...I've owned both a Fifth Avenue and a Park Avenue! If you want to be technical, my new-old ride is a Buick Electra Park Avenue Limited. Heck, maybe I'd buy a Japanese car if they caled it a Lexus Four-Thirty LS Brougham Classic.
When I was leaving work the other day, a fairly new white Buick Park Avenue Ultra was behind me. I most definately would've purchased this car if it had a V-8 and the proper 4 portholes per side as I thought the car was quite attractive as it was.
This is one of the few areas where the domestics have an advantage. The problem is that they take cool names and put them on inferior cars, and it screws up the name.
I'll take a Mustang or a Blazer over an Integra or a QX56 any day (let's be clear that I mean the name only).
Domestics do have good names. Animal names tend to be good. Racing names tend to be good too, or names related to weaponry. They don't always fit the car... at all... but they're still good names.
But "Park Avenue"?? You might as well go with "Victorian Coach" or "Old Aunt Bertha."
Those names aren't cool like Monte Carlo or Mustang. They're not neutral and under-the-radar like Camry or G6. They're... old fogey names. All the retirees I know aren't even antiquated enough for such names.
I didn't know my point of view was on the fringe though. Fair enough =].
They tended to hate names that were made-up words or misspellings, like Aztek, Bravada, Lumina, etc. And also names that they called "$100 names attached to $10 cars", like Celebrity, Parisienne, Diplomat, Versaille, St. Regis, etc. Embarrasingly, Chrysler had a pretty large showing in this category.
Names they liked were names that not only suited the car's nature, but also just sounded cool. I thought it was WAY cool that they actually mentioned "DeSoto Firedome" :shades:
There are reports Ford may be cutting up to 30,000 jobs. Restructuring could close up to 10 plants, cutting far deeper than earlier esitmates. Build us a Cobra or Shelby and we will buy.........otherwise...
"Ford Motor Co. plans to close at least 10 plants and cut 25,000 to 30,000 hourly jobs in North America within five years, according to a published report Wednesday.
The Detroit News, quoting people familiar with the plan, said the deep cuts will be presented to the Ford board of directors for consideration Wednesday. It will not be revealed to the public until Jan. 23, according to the paper.
The cuts are much deeper than earlier reports, which initially had Ford closing as few as three assembly plants and cutting only about 7,000 positions.
Ford spokesman Oscar Suris would only tell the paper, "Our work continues. These plans will be final when they're ready to be shared publicly."
The paper said that the shakeups at Ford will include the departure of as many as seven top executives in the coming weeks."
I think they got better in 1959, with names like LeSabre and Electra. I'm kinda undecided on "Invicta", though. Wildcat was cool, too.
I think of Limited as more of a trim level than an actual model. And "Roadmaster" was a good name once, but I think it just sounds too old-fashioned these days. And "Super" is too generic and "Special" has short-bus connotations these days! :P
Century was a good name, though. And some of the haughty names like Riviera and Regal at least seemed to fit the cars they were affixed to.
That was the Century that had the big motor. The Special was the entry-level Buick, but back then it was still considered a prestigious car because the Buick name in general had some prestige. Basically, the Century was a Special with a Super/Roadmaster engine put in. Depending on the year, all that meant was that you got a 4-bbl version instead of a 2-bbl version of the same engine, but it still meant for a decently quick car for the time.
For instance, in 1957 I think the Special had a 364-2bbl with 250 hp, but the Century and others had a 364-4bbl with 300 hp.
The Special was dropped for 1959, replaced by the LeSabre, but the name would resurface in 1961 on Buick's version of the Tempest/F-85 upscale compact. Did they still have a special in 1972, or were they all called Skylarks by then?
I beleive 1969 was the last year of Special, though it was briefly revived on a low-end version of the Century in the mid-70s. I recall a classmate in college who had a yellow 1976 Special with a V-6 engine.
My friend had a '69 Olds that he got from his Grandfather. It wasn't necessarily a cool car, but I loved that the engine was called a Rocket. It sounds so fast. What could be better than having a Rocket under the hood? Surely not a Duratec.
is how certain engines back in the day had a distinctive rumble to them. Oldsmobiles certainly did. Even the weak 140 hp Olds 307 in my Grandma's '85 LeSabre had a nice rumble to it.
And when I got my '76 LeMans, I could definitely tell that the rumble it made was much closer to my '67 Catalina than my '85 Silverado.
My '69 Dart GT had a big silver decal with red lettering on the top of the air intake that said, proudly, "CHARGER 225". It was just a generic 225 CID slant six, but that decal sure made it look cool! Sometimes I miss the simple little details like that.
That caused me to remember when GM went through their mid/late '80s "Eurosport" stage where every six-cylinder they made had the same prominent and very irritating exhaust sound.
Holy smoke! Even the engines had cool names! I remember the Buick Fireball Eight, the Olds Rocket, the Chevrolet Blue Flame Six, the Dodge Red Ram, and Chrysler Spitfire. What other cool engine names have I missed? I'm sre there's a few.
I agree—and Buick shot themselves in the foot by changing the names every few years.
The Limited became the Roadmaster, which became the Electra and Electra 225, which became the Park Avenue, which became the Park Avenue Ultra, which became the Lucernne. I may have missed a few, but you get the idea...
