well known Infinities ever built, and they went and ditched all that equity on a different letter referencing their least successful least appealing and obscure footnote cars (even if it is the intended flagship). It doesn’t help now that I can barely tell one Infinity model apart from the other now unless the cars are side by side, so I’m completely lost in their lineup.
I was actually unaware Cadillac was changing their naming scheme, I didn’t like their move to alphanumerics to start but changing now seems like a very questionable choice.
I’ve always felt that GM’s attitude towards small cars, particularly small Chevys has been “Well, that should hold us over for a few years. When we replace it, we’ll rename it so people don’t associate everything negative about its predecessor with the new model”.
Sorta like how the Russians renamed their secret police many times: Cheka, NKGB, MGB, KGB, post-☭ FSK and FSB.
I think GM never bothers making the small cars too good. Good enough is enough as they have more important cars to worry about ( full size sedans, trucks or so )
Suburbans and Corvettes are among GM’s most focused products. Cutlass used to be, and it was a top seller until it lost its way in the marketplace. For a time, though, Oldsmoble stuck the name on just about everything (Supreme, Ciera, Calais) smaller than an 88, and that name went back to 1949. The 98 was introduced in 1940.
GM didn’t come up with a new name for a car unless it was entering a previously untouched market segment, like the 1960 compacts or the 1964 intermediates. And then change was evolutionary, like Chevelle becoming Malibu because everyone bought that trim level, or F-85 into Cutlass or Tempest into LeMans.
In Europe, Opels have had fairly consistent nomenclature. Five generations of Kadetts A-E until it was renamed the Astra to match with its right-hand-drive Vauxhall sibling in 1993. And there is still an Astra in the product line today. So two names in 50-plus years.
Commodore has been a mainstay for Holden for 35 years now. Statesman and Caprice even longer. Ford’s Aussie Falcon has experienced model growth like the Accord, but that name has been a staple since 1960.
Cadillac hasn’t made a Sedan de Ville in decades but everyone knows what it is. Can’t say the same for a DTS or XTS.
Same goes for Lincoln; their alphabet-soup means nothing to me now. At least Mercedes & BMW have (or had) reasonably rational nomenclature.
Re Alphabet-soup names: if you made a typo, would anybody notice?
Lincoln’s current system makes the least sense. And you try and Google “Lincoln MKS” and most of the results are MKZ because even Google doesn’t understand it…
That IS bad!
I don’t know how true it is, but I once read that Toyota (and I guess the other Japanese car companies?) keep the same folks on any one car for nearly the whole time they are employed. Their goal, whatever car they work on, is continuous improvement.
By contrast, employees at American car companies strive to move themselves ever upward. Start as a designer for the Chevette and aspire to some day work on the Corvette. In the meantime, EVERYONE at the company puts the car AFTER their careers, not realizing the car should come first or there is no career.
The Corvette had Zora Arkus-Duntov to get it established. If GM’s small cars (and intermediate cars) had the same kind of focus from the beginning, we might still be driving Novas….and maybe even Vegas.
It wouldn’t surprise me. In addition, our companies often falsely assume talented engineers are good management material as well (see Peter Principle). Anyway, Americans are a restless people, always on the lookout for a better deal elsewhere, & change jobs frequently. Maybe this explains our divorce rate too.
I heard Honda rookies start out in the motorcycle division & if they’re good, get promoted to the car division. BTW, Consumer Reports found Japanese bikes more reliable than Western makes. Victory is the best of the latter. However, many faults could be mended DIY.
Worse, some companies are prone to laying off talented engineers, designers, artists specifically because they aren’t also great managers or aren’t sufficiently ambitious. Even if those folks don’t actually get canned, they end up marginalized because corporate compensation scales are based primarily on hierarchical position rather than experience or skill. We’re so used to that that we rarely consider how counterintuitive it is.
Some people are not cut out to be managers and some people don’t want to be, and there shouldn’t be anything wrong with that — there are few things more uniquely dysfunctional than a team where everybody thinks they should be in charge or a department where everyone is trying to finagle every project to advance their own career ambitions at the expense of everyone else. I think most of us recognize that from experience, just as every senior noncom in the military knows the pain of having to take orders from even the most wet-behind-the-ears commissioned officer, but nobody questions the way things are.
Absolutely correct. I spent 14 years in corporate finance and was told to downgrade my employees that were not advancing. Not everybody can be a manager, and not everybody wants to be – that would seem to be a perfect situation, but Captain Obvious has never been named Admiral, thus corporate America has no clue.
I don’t think it’s cluelessness so much as a deep-seated, ongoing determination to rationalize the huge disparity in salaries between senior executives and the individual contributors who do much of the real work. Prioritizing ambition over talent or experience supports the idea that senior management deserve to be paid more than the people they lead.
That idea is accepted as sacred writ in the corporate world at this point, but it really doesn’t bear close analysis — in a collaborative environment, individual ambition is usually independent of and sometimes actively detrimental to organizational success or even organizational health.
Ate Up With Motor
+10
Ha! I’m living proof of that, ISTJ personality type Engineers do NOT want to be managers.
Gimme something interesting to work on that I can do a good job with…
There is tremendous disparity in ability & productivity that corporate pay scales don’t account for. I worked with one guy who is probably a nationwide expert in his field (losing me in about 10s of conversation), able to do everything from soldering to really thorny mathematical equations. If I were in charge, I’d pay him executive salary, for he’s incredibly valuable to the company.
Money and titles are not what motivates creative technical nerds. Enough money for a comfortable life, yes, but not executive excess. A feeling of at least some control, within the confines of a large corporation, not being constantly called to useless meetings, etc. are what motivates.
I was a techie in a large aerospace company for 33 years. Refused any promotions into management because I saw what that did to those that accepted and to the organization in general. Early retirement came when the job evolved into program management instead of actual engineering. The security of paid health care, pension and 401k were motivations to stay with a large company, but I found it difficult to recruit smart kids from the USA to work for us.
That was certainly the case with Nissan – the Fairlady, Skyline and Laurel are three examples I can think of where many of the same people worked on successive generations.
Howard, you are a smart guy. Every GM product manager establish an exit strategy before they even step into their offices.
Does the Corvette really count as continuous since a year was skipped at least once (1983)?
