Aron9000

This guy sucks. CTS is a pretty well established car, now the new flagship is CT6. Too close IMO.

And I hate how Lincoln has MK everything. I can't keep the model letters straight for which Ford clone they represent.

As for Escalade, they wouldn't dare touch the sacred cow and change the name. That one model kept them from becoming entirely irrelevant about 10-15 years ago.

Personally I think its just flat out lazy for car companies to slap a number or letter on a car and call it a day. Benz and BMW are the only ones who can get away with it IMO, because its part of their heritage. Land Rover, Porsche, Rolls Royce, Bentley, Ferrari, Lamborghini, hell even Chevrolet, why aren't we emulating them? They all have great names for their cars, and a proud history of cool names.

Granted Cadillac made crap for so many years nobody is going to look fondly on historic nameplates like Seville, Deville, Eldorado, Sixty Special, they mucked those names up pretty good back in the 80's and with pretty but unreliable cars in the 90's.

Fizzboy7

A very poor idea. Spend a decade trying to convince America the CTS is something special, then yank it away. Empty promises once again. CT_ for most cars will confuse the public, just like Lincoln's "MK-everything" has confused everyone. The CTS line has credibility and Caddy needs all the credibility it can garner in these competitive times. This is a step back and will take years to climb out of. They should be soley focussed on building quality products that people want and can relate to.

GSCT

You pegged it! Change for change's sake IMO.

mmarshall

In general, though, I'm more concerned with the vehicle myself than what it is called. One does not drive a name...they drive a vehicle. They could call it XYZ for all I care...if I like the vehicle, I'll buy it. And look at the enormous success of the Pontiac GTO in the 60s....the forerunner of all the mid-sized performance cars of that era.

Trexus

I'm not sure about this. It will make Cadillac look inconsistent.

In the beginning:

Model A
Model S

Going way back it was:

355
70
65
62
61
60S

Back then it was:

Fleetwood
Eldorado
Sixty Special
Deville
Seville
Catera
Cimarron
Allante

Recently it is:

XTS
DTS
STS
CTS
ATS
ELR
XLR
SRX
Escalade

In the near future:

CT6
CT5
CT4
CT3
CT2
CT1
Not sure what the SUV's will be called? Most likely it could be called XT as bitkahuna mentioned...XT3, XT2 & XT1

Hoovey689

iTrader: (16)

Or maybe they adapt to modern moniker schemes every few decades?

Vladi

Cadillac City 6? Is that Detroit?

Sulu

And for those who remember, STS, CTS and DTS started as acronyms for Seville Touring Sedan, Catera Touring Sedan, and for consistency, Deville Touring Sedan.

Trexus

Imaging Johan coming over to Lexus and changing every model designation to LS:

LS 5
LS 4
LS 3.5
LS 3
LS 2
LS 1

On the SUV side:

LX 4
LX 3
LX 2
LX 1

Hoovey689

iTrader: (16)

I'd camp out in front of Toyota HQ and poke at Johan with a LFA CF hood prop until he gave up

tex2670

This worked for Audi because they changed from the confusing 80/90 100/200 names. I'm not sure why Infiniti or Caddy need this.

RNM GS3

One thing some of these companies dont get is simple stuff like BRANDING.

Look at some companies that have had great success over the Years - consistent branding and building on the Legacy of past generations.
Sclass, 3series, Mustang, 911, LS, Accord, Camry, Jetta - consumers recognize the model and have more of a following for it than the company that builds it.

Lincoln, Cadillac, Acura, Infiniti - have ZERO equity in any of their Model names now.
The average consumer cant identify them even if they were parked in front of them.
These companies are totally lost.

Hoovey689

iTrader: (16)

Funny though the ones you listed are owned by companies that do have Branding

tex2670

A little bit of irony here in Acura's model branding. They killed the Legend model name, and went to alpha numeric because the Legend name had more brand awareness than the Acura make.

T0ked

iTrader: (2)

I don't see infiniti's naming scheme to be successful at all. I'm surprised Caddy is going along with it. Ugh.