Not only was the Limited name changed (over and over and over...), but this happened to all the trim levels.
How can you build any brand equity with the constant changing of names? This is by far one of the stupidest marketing things Buick and GM ever did. :confuse:
I think Buick HAD to change names, because they were starting to get an image problem. The '54-56 models had been wildly popular, but had quality problems. Chrysler also started to trump GM with styling, finally coming on as a force to be reckoned with for '55 and simply overhwhelming everybody for 1957. GM in general cooled in sales for '57, but I think Buick may have fallen further than the rest. And 1958 turned out to be a disastrous year for everybody. Oddly, among mid-priced divisions, Oldsmobile saw the smallest drop, and I always considered Olds to be the biggest disappointment, looks-wise, when comparing '58 models to their '57 counterparts. Buicks in '58 had a massive, hulking look to them, and I think they were rapidly turning into old people's cars. I wonder if one reason that Olds did comparatively well in 1958 is that former Buick buyers were jumping to Olds?
Buick was also trying to be too many things to too many buyers. At the low end, the Special undercut Olds, DeSoto, Chrysler, and Mercury, and was well down into Dodge and Pontiac territory. Yet on the upper end, Roadmasters and the Limited were pushing into Cadillac range.
For 1959, Buick realigned themselves, and contracted the span of their lineup. IIRC the LeSabre was a bit pricier than what the Special had been, while the Invicta came in around where the Century had been. The Electra and Electra 225 supposedly replaced the Roadmaster and Limited, but were priced much cheaper. I think a '59 Electra 225 started around $4100, while a '58 Limited was up in the $5K range. Eventually they merged all the Electras and simply called them all Electra 225.
Anyway, Buick was reborn as a much more youthful, "with it" brand, it worked for them on the sales front. So in 1959 at least, I think they were correct in changing their names. Today though, not a good idea.
I think Buick HAD to change names, because they were starting to get an image problem.
I disagree. You don't fix the problem by changing the model name. You fix the product.
Some of the most successful model line are "successful" because the the carmaker stuck by the same name for decades.
Suburban (circa 1935). F-Series (1948) , Civic (1970). Accord, Corolla, Camry, S/E/SL-Class, 3/5/7-Series—all have been around for decades. That's how you build equity in model and brand names—and not by changing model names when things go bad.
I bet if Buick had stuck with the 1950 names (and Chevy, Pontiac, et al), they wouldn't be in the predicument they are now in. If they had put all the money in "engineering," that they put in in "marketing new names," the cars from the '60s on up would have been much better than they were.
a name will get a stigma attached to it, and no matter how good the car is, it just can't shake it. Or sometimes the new car just wants to cater to a different type of crowd.
FWIW, Pontiac went through a major name change as well, as part of their effort to appeal to more youthful buyers. In 1956, Pontiac's lineup consisted of the base Chieftain, mid-line Super Chief, and top-line Star Chief. The name "Catalina" was thrown around, but it wasn't a model, but rather an adjective affixed to the hardtop models, just as Olds did with "Holiday", Buick did with "Riviera", and DeSoto did with "Sportsman".
In 1957 though, Pontiac began its transformation. The limited-edition, high-performance Bonneville convertible was fielded, and for 1958 was expanded to both hardtop coupe and convertible, with the famililar Chieftain-Super Chief-Star Chief below it.
For 1959 though, it was overhauled into a 3-tier lineup: Catalina (with an upmarket Ventura trim package), mid-line Super Chief, and top-line Bonneville.
And Oldsmobile tended to play around with their various 88's. Sure, they all had "88" in the name, but there were Delta 88's, Super 88's, Delmont 88's, JetStar 88's, etc.
And Chevy did that steady downgrading thing with their names, as Bel Air and Impala moved slowly but steadily downward.
The late 50's/early 60's period was a time of great change, and the changing automotive names reflected that. Chrysler threw away names like Windsor and Saratoga in exhange for Newport and 300. Dodge threw away all of their 1959 names in 1960...and had one of their best years ever. However, that could be debated whether the names had anyhing to do with it. They could've just stuck it out with Coronet-Royal-Custom Royal instead of Dart-Matador-Polara, who knows? Plymouth ultimately ditched Plaza and Savoy, although Belevedere hung on until around 1970 on the midsizers, and just hung onto one 50's name...Fury. Ford followed the pattern set by Chevy of bringing out more upscale names (Galaxie, LTD) and downgrading former names like Fairlane. Mercury went through just about every M-letter word in the dictionary.
And the Japanese have changed names on occasion. They could have just called the Camry "Corona", but chose not to. "Avalon" could have been "Cressida", but was not. They could have called the Tundra "T-100", but there was too much baggage associated with that name. Datsun totally ditched all of their numeric names like 210/310/510/etc for regular names. Some of the names, like "Pulsar", just went away as the car fell from grace, while "Stanza" was replaced by "Altima". Subaru only relatively recently learned to spell out names like "Loyale", "Impreza", etc...for years they were just trim levels like DX, GL, etc.