Every thread has a wise-ass. 🙂
I am merely pointing out a fact. As a lawyer, I’m confident you can argue it both ways 🙂
Not really, Mr. Lawyer, because, if my memory is correct, you can take a trip down to Bowling Green where you can see the one (count ’em, one) 1983 C4 Corvette ever made. VINned and titled as such. Granted, nobody was ever allowed to buy this car and it was immediately planted in the museum, but I believe by your opening statement that you were talking production, not sales.
(Do we really have to put up with lawyers? I’m very much in favor of a no bag limit open season.)
I would say yes, because the entire car skipped a model year.
Most of us didn’t notice, as the 1984 Corvette was officially introduced in early 1983, if I recall correctly. Also note that GM didn’t introduce a Chevrolet sports car for the 1983 model year and give it a completely different name.
If there was still product in the showroom to be purchased new, does it really matter what year it was called?
This would be my argument. It’s like a person born on February 29: They may have technically had only one-fourth the usual number of birthdays, but nobody is seriously going to argue that they’re only 25% of their actual age!
Not at all IMHO. Calling models by a model year seems to be a largely American construct – presumably part of marketing folks’ love of planned obsolescence. What better way to fast-forward planned obsolescence than by defining models by a year rather than a code, as is used throughout most of the rest of the world.
Initially the idea behind the model year was to promote obsolesence however it is now federally mandated due to safety, emissions and CAFE regulations. The gov’t actually has a definition of when a car can be built and what model year it can be called.
International Harvester did not have offiical model years until the federal govt mandated it. The had series and changed to a new series when they refreshed or did a new vehicle. So you had L, R, S before they restarted with A, B, C and then they messed around with moving the letter after the model and other things until the gov’t defined a model year. Previously the rules required cars made after Jan 1st of a given year had to meet the new standards. That led to a few cases where the consumer might think they were getting a car that met the latest standards because of the model year while in fact it was made before Jan 1st so the mfg used up stock or weren’t ready to make the change. The gov’t then required a vehicle that is sold as a particular model year to meet that model year’s standards. IH went so far as to say in their advertising that they hadn’t had a model year but due to regulations they were joining the crowd. In the case of the pre 70’s IHs the dealer typically put the year it was sold on the bill of sale and that is what showed up on the registration and title. On the IH forums we have ocassionally seen vehicles titled with a year 2 years after the new model had been introduced and the actual vehicle in question had been produced. The vehicles simply sat on the dealer’s lot for a long time before they were sold.
The key thing in model year designation is still Jan 1st in that a model year production run can only include 1 Jan 1st in its midst. That is why the 97 F150 was able to start production of models that would be sold to the public Jan 2nd 1996. It is also why there were a number of cases where a mfg ran production until or near Dec 31st even though they typically did the change over in the Aug or Sep time period.
Very interesting, I didn’t know the full details. Thanks Eric, much appreciated!
Eric is right about that. I remember learning about that when the Dodge/Plymouth Neon first came out. They started production around Jan 2 1994. They were the first 1995 models available, well in advance of the typical September start of the new model years arriving.
Packard for years didn’t use model years,instead they would,for example go from “Twenty first Series” to “Twenty second” series and the only time a year showed up was on registration. With that precident, the Corvette HAS been continuous.
There actually is one 1983 Corvette, so yes, it does count.
GM must have a department (marketing?) and a bunch of advertising agencies dedicated in creating new names. Needless to say, every name came with focus group, field studies, polls, etc. etc.
Umm, I was wrong, not “a” department, but a bunch of brand specific marketing departments then a GM group marketing dept, plus that bunch of ad agencies.
Not easy to create hundred over names, ya know.
“You should hear what they’re saying about the Vega” yeah nice things before purchase 6 months down the track, not so much. Yet nice things can be said about the Corolla even , it was a good car, even the rally prepped one an ex GF had was a good reliable car, it was also a ball to drive way too fast on backroads stiffened suspension 5k with weber twin choke headers ported head balanced bottiom end it went really well discs had been fitted up front and a roll hoop in case it all went pear shaped great little car and that was in the 90s, 20+ years after Toyota built it,
Doing it well the first time round or learning from customer feedback was how the Japanese learned how to build cars.
GM knew it all or so they though, howd that work out for them?
Well as much as I agree with this article, I really hope Cruze doesn’t stick around forever it’s spelled wrong for God’s sake!
Maybe it’s Spanish for “cross.” As in, “This Chevy is my cruze to bear.”☺
Holden used the Cruze name before Chevy did, on a little badge-engineered Suzuki SUV-let – so GM already had the copyright on the name. The spelling annoyed me back then, and it still does.
Ol Pete here in Aotearoa those little Suzukis wear Chevrolet badges and Cruz, Holden as usual just removed and replaced the Chev Bowtie
Toward the end they’d stick a Holden badge on anything that stood still long enough: “Maybe THIS one will sell…..”
Correctly spelled common English words are much harder to trademark than invented spellings.
Plus the odds of having a made-up spelling or name backfire on you is somewhat less.
For the guys that think Buick is a pile of poo….keep in mind the guys at GM are building and aiming this at the Chinese…the U.S. is getting the “excess”.
BTW, I agree with all the disparaging remarks made about the brand and it’s marketing.
The U.S. us taxpayer bailed their asses out, we deserve better product than the crumbs.
The Buicks in US market is better made than those Chinese versions. I never see a Chinese Buick Regal coming half as luxurious as the one I drive regularly in Michigan ( but that one is loaded though )
I wonder if a new Vega or Monza might not be such a bad idea. Well, Monza anyway. I think the Vega is such a universally recognized disaster (quality-wise, albeit it was a nice looking little car, and popular in its day until they all imploded). The Monza was a generally capable and benignly attractive little car in all of its iterations. As a (ahem..late) 40-something I can fondly recall nearly 75% of the teenage girls in my high school and college years tooling around happily in cute little used Monza’s and Sunbirds. They served their intended purpose, lasted the requisite 100,000 miles before transmission or carburator problems killeds them off, and are likely remembered fondly. Some of the GM nameplates should have been retired even before they were, but this is one that I can’t wrap my head around. I’m still confused over the Cavalier and J-2000 not being called Monza and Sunbird. (Although Pontiac did eventually resurrect the Sunbird name briefly, then inexplicably transition to the Sunfire. Color me confused.)
