IS-SV

Sadly the makings of a death pool (Lincoln). The naming has been horrible for years, can't blame it all on the naming.

MattyG

Unfortunately many manufacturers fell into the trap of "re-branding" by letting saavy opportunists make a home in their marketing departments. And by the time they were done, we all got to see Japanese and American car companies imitating European car naming nomenclature.

My GS430 really could have been called the Aristo 43 from 98-05. Or the Celsior should have just kept its name instead of being called an LS400.

The Acura Legend renamed to RL. Why?

I can never distinguish between what a MKZ or MKC or MKS, is. And I think that has to do with the embarrassment that came from some really bad FoMoCo products on the market. But Lincoln going back to its naming roots. Not a bad thing if you want people to know what the car is.

Want a good lesson in branding? Hyundai. They never bothered with a high end division, just let the cars speak for themselves.

I know what an Accent, Sonata and Genesis are. The German car companies were niche manufacturers from Europe. Their whole appeal was the weird nomenclature.

Aron9000

^ IMO the real reason German car makers never had model names is that German is gutteral and harsh sounding language for our American ears. Also think back to the 1950's/60's, hearing somebody speak German probably reminded people of the war, Hitler, and dead Jews.

As an example its a lot easier to just use engine displacement and put an E or an I on the end of the number for models with Einspritzung(fuel injection). Or imagine calling your S-class the Sonderklasse, German for "special class"

tex2670

A person has to want to learn the naming system--which is just another hurdle Lincoln doesn't need. No one needed to learn the name "Town Car" or "Continental" back in the day. Once you force your customers to "learn" your name, you lose those that just don't care to be bothered. Only those that are interested stick with it.

pman6

design better cars and it doesn't matter what you call it.

mmarshall

Well yes, that's true. The proof is in the pudding, not the label on the box.

What happened was that both American and Japanese luxury automakers (including Lincoln, of course) became obsessed with Europeanizing not only their cars but their labels as well.....and European upmarket brands tend to use letters or numbers instead of regular names.

evident

Lexus never entered the US market with those names, however Acura really built up alot of equity in names like Legend, Integra, etc in the US and it was foolish of them to jump into the alphabet soup with them. Acura should seriously consider going back to names for some of their models like how caddy is keeping the escalade the escalade. I think lexus just keep things the way they are because now they have equity in LS, GS, etc. Always thought their JDM names were interesting though. Toyota Soarer is an awesome name.

Toys4RJill

It sure does. Cadillac has made some pretty good cars of late yet they do not sell because of prestige issues and prices that are too high, in other words, NOBODY wants to buy them.

On the other hand, Lexus with their 2005-2007 engines seems to be doing much better than Caddy. A lot has to do with the badge.

IS-SV

Lincoln moves at snails pace, look how long it took them just to fix naming nonsense, (not to mention desirable products).

mmarshall

Better late than never. I think most of us agree that the division was neglected for a number of years. But that also seems true of Acura and Infiniti.

IS-SV

Yes, because in Lincoln's case never is still a real possibility, like Mercury.

Acura and Infiniti are still more successful and better selling brands, despite trailing the top premium brands (BMW, MB, Lexus). Lincoln would be doing very well to match Acuras success for example.

Vladi

They changed the names to letters because of some stupid survey.

This just shows you that only difference between someone being called amateur or professional is the amount of money they are getting paid and not expertise or god forbid common sense. If they had any common sense they would know that if you launch a product and Zephyr and change its name to MKZ year later all the media penetration you did last year is scrapped, like it never happened. Same with Infiniti JX. These people have no clue.

mmarshall

Couldn't agree more. Paying someone, especially from what I've sometimes seen in auto marketing, doesn't necessarily make them any more competent. And dumb marketing decisions can cost the company even more money. Fortunately, Lincoln now seems to be in better hands than in the last several years....the jury's still out at Infiniti.

Fizzboy7

Many of us, including myself, balked when Lincoln announced more "MK" names three years ago. And now look at the news today.... they admit it's confusing. While anyone can take the time to memorize car names, it shouldn't have to take thought and time to do it. It's just another negative drop in the bucket when you are already suffering as a company and don't need more negatives. This is purely failed marketing, and I hope an example is made out of those product marketeers who checked off the project.

Next topic we'll discuss here years from now: "GM changes Chevy Bolt name to something customers can better separate from Chevy Volt."

IS-SV

3 years ago I remember exactly what you described Fizzboy, i expressed same concerns.

Around here Ford dealerships treat Lincoln as some kind of low priority side project, sad.