F-series really isn't a name, but a platform designation. They were just too lazy to get around to naming the thing! :P Once upon a time, Chevy pickups were just known as the C/K (RWD/4WD). Silverado was a luxury trim package, but eventually they took to calling them all Silverados. Likewise, the Dodge Ram is a relatively recent name. It used to be just the D...D100, D200, or whatever.
yeah, Dodge used the name for 1960 only. That year, the Dart was a smash hit, with something like 330,000 sold. The Dart was actually a whole lineup, consisting of the Senecca-Pioneer-Phoenix, which corresponded to the Plymouth Savoy-Belvedere-Fury, and rode the same 118" wheelbase. I guess you could call it an early attempt at downsizing.
On the 122" wheelbase, what had been the "traditional" Dodge size, the Matador and Polara only sold around 40-45K units combined. The 1960 DeSotos were also on this wheelbase, as was the Chrysler Windsor. The only one that sold tolerably was the Windsor. For '61 Dodge went down to the Polara (which sold miserably), DeSoto was canned after about 15 minutes, and Chrysler launched the cheap Newport, which was an instant success. Ultimately it would allow Chrysler to become a high-volume marque, something the brand had never been able to achieve before. So sometimes a name change CAN work out for the best, as the Newport sold better than the short-wheelbase Windsors or DeSotos ever did, and better than the top-line Dodges. Of course there was more than the name change. There was also marketing, the cars themselves, and an improved economy.
...that made its divisions stand out and I think they can still make a play on some of them.
I'm really disappointed that the 2006 Impala looks like a rehash of the old Lumina. I would've used the opportunity to bring back the old "two per side/three per side" taillight arrangement. The fleet and rental Impala cars would be called "Biscayne" and have two per side. The lower end retail market Impala would also have two taillights per side, but have an upgraded interior and nicer exterior trim. The Impala would be the sporty upscale car with V-8 only and an Avalonesque version would be called the Caprice.
For Buick, ALL six-cylinder cars would have three portholes per side and the V-8s four. They should also bring back the famous Buick sweepspear. It gave the cars a sense of speed and direction. All of today's cars have bland slab-sided profiles. The sweepspear would return some of that visual excitement.
GM could do something none of its foreign rivals do - bring back some COLOR to the interiors of its cars. I want to see red, green, blue, textured pattern, etc. in my cars' interiors. I'm so darn sick of pukey beiges and dull funereal blacks and grays! Yuck!
funny you'd mention that Buick sweepspear...the one car that immediately comes to my mind that tries to generate some interest in the sheetmetal like that is, of all things, the Toyota Camry!
Okay so it's upside-down, but it kinda looks like that old Buick sweepspear otherwise...
I see it, but it's not nearly as dramatic as the one on a 1955 Buick. The Camry's contour follows the rear door seam. Maybe a little "Darrin dip" at the C-pillar along with the sweepspear and a dramatic full-wheel cut out would give Buick a little more appeal. I once was doodling during an interminable meeting and drew what I believe a recent Park Avenue should've looked like bt encompassing these elements. The car looked awesome and it called for no extensive reengineering of the body save for the Darrin dip. I also came up with a nice Imperial based on the 300 using the 1963 model as an inspiration. Sorry, no free-standing headlamps.
I would've used the opportunity to bring back the old "two per side/three per side" taillight arrangement.
There was apparently a body-color taillight bar option for the old Impala, and those actually looked pretty decent. A bit reminiscent of the R34 Skyline, but different enough to be distinct. I wonder if you could put the old tails on the new Impala?
I remember a Car & Driver article from about 1973 on car styling from the Postwar era on, and they really beat up on the '60 Dodge!
Never thought of the character line on my Camry as being a sweepspear, but I guess it does resemble one to a certain extent. A sweepspear today should at most use only a narrow strip of chrome.
Oooh yeah, bring back the Darrin dip: GM used it to great effect on their '55-58 A-bodies and on the '54-58 B/C bodies!
I saw that. It's called the "sport" option for some unknown reason. It did look better than the "four-eyed raccoon" bit. I remember Andre actually photoshopped what the old Impala would've looked like with the proper number of taillights and it looked sharp.
I don't think they were bad looking cars at the time. They were much better looking than the Plymouths, for sure! However, style-wise they just weren't any more modern than a '57 Dodge. In contrast, a '60 Chevy, Ford, Mercury, or Pontiac seemed light years ahead of their '57 counterparts, and really make the Dodge look old. By 1960, having a design with headlights above the grille, instead of down in it, really looked old-hat.
The Dart had kind of a funky aluminum grille that stuck out though, and reminds me a bit of that walrus-looking dude on "Futurama". The Polara/Matador were more tasteful. And the longer bodies just looked better IMO...less stubby.
Style-wise though looking back the 1960 Dodge was probably about the most outdated-looking car that year. Even Chryslers and DeSotos were clean and modern looking, despite their tailfins.
Can't remember, but I think I saw a picture of a green 1960 Dodge called a Seneca somewhere. I don't think the 1960 Dodge looks bad at all, especially compared to that year's Plymouth. Now, the 1961 model with its oddball reverse fins and goofy taillights...
But I do think some of the 1950 names would seem old-fashioned, stuffy, or politically incorrect today!