IIRC when Collectible Automobile did an article on the Vega, they called it “Chevy’s Edsel”, and put that on the cover!
To be perfectly honest, the only U.S.-market nameplate debasements that I would rank among GM’s “deadly sins” are Cutlass and Bel Air. (If I really thought about it, I could probably come up with a few others, but those are the only ones that come readily to mind.)
“Bel Air” was a good name with a nice ring to it and has upscale connotations even now. In that light, I think that its descent from top-of-the-line model to lowly fleet special was regrettable. From a merchandising standpoint, I certainly understand the rationale of introducing fancier trim levels above the Bel Air, but good trade names aren’t necessarily an unlimited resource. “Caprice” may have been a fancier model, but it’s just not as catchy a name.
The “Cutlass” name I think was a more egregious example simply because of the way its over-extension epitomized some bigger issues. Oldsmobile clung to the Cutlass name and slapped it on everything in sight in what I assume was a desperate attempt to snare new customers while hanging onto older ones, ultimately doing neither. It was representative of a contingent of people at GM in the ’80s and ’90s who really legitimately believed that the divisions didn’t really need distinctive looks or engineering and that it was possible to sell the same ingredients to five or six distinct sets of customers (and at four or five distinct price points) by simply applying the right marketing spin and “cues.”
For the most part, I don’t think model names make as much difference as is sometimes assumed. True, I’m not a fan of really confusing alphanumeric nomenclature, and I don’t think it’s wise to shuffle the names or nomenclature of existing models. (If I had bought the car under the original name, I would resent the name change for its potential impact on resale values and parts availability, and if I hadn’t bought the car under one name, I doubt I’d be any more likely to buy it with a different label.) However, I think successful names have longevity because they’re successful rather than the reverse.
Considered purely in isolation, with no other automotive context, I would say (for example) that “Cavalier” is a better name than “Corolla.” The word “cavalier” has a sort of swashbuckle-y, adventuresome ring to it while the word “corolla” is familiar mainly to botanists, gardeners, and maybe nature photographers. The fact that the latter has been the more successful model name has a lot less to do with the strengths of the names than with the products and how successfully they’ve met buyer expectations.
It’s always easier to demote a model than to promote it, and if a name has become associated with a generation of blah fleet specials or conceptual misfires, about all you can do is stick it on the shelf until enough time has gone by that you have a shot of making buyers think of past glories rather than latter-day disappointments.
I feel like the Caprice/Impala/Bel Air name debasement issue is a mere symptom, the real problem was the failure to unify all full-size Chevys under a single nameplate until well into the mid-80s, treating different trim levels of the same car as distinct models. Or sort-of, since they issued a single brochure for them in most years…
I do think it was symptomatic of an idea that would always be more good names. Admittedly, that has gotten a lot more complicated. My understanding is that back in the ’50s and ’60s, model name reservation and priority was handled principally through the AMA, so divisional marketing people and ad agencies could make up a list of names, send somebody over to the AMA, and see what was and wasn’t free — still potentially challenging, but not like trying to find an unused trade name in a global economy.
Well, previous to the 70’s all ‘standard size’ cars were considered the Make Name with numerous trim levels.
“New Chevrolet for 1958!” In DelRay, Biscayne, BelAir, and new Impala trim!”
Pride prevented the makers from narrowing their big cars to one name. Evan as late as ’77, Chevy was marketing the B body as “The New Chevrolet!”, being that the big cars deserved the whole make name still.
Trim level debasement still exists, it just runs in the background behind one model name per platform/body. Granted, it runs at roughly the same pace as feature creep so that the biggest trim difference between a maxed-out top-of-the-line 1990s LX and a “Prices Starting At” special 2017 LX is that the latter has cheaper-feeling upholstery.
I would say (for example) that “Cavalier” is a better name than “Corolla.”
Are you sure about that? GM should have passed some dictionaries around then, because although they were likely aiming for Cavalier the noun, they ended up creating Cavalier the adjective ?
There is that, but as potential negative associations go, it’s no worse than “caprice.”
In the late ’80s, Car and Driver’s annual buyers guide pointed out that the Caprice was bought and driven by some of the least capricious demographics.
Bel Air certainly ranks as the biggest loss of great names Chevrolet had, even as a kid having no clue Bel Air was some place in California it was a cool sounding and fun car name to say, much more so than Caprice or even Impala frankly. The fact that it was relegated to the dowdiest of the B-Bodies by the end was a sin within this deadly sin as far as I’m concerned.
I agree with your comment about Bel Airs, though I was always partial to the “Biscayne” badging of the lower end Chevy’s .
I would disagree, I’m sure the public perception would be of GM burying unsuccessful small cars and hoping the new name brings a new perception for the new model.
Familiarity and brand equity on the other hand are very valuable, Alan Mullally’s insistence on the return of the Taurus name is an example. Locally Toyota won the argument against changing the Corolla hatch name to Auris as per Europe, Nissan had a large sales drop when they replaced the Pulsar with the Tiida, and it took Ford a long time to build awareness of the Focus after it replaced the former class-leading Laser.
That’s true and I’m not saying that there aren’t mistakes or misjudgments. However, companies don’t generally shelve names for no reason: In the case of the Focus, for example, my impression was that Ford was originally going to call it Escort, but decided the Escort name had been weakened by the poor critical reputation of the European Mk5 and the fact that the North American car had spent quite a few years relegated to bargain bin status.
Admittedly, one could make a strong argument that it isn’t always wise to try to enforce common names in different markets. It’s easy to understand why Ford would want to consolidate the Laser and the North American and European Escorts into a single design, but there wasn’t necessarily any reason they couldn’t simply have badged the Australian/NZ Focus “Laser.”
Well, the fact they were going from a rebadged Mazda to a Euro-tinged global design maybe meant it was as good a time as any for a clean break.
They’ve since done One Ford/two names with the Escape/Kuga and Fusion/Mondeo.
