Last November, Mark Fields, Ford Motor Co.'s executive vice president, took the stage at the L.A. Auto Show. He was there, he told the standing-room-only audience, "to show you our new flagship sedan, the Lincoln MKX."
Oops. Fields quickly corrected himself because he wasn't introducing the MKX, a luxury sport utility vehicle, but the MKS, a luxury sedan that will come out this summer. The gaffe wasn't surprising, considering that Lincoln also produces the MKZ, has a concept car called the MKR and is set to debut the MKT, another concept car, in Detroit this month.
If a guy like Fields can trip up, one can only imagine what may happen to the ordinary motorist who is checking out the 2008 offerings from Cadillac -- CTS, DTS, XLR, STS, XRS, XLR, ESV and EXT -- or Lexus -- LS, GS, ES, IS, SC, LX, GX and RX -- or Volvo -- S40, S60, S80, V50, V70, XC70, XC90, C30 and C70.
Where are the Gremlins of yesteryear? Or the El Dorados, for that matter?
They are history. The industry is on an increasingly strict diet of alphabet soup with numerical garnish. Alphanumeric nameplates -- which consist of nonsensical combinations of letters and numbers -- were on 135 models in the 2007 model year, compared with 80 a decade ago, according to Kelley Blue Book.
Alphanumerics can enhance a brand's status and make cars more marketable internationally, automakers claim. With many of the most marketable names already trademarked, companies say letters and numbers are easier to secure from a legal standpoint.
All that may be so, but many marketing experts say alphanumericism has gone too far.
"The poor consumers can't keep anything straight anymore," said Teresa Pavia, a professor of marketing at the University of Utah's David Eccles School of Business and an expert on alphanumeric branding. "I don't know what these names are supposed to mean."
Blame BMW and Mercedes, which set the bar for naming luxury cars with their decades-old alphanumeric nameplates -- BMW with the 3 Series, 5 Series and 7 Series; Mercedes with the C-, E- and S-Class.
When Japanese automakers launched their own luxury lines, they had what Karl Brauer, editor of Edmunds, calls "Euro-envy" and were eager to associate themselves with the German reputation for quality. Thus Lexus debuted with two-letter names; Infiniti combined letters and numbers.
Acura, which launched with proper names, eventually followed the trend, dumping Integra and Legend because "it got to the point where the names overshadowed the brand itself," according to a spokesperson.