Names can "evolve" as need be. Mercedes has done that. The old Mercedes 300SL became the SL300, and they did that with all their model lines. There are ways of "easing" new names in, that still carry a link to past.
That link to the past is VERY impotant. Lose that, and you lose all your history.
F-series really isn't a name, but a platform designation.
It's also a name, as Ford uses it in all their truck advertising and marketing. Also, a few years back the F-650/750 just used "F-Series" on the side of their hoods.
some names just can't "evolve". For instance, "Roadmaster" would've just seemed silly in the 60's or 70's, and even the 90's version probably got called "Roadhazzard" more often than "Roadmaster". Also, as with other trends, names will come and go. Once upon a time animals were popular and we had Barracudas, Cougars, Mustangs, Mavericks, Bobcats, Wildcats, Marlins, etc. Once upon a time pretentious names were popular, so we had 5th Avenues, Versailles, St. Regises, Park Avenues, etc. For a time the number craze was in and we had Pontiac T-1000's, J2000's, 6000's (the Grand Am was going to be called the 4000 at one time), Dodge 400's and 600's, etc.
Just like everything else, names evolve over time, and some outrun their usefulness. Heck, Audrey used to be a popular girl's name at one time, but nobody names their kid that these days! People used to say "nifty" and "cool", which gave way to "groovy", then "awesome", "bad", "tight", etc. It's just a part of culture. Things change, and when a word or name runs its course, it'll get dropped.
You can rest assured that if the Accord, Camry, Civic, or Corolla started getting a bad rap and a lot of baggage attached with it, it would be dropped and replaced with something else. And if the domestics would actually substantially redo their cars every 4-5 years and improve them, instead of trying to wring every last penny out of an outmoded platform, and cutting corners everywhere they can, then they would be less likely to change their names, as well.
One good thing about numbers is that they're generic enough that they don't "age" like names do. Calling something a C-300 doesn't sound anymore outdated today than it did back in 1955. Well, okay, so it's 300C today!
Not all names need to evolve. I think Roadmaster is one of the great automotive names. It didn't need to evolve into anything. I think it has a timeless quality to it.
There are others too: New Yorker, Continental, 98, 88, and many others too.
The problem was not so much the names, but the vehicles they were attached to. The cars of the '60s on didn't deserve to wear those names IMO.
What the heck is a "Lucernne?" What does that have to do with Buick? Nothing! The Roadmaster used be called the "doctor's car." Somehow, Lucernne—the heir to the Roadmaster label—is hardly a doctor's car name.
for the most part the cars it was attached to were appropriate. It was almost always the top-of-the-line Chrysler, with the largest engine available, and usually a good performer.
I think part of the problem though, is that somewhere along the line, automakers got the idea that these top-line cars had to be conservative and trade in sport and performance for luxury. I don't think too many people would call a late 50's or early 60s New Yorker and old man's car, but by 1965 they were getting a conservative "formal" look to them. To be fair though, it was just a trait of that class of car. It happened to the Olds 98, Buick Electra, and Mercury products around the same time. Still, the NYer was really never any stuffier than its competition.
I'd say the last car that was really worthy of the NYer nameplate was the 1979-81 R-body, which was a worthy alternative to the Electra/98, or if equipped right, even a DeVille or Town Car.
However, when they put it on the M-body for 1982, it just paled compared to an Electra or 98, although it was quite luxurious for what was essentially a guzzied up Volare. The '83-87 E-body NYer (a K-car with 3 inches more wheelbase) was an insult to the name though. That's just not what a New Yorker was supposed to be. And the FWD C-body (Dynasty style) from '88-93, while an improvement, just wasn't really worthy of the name, IMO. Although to be fair, Buick and Olds pretty much sentenced the 98 and Electra to a death sentence when they made them small and FWD too.
Ironically, the last car to wear the New Yorker nameplate was probably one of the most worthy in a long, long time. The 1994-1997 LH platform was pretty formidable for the time. Big and imposing (in a 90's way, it would've been dainty in the 70's), very well-equipped, great handling, good looking, and finally equipped once again with a strong engine...the 214 hp 3.5 V-6. However, by this time, that platform came in two flavors. There was the New Yorker, which had a chrome grille, hubcaps, and a bench seat, and the LHS, which had bucket seats, a body-color grille, alloys, and more blackout trim. The LHS outsold the NYer by a wide margin, and the NYer name was ultimately retired.
Now, I guess they could've just called them both New Yorker, and given them different trim names. I don't think "Brougham" would have fit by this time, but they could've maybe called them New Yorker and New Yorker SE (back when SE usually denoted the top level, and not the entry level).
Still, I think the time had come. The New Yorker had been associated for too long as being a mastodon of a car, with button-leather seats, wire wheels, whitewalls, and pimpiness out the wazoo. You really can't blame them though...after all it's not like the domestics forced those big, pimpy Electra, 98s', NYers, etc on us. That's what we Americans overhwhelmingly demanded at the time.