Ironically, in NZ in 1997 the slow-selling KJ/KL Laser was replaced by the slower-selling Mk6 Escort (with an “It’s back” ad campaign), which in turn was replaced in 1999 by the KN Laser (with another “It’s ba-ack” campaign) which kinda fizzled out until the Focus arrived in ’03ish. The KJ/KL had lost the pizzazz that earlier Lasers had, and the image gone from fun to frumpy. The KJ had a bit more pizzazz, but the name had limited cachet by then, so changing to Focus was a good marketing move.
Learn something new every day! I didn’t realize the FWD Escort was launched in NZ. What an odd decision! I guess that lines up with the 92-vintage Astra being launched so late in ITS model cycle. Wait, did that Astra reach your shores?
I didn’t know that either — thanks!
I think Ford launched the Mk6 Escort as the Laser was tanking, and they were hoping to cash in on the huge regard felt (even today) here for the hugely popular MkI and II Escorts. In earlier years they’d done similar – they replaced the Sierra with the Telstar in 1988, but brought the Sierra back to great acclaim in 1990. We got the Mk6 Escort in sedan, 3+5 door hatch and wagon forms, with petrol or diesel engines. My cousin replaced her KE Laser hatch with a Mk6 Escort diesel hatch – she loved the Laser and hated the Escort with a passion!
We got the Opel Astra (Kadett E) in 1985/6 as a niche 3-door, and then the Opel Astra F from 1993 onwards as a volume model to go with the Opel Vectra A which was launched in NZ in 1989. All our Opels were RHD, so were presumably Vauxhalls with the Opel grille and badging. Both the Astra and Vectra switched to Holden-badging in 1995 when Holden Australia finally followed Holden NZ’s lead and launched the cars (Holden NZ wasn’t as fussed about using the Holden badge on everything, they were happy to sell the Opel badged cars).
The Opel brand was used in NZ? I mean I had heard about the Opel Kadett being sold as the Pontiac LeMans, and about GM NZ being less concerned about everything being Holden-badged, but wow, that surprises me! I would love to hear more about the quirky product strategies of NZ!
Yeah my BIL was pedaling a Escort wagon as a company car for John Andrews in 2000 good handling but a crap car, he hated it, NZs vehicle market has never mirrored OZ we got brands here that OZ has never heard of or had long forgotten due to them being withdrawn to lessen in house competition to the local Falcon/Holden brands.
Ford were also starting their alliteration phase too, which must have been a strong argument for the Focus name. In line with the other markets, the Laser went off the boil in the 90s especially after local production finished in 94 or 95.
It gets back to the point of this article though, do you try to rehabilitate the old name or start a new one? I expect there is more than one right (or wrong) answer. Cue the marketing department research on nameplate loyalty etc…
But Ford Oz did have name alliteration! Laser Lynx, Laser Liata…… 🙂
The problem is that it is easy to destroy brand equity which is what the oval Taurus did for that name. The hasty restyle did nothing to change its fate even though it improved the looks of the car considerably. The looks of the ovoid Taurus really did turn people off. Last weekend I went to the local county auction where they dispose of the fleet cars. The fish mouth cars that were up for sale had less miles across the board than the 2000 and up cars from the same fleet. I can only guess that in pool service the people would take the ovals only if it was the only vehicle available hence the reason they aged out of the fleet with 16 or 17 years and only 45-70K while the 00-05 vehicles miled out at 100-120K on the clock. The 45K car was a 3 seat wagon and it did go for big money $4700.
In a kind of parallel, Nissan NZ and Nissan Australia dropped the long-standing Pulsar nameplate when the C11 Tiida arrived. Car magazines noted at the time that the change was enforced by Nissan Japan, much to the dismay of Nissan NZ and Oz. The Tiida didn’t do as well as the Pulsar – the target purchasers didn’t understand where it fitted in the market. So when the C12 rocked up, it reverted to the Pulsar nameplate here and Oz (and Thailand), released a ‘SSS’ variant (another traditional Nissan nameplate) and is selling ok again.
The Tiida was a horrible car to drive which may have effected sales I hired one uncomfortable and gutless with awful road manners it might not have only been the name that made it unpopular.
It really made you wonder why they bothered to compete in that market segment at all. For all the new Nissan cars I see on the road in my little corner of Oz, they might as well do a Mitsubishi and concentrate on SUVs.
It had a good side effect- the Tiida was a horrible little car to drive, while the Pulsar had a generally good reputation. Nissan could bury its mistake by simply bringing back the Pulsar name!
Well, there is one C-word that GM hasn’t tried as a nameplate — yet.
Actually, two. One feminine and one masculine, so no matter the car, they’re covered.
VW may replace Toyota and become the King of all auto manufacturers in a few years. Just when GM has been eliminating established brands to save cost (???). VW has an every growing brands. It looks like having multiple brands to serve different niche may not hurt profitability.
VW: VW, Audi, Porsche, Lamborghini, Bentley, Bugatti, Skota, SEAT, Ducati, Scania and Man. But them Ducati are bikes, Scania & Man are trucks. Seat U& Skota region specific. So for global cars:
VW – low or everyday cars.
Audi – mid or above VW, with sports image.
Bentley – High end.
Porsche – Sports.
Lambo – Super sports.
In case of GM,
Chev – VW
Caddy – Audi
Buick – trying to live between Chev and Caddy.
Corvette – Porsche.
GM’s range isn’t as complete as VW’s
If Corvette kinda equals Porsche, look out for the new Corvette SUV! 😉
Don’t forget this Rambo Lambo ! Cult !
Lamborghini still builds farm tractors, BTW. Not belonging to the VAG-Group though.
I don’t know, VW is starting to remind me of G,M, circa 1977. Quality is becoming an issue, they have possibly the highest number of employees per vehicle manufactured of any automaker world-wide, lots of overlap between divisions, and the genius just left the building. And they and want bring the Phaeton back?
“VW may replace Toyota and become the King of all auto manufacturers in a few years…”
Maybe they would have, maybe not; but they became far too arrogant…and dishonest. At this point they don’t deserve anybody’s money. For their outright deceptive diesel shenanigans I’d have liked to see them banned from the US market for a while, though their “too big to fail” situation is reminiscent of GM’s “status.”
Cruze is a cringeworthy name for a car. It was bad enough when Holden first used it in 2002-04 to sell their now forgotten badge engineered version of the Suzuki Ingis, same ‘2-kool’ misspelling and all. I was actually shocked to see that name make a comeback so quickly.
