Toyota has been selling the Crown model for seventy years, so the Corolla isn’t such a big change.
We’ll probably never run out of names for new cars. Not only are there an incredibly vast number of names from different sources and different languages, but even though new car models are always being introduced, entire old lines are always being retired, so there’s a big repository of names that can be re-used by the original manufacturer of the retired lines. For example, all the names ever used for Oldsmobile, Pontiac, Plymouth, or Mercury car lines could be re-used if the names are deemed to have a suitable cachet in today’s culture.
It might actually make more sense to designate new car models with systematic letters and numbers the way Mercedes has always been doing it. More informative and less frivolous.
Yeah, I didn’t mention the Toyota Crown because it wasn’t sold in the US until recently, but that was basically my point. Pretty much all of Toyota’s mainstream sedans are named something that means “crown” in various languages.
There’s been a history of using model names for unrelated cars. E.g., the Dodge Lancer name was used for 3 different models.
Plus Mitsubishi used “Lancer” for the global name for a line of cars for many decades. Some were labelled Mirages for the US market.
Adam Savage’s Tested channel recently had an episode where Adam talked about the blowback they got from old boxy Corona fans for ruining one for their ejection seat segment. I looked it up. Somewhere in my search I saw that some other company also came out with a Corona car label but I can’t find that reference again.
I don’t think there’ll ever be a point when Ford re-uses Edsel.
Some cars have names that look like YouTube codes. The Toyota bZ4X, for instance.
Regarding the re-use of previous names, I was assuming – perhaps incorrectly – that the manufacturer of the original vehicle would have the most legal leeway to re-use the name in the future. Car names aren’t exactly copyrighted, but I think Ford would have a big problem if some other car company suddenly produced a “Mustang”, and Tesla’s Model 3 was originally supposed to be “Model E” until Ford threatened legal action, IIRC.
As long as I can name my new and utterly indifferent IPA Correct Horse Battery Staple, then my dreams of starting a goldmine of a microbrewery are intact!
My original name for my microbrew was going to be DudeBräu, although TechBräu might be more lucrative these days.
Curiously, all but one of those are small vans (and the other is a pickup)! What’s with that?!
My daughter had a friend named Sierra and her sister was named Sienna. I asked if they had a brother named Jimmy. Nobody laughed.
(OK, no, I’m not quite dumb enough to actually ask that!)
Which suggests that from now on, when some Doper sticks two to four unrelated words together in a novel / surreal form, instead of some poster coming back with “Band Name!”, we should now come back with “Microbrew beer name!”
I’m in! You?
Good one. Did they live in a town where GM / GMC had a design or manufacturing presence?
Don’t forget they made a Maverick in the 70s, too.
Sacramento is home to a bar called LowBräu.
Nope.
Thinking about it some more, the really interesting moment will not be when the only remaining words are the ones on commonly-censored lists, it will be the period just before that - where the best remaining words are still far from optimal, so we will have things like the Chevrolet Dingus, the Hyundai Awkward and the Dacia Bumbershoot.
There’s the (real) Toyota Alphard, which almost sounds like it should be banned on this board.
The menswear industry already ran out of good names. Hence LILEKS :: Institute :: The Dorcus Collection.
Toyota bZ4X
(I kid you not )
And who remembers the short lived Merkur XR4Ti?
Living proof in the marketing / product naming world that two wrongs do not make a right.