And sometimes, it really is time to drop certain names. For instance, even though I like 'em, from a marketing standpoint Pontiac probably dropped the Catalina nameplate about 5 years too late. The last time the Catalina had sold in decent numbers was 1976...after that the Bonneville swamped it. Pontiac sold around 60,000 Catalinas in 1977, but that was down to a paltry 10-15,000 in 1980-81. There just was no level for a large entry-level Pontiac anymore. And the way the market was going, there almost wasn't a market for a large uplevel Pontiac, as the Bonneville was canned itself after 1981. The name was transferred to the smaller LeMans platform, and it tried its best to be what the previous Bonneville had been, but the public just wasn't buying it, and it never met the sales achieved by either the 1981 Bonneville or the 1981 LeMans.
They lucked out in 1987 though, moving it to the H-platform, and technically making it a full-sized car again. And it was something that full-sized cars hadn't been in awhile...sporty. That was also a bit of a return to the Bonneville's roots, as it started off as a full-sized sporty car. And they were able to ride the Bonneville through the rest of the 80's and a good part of the 90's, but then the market for big cars, even these shrunken ones, started to contract. Plus, by that time Chrysler was putting some pressure on the sporty larger car market with the 300M on the high end and the Intrepid on the low end. There just weren't enough buyers to go around for sporty big cars, so someone had to suffer.
So now, the Bonneville is retired. And unless Pontiac comes up with an appropriate platform to put it on, I think it should stay retired. IMO, a new Bonneville would be based on the Lucerne platform, but sportier, better handling, maybe a bit shorter if possible, and with stronger engines. At least, going with what GM has to work with right now. Of course, a RWD V-8 Bonneville that could go up against the 300C (Originally the 300C and Bonneville were targeted right at each other, and fought for the same audience) would be nice!
"I want to see red, green, blue, textured pattern, etc. in my cars' interiors"
Century and Regal hung onto their red and blue interiors for a long time past any other car offering them other than I believe a Ford large car.
Penetration kept going down to nothing and finally dropped.
Very expensive to stock all those colored parts in the plant.
the LaCrosse offers 4 interior colors, all very nice.
All ebony and it is very "sporty" Ebony/beige-very sophisticated and european. 2 tone beige-what most people buy 2-tone light gray-boring but 2nd choice.
Didn't the rise of leather also lead to the decline in color choices? I mean, most people would probably rather have leather in its "natural" tan color.
Meanwhile the cheapskates (like me) who ordered cloth were sentenced to mouse fur or mud.
Interestingly, the previous-gen Camry (97-01) had 3 interior colors - mud (tan), sage (light celery green!), and an attractive blue-gray (which I had).
You are a walking Mopar encyclopedia! Ah yes, the late, lamented Dynasty! NOT!
I remember when my wife wanted an airbag (driver only then) in the 1990 model year. There were a grand total of 3 affordable choices:
Ford Taurus/Mercury Sable, Olds 88, and Dodge Dynasty. All the Japanese cars had the "mouse-motor" seat belts sans airbags.
Seemed like a no-brainer at the time: we bought a Mercury Sable (Sable over Taurus because A/C was standard as were rear head restraints; we also got optional ABS).
Although in its latter years, the Sable would prove to nickle, dime, and $300 me to death! Plus the $1600 tranny replacement! :sick:
Yeah the 60's era Chrysler products certainly had their own "style" and I liked them myself. Was it a Dodge that had the canted headlights? I believe it was a 1962, maybe?
Comments
When I was leaving work the other day, a fairly new white Buick Park Avenue Ultra was behind me. I most definately would've purchased this car if it had a V-8 and the proper 4 portholes per side as I thought the car was quite attractive as it was.
I'll take a Mustang or a Blazer over an Integra or a QX56 any day (let's be clear that I mean the name only).
But "Park Avenue"?? You might as well go with "Victorian Coach" or "Old Aunt Bertha."
Those names aren't cool like Monte Carlo or Mustang. They're not neutral and under-the-radar like Camry or G6. They're... old fogey names. All the retirees I know aren't even antiquated enough for such names.
I didn't know my point of view was on the fringe though. Fair enough =].
They tended to hate names that were made-up words or misspellings, like Aztek, Bravada, Lumina, etc. And also names that they called "$100 names attached to $10 cars", like Celebrity, Parisienne, Diplomat, Versaille, St. Regis, etc. Embarrasingly, Chrysler had a pretty large showing in this category.
Names they liked were names that not only suited the car's nature, but also just sounded cool. I thought it was WAY cool that they actually mentioned "DeSoto Firedome" :shades:
"Ford Motor Co. plans to close at least 10 plants and cut 25,000 to 30,000 hourly jobs in North America within five years, according to a published report Wednesday.
The Detroit News, quoting people familiar with the plan, said the deep cuts will be presented to the Ford board of directors for consideration Wednesday. It will not be revealed to the public until Jan. 23, according to the paper.
The cuts are much deeper than earlier reports, which initially had Ford closing as few as three assembly plants and cutting only about 7,000 positions.
Ford spokesman Oscar Suris would only tell the paper, "Our work continues. These plans will be final when they're ready to be shared publicly."
The paper said that the shakeups at Ford will include the departure of as many as seven top executives in the coming weeks."
Roadmaster - Master of the Road! It doesn't get any better than that!
Super - Obvious!
Century - makes me think of Roman soldiers.
Special - low-end Buick, but simple name makes it seem exclusive.
Buick needs names like those and cars to match those names.