GM does still have quite a few credible names left in it’s current fleet. I’m glad that Malibu and Impala have stayed with us, and I’m almost certain that Silverado and Sierra will forever be immortal.
The biggest disappointment came when the beloved Chevrolet nameplate was used for the international market to peddle what GM had acquired from Daewoo’s operations. It really threatened to cheapen the brand’s image, which is still highly regarded in some markets. (A strange Australian subculture exists where Commodore drivers swap Holden badges for Chevy ones.)
Now I’m just hoping that the alphanumerics disease doesn’t spread from Cadillac down to the other divisions, but in an increasingly globalising market it seems all too likely.
Chev bowties adorn many Holdens in NZ too it stemmed from people installing Chevrolet engines into their Holdens and dispensing with the weaker 308s from over the ditch, but we also have Commodores here wearing full Chevrolet badging as Luminas actual Aussie built export Chevs and that harks back to the HQ Chev Statemans will full Chev powertrains sold here in times of yore
The NZ car market sure is confusing, and very interesting. I haven’t seen such a strange variety of cars as when I was in Auckland.
I do know that the whole bowtie swap thing has been going for a while. Probably starting at some point in the late 70’s to early 80’s, as evident from some old Street Machine magazines I found from the 80’s. Now people put the badges on stock standard V6 cars. It made more sense to do so when the old kingswood’s 253 or 308 got chucked for a 350 swap.
Seven years after that article first appeared and the Corolla marches on. Boring, yes, but still performing its sales mission as basic transportation in first world markets. The Cruze is also still around, but I just heard a radio ad for special sales incentives on GM cars that have been sitting around too long. The Cruze was featured.
All indications are that the next-generation car is a year or so away, tops, and will still be called Cruze.
Corolla endures because everyone knows what it is, and Toyota is satisfied in delivering it.
The sheer ubiquitousness of high-volume mainstream cars often results in the names taking on negative connotations such as dullness. That’s why Ford dumped the Escort name in favor of Focus. The Escort name had a good racing pedigree and the cars remained top sellers to the end. But Ford had made a radical departure from the evolutionary, bland Escort so a change was thought to be needed.
No one would mistake a Focus for an Escort even though the two cars competed in the same market segment.
Ford almost ruined that name by not building the Mk2 Focus for North America, instead warming over the MkI with uninspiring results.
The 2008 Focus, while not hip or all new, was reliable, and was badly needed for $5 gallon gas and recession. Only car purists get bent out of shape, but mainstream compact car buyers were satisfied. No major recalls or break downs. For years, US makes were critiqued for bad quality, then when they get it, it’s ‘the car is too old’. ?
Sure, new Focus is out, but not without teething pains.
Biggest misstep Ford made with the ’08 Focus was dropping the hatchbacks and bringing out a coupe (2-door sedan, really) which even fewer people bought than the Escort ZX2.
My prediction is the next Ford exec who suggests a small, cheap FWD coupe on an aging platform will be strung upside-down from the roof of the Glass House.
My Mom got an 09 sedan and it’s by far her favorite car since her MK1 Rabbit. As an enthusiast myself I definitely wasn’t impressed when they came out in 2008, in fact the styling reminded me of an updated Tempo, especially the 2 door. But when she had enough of the POS Nissan Quest and got the Focus she instantly loved it and that’s what matters, plus it’s put together well, been incredibly reliable and is surprisingly fun to drive considering every blogger instantly called them “outdated”. She bought it in 2011 when the current generation was released and intended to get the new one but the automatic transmission’s irritating behavior sent her right to a lightly used last generation.
The 2008 Focus was universally panned in the press because the Brits got version 2.0 while the Americans had to settle for 1.5.
And once version 3.0 came out on both sides of the pond, suddenly the American 1.5 was a really good car as a used car.
That’s what I loathe about the automobile press: It’s not the quality of the product, its how it lives up to some writer’s, who probably doesn’t own a car, expectations and preconceptions.
I’ve built my career in Marketing, and I’ve lived the good, the bad and the ugly of this vocation. Without a doubt, naming is one of the most challenging and most misunderstood aspects of branding. No name, no matter how good, can make a subpar product do well, though bad names can definitely hurt. Without getting too far into the weeds, a core concept of strong brands is the “master brand.” A great example is Apple, where the product names evolve (some change, some stay) but the elements that the company offers to consumers (the “brand promise” to use the the jargon) stay remarkably consistent.
Car companies have a hit or miss track record with this art. I’d argue that in its heyday, GM was the king of building phenomenal automotive brand equity (though they wouldn’t have thought of it quite like that). Each of their divisions was a master brand, and each was powerful and pretty clearly positioned. Some, like Cadillac, became true international symbols (sometimes in a good way, sometimes not, but never forgettable). Occasionally, model brands like Corvette could also rise to this status, though the inherent danger occurs when that model brand overshadows or doesn’t relate to the divisional parent brand.
In my opinion, GM’s low point in branding came when John Smale was on their Board of Directors in the 1980s and 1990s. He was the CEO of Proctor & Gamble, a leading consumer packaged good company and the makers of Crest toothpaste, Tide laundry detergent, Ivory soap, etc., etc., etc. During its heyday, P&G made plenty of money by using gimmicks and branding to differentiate nearly identical products (detergent is detergent, but P&G charged more for Cheer than Tide and advertised it differently). Smale forced this line of thinking on GM, a radically different company in a radically different industry, and the results were embarrassingly bad.
Under the P&G brand management mantra that infected GM in the 1990s, the makes themselves were no longer considered brands. Instead, each and every model nameplate became a “brand” and was then painstakingly (and ridiculously) targeted to “different” buyers. A dreadful example was the fact the the Buick Century and Buick Regal, both W-body cars with the most minor trim variations, were treated as separate “brands.” I guarantee that there were endless decks and presentations describing Regal buyers as “sassy and sophisticated” while Century buyers were “stylish and smart” or some such drivel. Meanwhile, the cars were mediocre, the dealers had no idea what was going on, and Buick “master brand” continued to sink into oblivion. All in all, a dismal era showcasing just how desperate GM was to regain their foothold without even understanding what made them great, at least from a marketing standpoint, in the first place.
