Alphanumeric names may not sound as elegant or inspired as ‘Silver Shadow,’ ‘Miura,’ or ‘Ghibli,’ but they succeed in delivering more information than a proper name ever could.
Where do car companies get their car model names from? And how do they choose them? To answer those questions, we need to take a quick trip back in time. To the early 1900s to be exact.
One of the oldest car companies in the world is Ford. Henry Ford’s very first car was the Model A of 1903. But it wasn’t the true game-changer. The Blue Oval company’s revolutionary model was the world’s first mass-produced automobile, the Model T. It was the bestseller of its era, which stretched from 1908 to 1927. More than a hundred years later, a cutting-edge electric car brand, Tesla, would name its cars Model S, Model X, and Model Y.
If only all carmakers stuck to those basic and easy to remember names, it would be so much easier—much like Apple naming its iPhones 8, 9, 10, 11, and so on. Or even Toyota calling its popular models the same names—Corolla, Hiace, Crown—anywhere in the world and for time immemorial.
The sheer number of car makes and models notwithstanding, car names are actually easy to remember—depending, of course, on your memory. It’s understanding how and why they are named that’s difficult. Nomenclature cannot be intuitive if you have to recall dozens of letters and numbers, as luxury car brands are infamous for.
Rolls-Royce is an exception, as most of its past and present models are named after ghosts or supernatural entities: Phantom, Wraith, Silver Shadow, Silver Spirit and, of course, Ghost. Lamborghini, too, is an exception. Its sports cars are inspired by its logo, the bull. Hence, Miura, Murcielago, Reventon, Gallardo, Aventador, and Huracan are all named after fighting bulls.
Maserati is a third exception. The Italian carmaker’s beautiful cars have equally beautiful names—but this time inspired by the wind. The Maserati Mistral was named after an exotic wind that blows in the south of France. The Bora, meanwhile, was named after a north-easterly wind that blows in the Adriatic and Mediterranean Seas while Ghibli is a hot wind that blows in the Sahara Desert.
Beautiful, inspired names all. But what about V 220, X3 M, RS6, GS 350, V90? Just a bunch of numbers and letters mixed up at random? Hardly. These alphanumeric amalgamations may not look or sound as elegant or inspired as “Silver Shadow,” “Miura,” or “Ghibli,” but they succeed in delivering more information than a proper name ever could.
Take BMW. The Munich-based carmaker sells sedans, coupes, SUVs and sports cars/roadsters. They currently have close to 20 models whose variants number over a hundred. How does it name them all? By typical German fashion—logic.
As the Bavarians have elected to use a numerical system, they’ve classified their sedans to start with even numbers and their coupes with odd numbers. Ergo, the BMW 2, 4, 6, and 8 Series all have two doors while the 3, 5, and 7 Series have four-door body styles. Needless to say, the higher the number, the bigger and more expensive the car.
The succeeding two digits (i.e. 320i) signify the engine power—and no longer the engine size as it did for several decades. Which is why you’ll find a 1.5-liter engine under the hood of a 318i or a 2.0-liter engine in a 330i. A tad illogical and confusing, yes.
Their SUVs and roadsters have X and Z prefixes, meanwhile; hence you have a vast array of off-roaders from the small X1 to the huge X7. The convertibles began with the Z1 in the 80s, the Z3 in the 90s (there was no Z2), and the current Z4. But while the Z1 and Z3 never had successor models, the Z4 is now on its third generation. There was also a flagship Z8 in the 90s.
You can’t talk about BMW without mentioning the letter “M.” M, in Bavarian-speak, stands for “motorsport.” Which explains why the fastest BMWs have “M” in their names: M3, M5, X5 M, and so on. It’s only proper to have high-performance models from a car company with “Motor” as its middle name.
And Mercedes-Benz? Similar logic, but with letters instead of numbers. It seems just a few years ago when Stuttgart had just three passenger car lines/sizes: small, medium, and large. That would be the C Class, the E Class, and the flagship S Class, respectively. But they’ve since added hatchbacks and small sedans to slot in below the C Class. These would be the A Class and B Class. Still simple enough.
But what about their SUVs? Ah, another case of solid German logic. Mercedes-Benz decided to label their off-roaders around one of their most iconic models, the all-conquering Gelandewagen 4×4, otherwise known as the G Class. Since these new-generation crossovers are mechanically based on their sedan brethren, they are named after their respective sedan twin to which is added the “GL” prefix. Hence we have the entry-level GLA and GLB, the more upscale compact GLC, the midsize GLE, and the top-of-the-line GLS Class. Their sports cars are the SL and SLK roadsters.
And what about the exclusive and more powerful variants? Just add three more letters: “AMG.”
Which brings us to the third German luxury car brand; and one with an even simpler nomenclature—Audi. The cars start with an “A” (A1, A3, A4, A5, A6, A7 and A8) while the SUVs start with a “Q” (Q2, Q3, Q5, Q7, and Q8). “A,” of course, is for “Audi,” while “Q” stands for Audi’s signature technology—quattro all-wheel drive.
The faster Audis change their prefixes to S3, S4, S6 and S8 while the even faster and more exclusive ones have names like RS3, RS4, RS5, RS6, RS7 for the sedans and RS Q3 and RS Q8 for the SUVs. Simple and straightforward.
Which brings us to the Japanese, famous for their simplicity and intuitiveness. Lexus employs a naming convention that’s closest to Mercedes-Benz’s—not surprising considering the very first Lexus, the LS 400 of 1989, was designed to meet the Mercedes S Class head on.
The first letter of a Lexus model denotes its positioning in the brand’s range. The second letter identifies it as a sedan (S), a coupe (C), or an SUV (X). The three-digit suffix reveals the engine displacement. Hence, the IS 200, ES 350, GS 450 and LS 500 are sedans in ascending order of body and engine size. Lexus coupes are the RC 350 and LC 500 while the SUVs are the UX, NX, RX, GX and LX, again in ascending order.
By now, it’s quite obvious that most luxury cars gravitate to alphanumeric nomenclature. Sweden’s Volvo and the other two Japanese luxury carmakers, Infiniti and Acura, have alphanumerically named models as well.
Mass market brands, however, still stick to proper names. Which is why you have Volkswagen’s Tiguan, Jetta and Passat; Toyota’s Vios, Innova, and Alphard; and from Korea, the Hyundai Starex and Elantra and the Kia Picanto and Sportage.
American carmakers are the same, but while the model names in the preceding paragraph are made-up names, Ford’s models are usually from common or proper nouns; hence, you have Focus, Mustang, Fiesta, and Ranger. Particularly notable are the names of Ford’s SUVs, which are inspired by the great outdoors or an adventurous lifestyle and start with an “E:” Ecosport, Escape, Everest, Explorer, and Expedition.
There you have it—a crash course on the etymology of major car models and their cultural and psychographic differences. The rhetorical question “What’s in a name?” has never had a simpler—yet more complicated—answer. But that’s the beauty of it.