I think of Limited as more of a trim level than an actual model. And "Roadmaster" was a good name once, but I think it just sounds too old-fashioned these days. And "Super" is too generic and "Special" has short-bus connotations these days! :P
Century was a good name, though. And some of the haughty names like Riviera and Regal at least seemed to fit the cars they were affixed to.
A tactic which became very popular in the late 70s? with the street hotrod types. But that was a different audience than the earlier Buick buyer.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
For instance, in 1957 I think the Special had a 364-2bbl with 250 hp, but the Century and others had a 364-4bbl with 300 hp.
The Special was dropped for 1959, replaced by the LeSabre, but the name would resurface in 1961 on Buick's version of the Tempest/F-85 upscale compact. Did they still have a special in 1972, or were they all called Skylarks by then?
And when I got my '76 LeMans, I could definitely tell that the rumble it made was much closer to my '67 Catalina than my '85 Silverado.
My '69 Dart GT had a big silver decal with red lettering on the top of the air intake that said, proudly, "CHARGER 225". It was just a generic 225 CID slant six, but that decal sure made it look cool! Sometimes I miss the simple little details like that.
That caused me to remember when GM went through their mid/late '80s "Eurosport" stage where every six-cylinder they made had the same prominent and very irritating exhaust sound.
The Limited became the Roadmaster, which became the Electra and Electra 225, which became the Park Avenue, which became the Park Avenue Ultra, which became the Lucernne. I may have missed a few, but you get the idea...
Not only was the Limited name changed (over and over and over...), but this happened to all the trim levels.
How can you build any brand equity with the constant changing of names? This is by far one of the stupidest marketing things Buick and GM ever did. :confuse:
Bob
Buick was also trying to be too many things to too many buyers. At the low end, the Special undercut Olds, DeSoto, Chrysler, and Mercury, and was well down into Dodge and Pontiac territory. Yet on the upper end, Roadmasters and the Limited were pushing into Cadillac range.
For 1959, Buick realigned themselves, and contracted the span of their lineup. IIRC the LeSabre was a bit pricier than what the Special had been, while the Invicta came in around where the Century had been. The Electra and Electra 225 supposedly replaced the Roadmaster and Limited, but were priced much cheaper. I think a '59 Electra 225 started around $4100, while a '58 Limited was up in the $5K range. Eventually they merged all the Electras and simply called them all Electra 225.
Anyway, Buick was reborn as a much more youthful, "with it" brand, it worked for them on the sales front. So in 1959 at least, I think they were correct in changing their names. Today though, not a good idea.
I disagree. You don't fix the problem by changing the model name. You fix the product.
Some of the most successful model line are "successful" because the the carmaker stuck by the same name for decades.
Suburban (circa 1935). F-Series (1948) , Civic (1970). Accord, Corolla, Camry, S/E/SL-Class, 3/5/7-Series—all have been around for decades. That's how you build equity in model and brand names—and not by changing model names when things go bad.
I bet if Buick had stuck with the 1950 names (and Chevy, Pontiac, et al), they wouldn't be in the predicument they are now in. If they had put all the money in "engineering," that they put in in "marketing new names," the cars from the '60s on up would have been much better than they were.
Bob
But I do think some of the 1950 names would seem old-fashioned, stuffy, or politically incorrect today!
FWIW, Pontiac went through a major name change as well, as part of their effort to appeal to more youthful buyers. In 1956, Pontiac's lineup consisted of the base Chieftain, mid-line Super Chief, and top-line Star Chief. The name "Catalina" was thrown around, but it wasn't a model, but rather an adjective affixed to the hardtop models, just as Olds did with "Holiday", Buick did with "Riviera", and DeSoto did with "Sportsman".
In 1957 though, Pontiac began its transformation. The limited-edition, high-performance Bonneville convertible was fielded, and for 1958 was expanded to both hardtop coupe and convertible, with the famililar Chieftain-Super Chief-Star Chief below it.
For 1959 though, it was overhauled into a 3-tier lineup: Catalina (with an upmarket Ventura trim package), mid-line Super Chief, and top-line Bonneville.
And Oldsmobile tended to play around with their various 88's. Sure, they all had "88" in the name, but there were Delta 88's, Super 88's, Delmont 88's, JetStar 88's, etc.
And Chevy did that steady downgrading thing with their names, as Bel Air and Impala moved slowly but steadily downward.
The late 50's/early 60's period was a time of great change, and the changing automotive names reflected that. Chrysler threw away names like Windsor and Saratoga in exhange for Newport and 300. Dodge threw away all of their 1959 names in 1960...and had one of their best years ever. However, that could be debated whether the names had anyhing to do with it. They could've just stuck it out with Coronet-Royal-Custom Royal instead of Dart-Matador-Polara, who knows? Plymouth ultimately ditched Plaza and Savoy, although Belevedere hung on until around 1970 on the midsizers, and just hung onto one 50's name...Fury. Ford followed the pattern set by Chevy of bringing out more upscale names (Galaxie, LTD) and downgrading former names like Fairlane. Mercury went through just about every M-letter word in the dictionary.