So many wise and well-considered comments, I can’t add anything new, except to express my disdain of the Buick ad campaign. So stupid it makes me angry! At least “Not your Father’s Oldsmobile” had a real catchy tune to go with a really dumb idea!
I think that the desperation suggested by the different names has its origin, in the compact cars, with grave uncertainty about the right car to build. You start out with the overlap between the Corvair and the Chevy II-Nova, then you perceive a need to build a car smaller than a Nova. Perhaps misapprehending the lesson of the Corvair Monza, and the Mustang, you make the Vega-Astre sporty in appearance, then you go all-in on sporty and call this the Monza after adding the Chevette. You decide the Nova should be FWD and so you call it Citation, and you keep the Chevette RWD, long after the FWD Kadett is a VW Golf competitor, and add the J-body. Eventually, you add a bunch of captive imports and the NUMMI cars.
Everybody in the US knows what the imported small cars are: Corolla (a little out of date, low maintenance); Civic (best resale, needs revs); Sentra (ugliest); Golf/Jetta (has torque and evil dealer network). GM hasn’t had that since the Nova–unless you count, often having a car that is cheaper than anybody else’s.
Audi changed all their model names–basically twice–after the sudden acceleration hoax. Eventually, they have reached a place of stability and good will in the market, building an expanded range including the very models they had in the early 80s. Now we’ll see if GM’s US passenger car business can be rebuilt, most likely in the way Audi has done it if any way at all.
FWIW, import makers resort to name changes too, for the sake of freshness. [Only naming non-lux brands]
Toyota did rename the Corona to Camry, and moved the Celica to Scion as the xC. Avalon took place of Cressida.
Also, we all know about Datsun to Nissan, but remember the Stanza? Renaming it Altima was a success.
Honda replaced CR-X with Civic del Sol, but they are mostly consistant.
Hyundai and Kia, they are nearly like GM in changes. Remember the Kia Sephia? Or Hyundai Veracruz?
But even VW, went from Rabbit to Golf, then back to Rabbit in 2007, and back to Golf again.
Mazda dropped Protege for ‘3’ and the 626 got dumped for ‘6’.
Volkswagen Golf with a trunk: Jetta -> Vento -> Bora -> Jetta.
In North America it has always been the Jetta.
Non-U.S. automakers do change model names periodically for the same reasons Detroit does, but some of the examples you’re describing are something else.
For example, it could reasonably be said that the Toyota Camry took the place of the Corona and the Avalon took the place of the Cressida in the U.S. market. However, the names were not changed. Subsequent generations of the Corona continued to be sold in other markets until about 2000. The Mark II (as the Cressida was called in most non-U.S. markets) is still around, although Toyota did eventually rename it the Mark X. The Camry and Avalon were separate products, which in some markets were available concurrently with the still-extant Corona/Carina and Mark II/Chaser/Cresta. The latter-day Mark II (by way of example) is definitely not the same as the Avalon — the Mark II/Mark X is a RWD car with double wishbone suspensions (and until 2005, inline six-cylinder engines), mechanically related to the Lexus GS, not the FWD Avalon.
The del Sol, interestingly, WAS sold as a CRX in other markets, although it was usually “CRX [or CR-X] del Sol.” And the Golf has never stopped being called a Golf in most non-U.S. markets.
I’m definitely not going to say non-U.S. automakers’ naming strategies aren’t confusing or chaotic. For instance, the U.S. Stanza (and the Altima that succeeded it) were called Bluebird elsewhere; there had been a completely unrelated smaller Stanza, and after the Bluebird line expired, Nissan applied the name to a facelifted version of the Sunny/Sentra called Bluebird Slyphy, I assume to hang onto the name. The JDM Corolla, meanwhile, is a different and smaller car than the one we get; Perry Shoar believes it’s essentially our Yaris four-door sedan, which would make sense.
People complain that cars don’t have good names now, only alpha numeric titles. Maybe it’s because GM used them all up on their small cars!
Isn’t ‘Suburban” the longest running nameplate? I know it’s a truck but still
The Suburban nameplate was introduced in 1935 so that makes it a lot older than the Corvette.
I think gm should sell buick and them bring back pontiac to the dealers.
The Cruz badge has been around for much longer than you think I found this curbside for sale a while back in all its bowtie glory an ex JDM used import
But in its cheapness Chevrolet only badge the back,my phone pics arent very good but under the blurryness lurks a early 00s Suzuki Swift we have them in original badginng too a friends mother has one, far better car than the current Swift.
On the other hand, the Holden version in Oz has the teeniest, tiniest lion badge I think I’ve ever seen, squeezed in between the rear window and the tailgate lock.
I mourned the passing of all the great GM names: LeSabre & Roadmaster, Eighty-eight & Ninety-eight, Bonneville & Parisienne, and the Sedan de Ville and Seville.
This alpha-numeric crap does nothing for me.
“…all-important compact car market…”
At this point, with trucks dominating the market, does it matter anymore? All the “deadly sins” were mainly smaller cars, but all the hand wringing about “why cant Detroit make good small cars” is all for naught, with ‘small car experts’ like Toyota pushing bigger vehicles.
What kept GM from dying off was good truck products, and with some business analysts [see today’s Detroit News feature on Subaru’s 3 row SUV] saying “the future is all trucks”, why beat a dead horse like the Vega? Buyers today couldn’t care less.
I may not like the way car market is, but it’s reality. Manual trans enthusiast rides are dying off, literally. Pontiac would have to offer CUV’s to make any money, like Buick now.
My point is instead of rehashing GM’s deadly sins, how about discussing the present time?
I agree with a lot of this. The elephant in the room is, the D3 don’t really want to mess around with small cars. The only reason they do is for compliance reasons. You KNOW somethings wrong when its cheaper for a company to engineer, design, build and market a line of cars sold at a loss simply because its cheaper than whatever fines they’ll pay to a bunch of alphabet agencies because they aren’t meeting a regulation.
This is what beauracrats don’t ‘get’. Most have never held a real job in the private sector so they have no perspective whatsoever. Does anyone REALLY want to buy a Honda or Toyota in Chevy or Dodge form? I highly doubt it. The D3 cant be touched in terms of BOF trucks and SUVs, as well as large V8 rwd cars. Imports have for years excelled at cheap and reliable basic transportation. Even FCA has ditched the Dart and 200 for good reason. Both are good cars and are selling. But when youre capacity constrained, why build something with a 20% profit margin when you can be making 50%? Its common sense. Think of it in terms of your job. If youre offered one job that’s 40 hours a week at $18 an hour, another that’s 50 hours a week at $15 an hour and yet another that’s 40 hours a week at $30 an hour….which one will YOU choose?
What’s a “small car” these days? Cars in what Europe calls the C-segment (Civic/Golf/Focus) are pretty big these days, and while modern American D-segment cars (Accord/Camry/Fusion/Sonata) aren’t as long as full-size cars of the ’60s and ’70s, they are very substantial vehicles.
Death Watch 189? How high did that number get?
Was there any talk at all around the water cooler at TTAC of turning into a one note Charlie.
260.
The GM DW was the key to TTAC’s rapid growth and success. It was a pretty small blog until that series started. That’s how I found TTAC, and hundreds of thousands of others. So why stop what’s working so well?
Keep in mind that the GM DW series started in April of 2005. No one else was willing to make that kind of prediction that far back. It was a calculated risk that paid off handsomely.
Are you still sore/in denial about that subject?
I never denied they went through bankruptcy and I too was in favor of the bailout.
I wonder how a once a weekish “deathwatch” on a rapidly growing website would contribute to nervousness among creditors. Leading to a bailout from the creditor of last resort, the government. Remember Ford was able to come to terms with it’s creditors and avoid a bailout. Admittedly one factor out of many.
Is it really all just because you thought an Ascona /1900 would have been better than a Vega. Or that fellow at R/T was right who thought all of America’s automotive problems would be solved if everyone drove 147 inch 57hp Civics? I think there is room for disagreement on such things.
I don’t know what you’re getting at. It sounds vaguely like you’re suggesting that documenting the decline of GM somehow contributed to it. That’s very flattering, I suppose. But your perspective does not reflect the mainstream in the least.
Ford was in much better shape; they still had assets to put up as collateral for their loans. GM and Chrysler didn’t. Their balance sheets were completely beyond hope. No creditor outside of the US Govt. would have touched it with a 1000 mile pole. That’s the reason why it happened as it did.
And the GM DW was the chronicle of that happening in real time. It was all-too obvious that GM was going to go belly up. Well, at least to some of us.
Is it really all just because you thought an Ascona /1900 would have been better than a Vega.
I have no idea what exactly you’re trying to say in that sentence. But that’s hardly the first time. I typically find your logic very hard to follow; usually impossibly so. And that’s not just about this subject.
Well, I have never claimed to be in the mainstream in my views. And at most, the “deathwatch” was a minor negative factor in a major set of negative circumstances facing GM. But pointing out the contribution to the troubles is not flattery, it’s an indictment.
There is not glory in tearing down an institution. Because when success happens, it is not like there is some superior institution to take it’s place. It is just gone. And with it the life’s work of many that came before.
The failure is to be mourned and yes understood. Not celebrated and gloated over. You have built a website here that celebrates cars that would otherwise be fading from memory. That is noble work. Just my opinion, but bringing over this old snark is below you and I think you know that.
I honestly can’t recall the content of all 260 GM Death Watches, but there was a constant stream of financial news throughout the 2000s indicating GM was doomed.
When they sold GMAC, I was certain that was it for GM. Historically, they had made as much or more from loans than selling cars. And that eliminated their ability to offer crazy incentives to move the metal.
Buick was kept largely because of the Chinese market. But I think it was GM’s CEO who said “Buick buyers pay cash.” Which they very badly needed.
Shouldn’t Mustang (since 1964) be a longer lasting nameplate than Corolla? (Unless the 1974-1978 Mustang II is counted as separate nameplate)
Yeah, the Mustang nameplate is two years older than the Corolla.
I never did like the Chevy Cruze name and liked it even less as it reminds me of Ted Cruz, whom I learned to loathe during the 2016 election.
“Bolt” and “Spark” are equally silly names as it reminds me of something appropriate for a toy. Where do Chevy come up with these names?
But then I happen to own a Toyota Venza and it liked the car until someone told me that “Venza” sounds like “Benza” in Japanese, which means “toilet seat.” I thought he was kidding until I actually looked it up. No wonder Toyota discontinued the car.
However, I do own a Buick Century.
Having both Chevy Bolt and Volt will be confusing. At the same time, better for GM to own both trademarks instead of somebody else stealing their thunder (he he).
One nomenclature I’m sad to see go is Peugeot’s. Their numeric series made lots of sense and was simple (first number for the car’s position in their range – 0 – generation). But now all their core models will end in 8, while their cars for developing markets end in 1.
And on the subject of developing markets, thanks to China we are seeing some old names come back!
Except for the 408 sedan, which ends in 8 and is only for developing markets. Really the only model which uses the 1 is the 301.
And this one!
FWIW, you missed a few Saturns: SL1, SL2, SC1, SC2 (SLs were the 4-door sedans, and the SCs were the sporty coupes. Still don’t know the difference between 1s and 2s, even though my wife has a hand-me-down SL1…)
The book “The Dream Machine” by Jerry Flint (1976) devotes a few sentences to naming cars. Paraphrasing the book, Jerry said when Ford was looking to name a new car, all of its attributes were input into the computer which suggested “Bismarck”. Ford settled on “Granada”.
“You should hear what they’re saying about Vega” is hilarious! I’ve been hearing what they’ve been saying about Vega all my life. Most of it’s not printable here….
Well as much as I agree with this article, I really hope Cruze doesn’t stick around forever
I must have been holding a monkey’s paw when I made that wish in 2015, because not only did I kill off the Cruze but all GM sedans! Oops!
It isn’t about names, really.
Paul is correct.
It seems that flailing brands think they can just change a name and get a better car. There could be too many marketer/liars selling snake oil in the guise of a name change? Ever since salesmen started getting college degrees and calling themselves marketers, there has been a whole of of stupidity within Detroit, hasn’t there?
Thanks to YouTube, there’s a industrial film justifying the creation of Edsel in 1957. Knowing what we know now makes watching it painful, but listen to the same kind of garbage talk being used back then, and you’ll hear echos of that BS today. To me, it is a religion of lazy men and women who don’t like customers enough to know any. To so many business people, customers aren’t really people – just demographics and numbers.