And the Japanese have changed names on occasion. They could have just called the Camry "Corona", but chose not to. "Avalon" could have been "Cressida", but was not. They could have called the Tundra "T-100", but there was too much baggage associated with that name. Datsun totally ditched all of their numeric names like 210/310/510/etc for regular names. Some of the names, like "Pulsar", just went away as the car fell from grace, while "Stanza" was replaced by "Altima". Subaru only relatively recently learned to spell out names like "Loyale", "Impreza", etc...for years they were just trim levels like DX, GL, etc.
On the 122" wheelbase, what had been the "traditional" Dodge size, the Matador and Polara only sold around 40-45K units combined. The 1960 DeSotos were also on this wheelbase, as was the Chrysler Windsor. The only one that sold tolerably was the Windsor. For '61 Dodge went down to the Polara (which sold miserably), DeSoto was canned after about 15 minutes, and Chrysler launched the cheap Newport, which was an instant success. Ultimately it would allow Chrysler to become a high-volume marque, something the brand had never been able to achieve before. So sometimes a name change CAN work out for the best, as the Newport sold better than the short-wheelbase Windsors or DeSotos ever did, and better than the top-line Dodges. Of course there was more than the name change. There was also marketing, the cars themselves, and an improved economy.
I'm really disappointed that the 2006 Impala looks like a rehash of the old Lumina. I would've used the opportunity to bring back the old "two per side/three per side" taillight arrangement. The fleet and rental Impala cars would be called "Biscayne" and have two per side. The lower end retail market Impala would also have two taillights per side, but have an upgraded interior and nicer exterior trim. The Impala would be the sporty upscale car with V-8 only and an Avalonesque version would be called the Caprice.
For Buick, ALL six-cylinder cars would have three portholes per side and the V-8s four. They should also bring back the famous Buick sweepspear. It gave the cars a sense of speed and direction. All of today's cars have bland slab-sided profiles. The sweepspear would return some of that visual excitement.
GM could do something none of its foreign rivals do - bring back some COLOR to the interiors of its cars. I want to see red, green, blue, textured pattern, etc. in my cars' interiors. I'm so darn sick of pukey beiges and dull funereal blacks and grays! Yuck!
Okay so it's upside-down, but it kinda looks like that old Buick sweepspear otherwise...
There was apparently a body-color taillight bar option for the old Impala, and those actually looked pretty decent. A bit reminiscent of the R34 Skyline, but different enough to be distinct. I wonder if you could put the old tails on the new Impala?
Never thought of the character line on my Camry as being a sweepspear, but I guess it does resemble one to a certain extent. A sweepspear today should at most use only a narrow strip of chrome.
Oooh yeah, bring back the Darrin dip: GM used it to great effect on their '55-58 A-bodies and on the '54-58 B/C bodies!
The Dart had kind of a funky aluminum grille that stuck out though, and reminds me a bit of that walrus-looking dude on "Futurama". The Polara/Matador were more tasteful. And the longer bodies just looked better IMO...less stubby.
Style-wise though looking back the 1960 Dodge was probably about the most outdated-looking car that year. Even Chryslers and DeSotos were clean and modern looking, despite their tailfins.
Names can "evolve" as need be. Mercedes has done that. The old Mercedes 300SL became the SL300, and they did that with all their model lines. There are ways of "easing" new names in, that still carry a link to past.
That link to the past is VERY impotant. Lose that, and you lose all your history.
Bob
It's also a name, as Ford uses it in all their truck advertising and marketing. Also, a few years back the F-650/750 just used "F-Series" on the side of their hoods.
It's no different than "E-Class" or "3-Series."
Bob
Bob
Just like everything else, names evolve over time, and some outrun their usefulness. Heck, Audrey used to be a popular girl's name at one time, but nobody names their kid that these days! People used to say "nifty" and "cool", which gave way to "groovy", then "awesome", "bad", "tight", etc. It's just a part of culture. Things change, and when a word or name runs its course, it'll get dropped.
You can rest assured that if the Accord, Camry, Civic, or Corolla started getting a bad rap and a lot of baggage attached with it, it would be dropped and replaced with something else. And if the domestics would actually substantially redo their cars every 4-5 years and improve them, instead of trying to wring every last penny out of an outmoded platform, and cutting corners everywhere they can, then they would be less likely to change their names, as well.
One good thing about numbers is that they're generic enough that they don't "age" like names do. Calling something a C-300 doesn't sound anymore outdated today than it did back in 1955. Well, okay, so it's 300C today!
Last night my daughter asked me why Charlie Brown & Co say "Good Grief" so much. She had never heard that term and didn't know what it meant.
There are others too: New Yorker, Continental, 98, 88, and many others too.
The problem was not so much the names, but the vehicles they were attached to. The cars of the '60s on didn't deserve to wear those names IMO.
Bob
What the heck is a "Lucernne?" What does that have to do with Buick? Nothing! The Roadmaster used be called the "doctor's car." Somehow, Lucernne—the heir to the Roadmaster label—is hardly a doctor's car name.
Bob
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
I think part of the problem though, is that somewhere along the line, automakers got the idea that these top-line cars had to be conservative and trade in sport and performance for luxury. I don't think too many people would call a late 50's or early 60s New Yorker and old man's car, but by 1965 they were getting a conservative "formal" look to them. To be fair though, it was just a trait of that class of car. It happened to the Olds 98, Buick Electra, and Mercury products around the same time. Still, the NYer was really never any stuffier than its competition.