I don’t know how Toyota and especially Honda, prevented this marketing crap from bringing them down – but I have been around long enough to witness seeing it repeatedly here in the States.
With each name change, it seems that there is an erasure of responsibility for the earlier named auto which failed. It isn’t like they have major firings, right? These Detroiters blow gaseous farts and then spray something around to rename the stink. No one takes responsibility. No one is accountable. The marketing game continues because to the players, none of it is real anyway. Right?
In government, the idiots create more bureaus to address what the idiots failed to do earlier. They just rename their failures until new failures demand another name change. GM is as incompetent as any government. There’s someone named Ford at the top of the Ford brand. They probably care if a Ford product turns out to be a giant turd. Henry II was angry seeing his father’s name ruined, mocked and slandered, because of marketing hype and incompetence, wasn’t he?
So – this isn’t about a name, a good name, or a bad one. It is about accountability, responsibility and competence. It is about exceeding expectations. It is about time these millionaires in Detroit or wherever they now live, to admit failures and do better.
What’s noteworthy here is that Toyota and Honda have done quite a bit of name-shuffling in other markets, including in the Japanese domestic market.
In Japan, Toyota has always had a blizzard of nameplates because of the way their sales networks are structured: Many models have historically had an assortment of “twins and triplets,” although so far as I know, there was rarely if ever a real sense of the models being different (unless you happened to prefer some styling or trim variation, like the way the AE86 Corolla had fixed lights and the Sprinter had the pop-ups used in the States). Some nameplates were fairly short-lived, like the Curren (notchback T200 Celica with slightly different front and rear styling), while some were gradually phased out (like Publica or Starlet).
Honda and Nissan at points tried to do the same thing, often without a lot of success. (Honda apparently took it on the chin in this regard in the nineties, compounded by some dubious domestic marketing choices.) A lot of their twins-and-triplets nameplates vanished in a generation or so.
They’ve been much more consistent in the States, which has tended to pay off for them. I think mostly it comes down to the fact that they’ve had relatively few outright bombs. Even where they’ve made missteps (as with the 2012 Civic), they’ve generally managed to course-correct at least from a product planning standpoint before too much damage has been done to the model’s reputation, or the endemic faults show up later in a model’s life. (That said, I’m honestly surprised that the issues with the Honda five-speed automatic didn’t hurt their image more than they did.)
This I think points to an interesting tradeoff: If you have an existing nameplate with a generally strong reputation, it can survive some blunders, even if customers come away with the understanding that some years or iterations are better than others. If you have a NEW nameplate, you can start fresh, but if you stumble badly, there may very well be no coming back from it because prospective customers will tend to assume the later ones are no better than the initial bad or disappointing ones.
Of course, Honda and Toyota have had some legitimate flops here as well. I doubt Toyota will build another Echo (although the original wasn’t THAT awful provided you could live with its dorky dumpling styling), for instance
I watched that Edsel presentation too, and just, wow. It’s like Ford made the decision to create a new brand, and having made that decision, then proceeded to justify its creation to try to convince dealers it was a surefire hit, citing a few new gimmicky features. “Shifting an automatic transmission with a column lever is so difficult, I wish you could do it by pressing buttons in the middle of the steering wheel”, said nobody ever. Likewise with the rotating-drum speedometer, as if pointers on a dial were hard to read. Self-adjusting brakes are nice, but they aren’t likely to sell a car. Somebody in Ford upper management should have looked at the Edsel program and stopped it in its tracks, realizing it was an answer to questions no one had asked.
That’s exactly what happened. What the company wanted, specifically, was the expansion of dealer base that adding a new brand would entail. Coincidentally (pronounced “co-inky-dentally”), the expansion of brands (including the separation of Lincoln and Mercury) also provided additional opportunities for ambitious executives to move up to VP/general manager rank.
Worse still, the Véga, which was built in Ste-Thérèse Québec between ’73-’74, was nicknamed ‘Dégat’ and its brother Pontiac ‘DésAstre’ from their birth. Meaning respectively in English: ‘damage’ & ‘disaster ‘ .
That white “Corolla”, waay up near the top or the article, is like a blue one that I used to see along Van Dorn St, in Alx VA. Recall seeing it parked on that service road up until about “1990ish”. It has a gray top, I believe.An early “60’s Rambler American” used to sit along that same block for many years.
Recall seeing it form about age 12 thru age 19/20. Was faded from sun , probably best described as tannish-rose.
Clearly the revolving door of GM names was a desperate attempt to run away from the bilious crap they kept foisting on the gullible public, especially from the ’70s onward (late ’77-79 B,C, and A body cars excepted). More recently, bringing back iconic names like Impala and Malibu was an admission of this stupid misguided policy, yet sadly, while those latter-day versions were ironically actually pretty decent inheritors of their earlier glorious ancestor’s names, it was far too late to convince many of the twice burned victims of GM’s piece of bean counter junk that yet another “come to Jesus” moment by GM would leadi to actually producing world class cars meant anything at all, even if it did… well, sometimes.
Short-lived names were even more of a problem with Chrysler IMO, which from about 1975 onward had a ridiculous number of names that didn’t live to see a second generation, and hardly any that reached a third. With the exception of the Aspen/Volare, none of them suffered from a poor reputation; rather management changes and such led to constantly vying for a new image with each new model, never allowing brand equity to build up in the manner of its Japanese or Korean competition.
Really it’s an attribute of all American manufacturers, as you said Chrysler was just as guilty, if not worse, but so was Ford(Fairlane-Torino-LTD II-Granada-LTD-Taurus-Fusion), AMC might have been the worst of them all, even changing the company name multiple times, from Nash to Rambler to AMC and finally Eagle, not to mention the array of names the Hornet/Gremlin line had.
I’ll give old GM some credit, a lot of the successive names at least came from earlier trim names, the obvious we all know being Impala, Bel air etc, but names like Calais, Somerset, Grand Am on the 80s N bodies came from trim lines on the Regal, Cutlass and LeMans. The pulled out of thin air named by committee and approved by focus groups names seemed to be more 90s-present day GM, with insipid names like Cruze or Trax