I'd say the last car that was really worthy of the NYer nameplate was the 1979-81 R-body, which was a worthy alternative to the Electra/98, or if equipped right, even a DeVille or Town Car.
However, when they put it on the M-body for 1982, it just paled compared to an Electra or 98, although it was quite luxurious for what was essentially a guzzied up Volare. The '83-87 E-body NYer (a K-car with 3 inches more wheelbase) was an insult to the name though. That's just not what a New Yorker was supposed to be. And the FWD C-body (Dynasty style) from '88-93, while an improvement, just wasn't really worthy of the name, IMO. Although to be fair, Buick and Olds pretty much sentenced the 98 and Electra to a death sentence when they made them small and FWD too.
Ironically, the last car to wear the New Yorker nameplate was probably one of the most worthy in a long, long time. The 1994-1997 LH platform was pretty formidable for the time. Big and imposing (in a 90's way, it would've been dainty in the 70's), very well-equipped, great handling, good looking, and finally equipped once again with a strong engine...the 214 hp 3.5 V-6. However, by this time, that platform came in two flavors. There was the New Yorker, which had a chrome grille, hubcaps, and a bench seat, and the LHS, which had bucket seats, a body-color grille, alloys, and more blackout trim. The LHS outsold the NYer by a wide margin, and the NYer name was ultimately retired.
Now, I guess they could've just called them both New Yorker, and given them different trim names. I don't think "Brougham" would have fit by this time, but they could've maybe called them New Yorker and New Yorker SE (back when SE usually denoted the top level, and not the entry level).
Still, I think the time had come. The New Yorker had been associated for too long as being a mastodon of a car, with button-leather seats, wire wheels, whitewalls, and pimpiness out the wazoo. You really can't blame them though...after all it's not like the domestics forced those big, pimpy Electra, 98s', NYers, etc on us. That's what we Americans overhwhelmingly demanded at the time.
And sometimes, it really is time to drop certain names. For instance, even though I like 'em, from a marketing standpoint Pontiac probably dropped the Catalina nameplate about 5 years too late. The last time the Catalina had sold in decent numbers was 1976...after that the Bonneville swamped it. Pontiac sold around 60,000 Catalinas in 1977, but that was down to a paltry 10-15,000 in 1980-81. There just was no level for a large entry-level Pontiac anymore. And the way the market was going, there almost wasn't a market for a large uplevel Pontiac, as the Bonneville was canned itself after 1981. The name was transferred to the smaller LeMans platform, and it tried its best to be what the previous Bonneville had been, but the public just wasn't buying it, and it never met the sales achieved by either the 1981 Bonneville or the 1981 LeMans.
They lucked out in 1987 though, moving it to the H-platform, and technically making it a full-sized car again. And it was something that full-sized cars hadn't been in awhile...sporty. That was also a bit of a return to the Bonneville's roots, as it started off as a full-sized sporty car. And they were able to ride the Bonneville through the rest of the 80's and a good part of the 90's, but then the market for big cars, even these shrunken ones, started to contract. Plus, by that time Chrysler was putting some pressure on the sporty larger car market with the 300M on the high end and the Intrepid on the low end. There just weren't enough buyers to go around for sporty big cars, so someone had to suffer.
So now, the Bonneville is retired. And unless Pontiac comes up with an appropriate platform to put it on, I think it should stay retired. IMO, a new Bonneville would be based on the Lucerne platform, but sportier, better handling, maybe a bit shorter if possible, and with stronger engines. At least, going with what GM has to work with right now. Of course, a RWD V-8 Bonneville that could go up against the 300C (Originally the 300C and Bonneville were targeted right at each other, and fought for the same audience) would be nice!
Century and Regal hung onto their red and blue interiors for a long time past any other car offering them other than I believe a Ford large car.
Penetration kept going down to nothing and finally dropped.
Very expensive to stock all those colored parts in the plant.
the LaCrosse offers 4 interior colors, all very nice.
All ebony and it is very "sporty"
Ebony/beige-very sophisticated and european.
2 tone beige-what most people buy
2-tone light gray-boring but 2nd choice.
http://www.buick.com/lacrosse/colors_interior.jsp
Meanwhile the cheapskates (like me) who ordered cloth were sentenced to mouse fur or mud.
Interestingly, the previous-gen Camry (97-01) had 3 interior colors - mud (tan), sage (light celery green!), and an attractive blue-gray (which I had).
I remember when my wife wanted an airbag (driver only then) in the 1990 model year. There were a grand total of 3 affordable choices:
Ford Taurus/Mercury Sable, Olds 88, and Dodge Dynasty. All the Japanese cars had the "mouse-motor" seat belts sans airbags.
Seemed like a no-brainer at the time: we bought a Mercury Sable (Sable over Taurus because A/C was standard as were rear head restraints; we also got optional ABS).
Although in its latter years, the Sable would prove to nickle, dime, and $300 me to death! Plus the $1600 tranny replacement! :sick:
The longer warrenty of the Kia is the reason in 2002 I bought a foreign car for the first time.I have not regreted ot eithier