What's in a name? Quite a lot, actually, when it comes to premium-luxury car brands. Mercedes-Benz is extending a new trend in the industry by overhauling the names used to identify its vehicles as it prepares for the launch of 30 models, including 11 all-new vehicles, by 2020.
As part of its re-badging, the automaker announced the resurrecting of the Maybach name on a model that will be introduced next week at the Los Angeles Auto Show.
The Maybach brand, which starred in a Jay Z and Kanye West video, represented its ultra-high-end models before being retired in 2012. Now, as rumored earlier this year, Maybach is making a comeback, this time as the Mercedes-Maybach sub-brand, which will serve as a home for Mercedes-Benz ultra-luxury-high-end automobiles. Confused?
The uber-plush Mercedes-Maybach S600 will be presented at China's Guangzhou auto show as well as in L.A., as Business Insider reports.
According to the company, the model will provide "extra spaciousness, special seats and lavishly designed, prestigious interiors offering extensive scope for individualization." And another hallowed brand name may be revived, with Pullman possibly adorning an ultra-long model.
Mercedes-Maybach is here, offering the apex of exclusivity & individuality. Introducing the #MercedesMaybach#S600. pic.twitter.com/2iXTORy1mO
— Mercedes-Benz (@MercedesBenz) November 11, 2014Reviving model names is just one piece of the puzzle, as the automaker is also hoping to clear up confusion over the Mercedes-Benz naming system.
Brand stewards started rethinking the marque's naming scheme after they had to add not only second but also third letters to their previous one-letter model designations (such as "CLA" where "C-Class" sufficed earlier). Such a matrix would get even worse with all the new models, or what Mercedes-Benz calls "an increasingly complex situation."
Now they're aiming to make "our system of vehicle nomenclature even more understandable." The new naming system will be "simpler, more transparent and more logical" with the "aim of providing clear orientation for our customers."
Going forward, Mercedes-Benz will have five core models: A, B, C, E and S; crossovers will have a "GL" in their name.
The letter that follows each of those initials will indicate the vehicle's size, similar to how the brand has differentiated its sedans through the years. Thus the compact GLA becomes GL A-Class; the GLK will be renamed GL C-Class. And so on.
Easier to understand? The jury definitely remains out on that one.
There are a lot more wrinkles to this new nomenclature that Mercedes-Benz explained in its press release, including the fact that for engines other than gasoline-powered it will use lowercase letters to designate the powertrain, such as "c" for compressed natural gas, replacing "National Gas Drive" in Europe; "d" for diesel, replacing BlueTEC and CDI; "e" for electric models, "f" for fuel cell and "h" for hybrid.
Naming schemes have become a crucial part of luxury auto branding, with numbers, letters and alphanumeric combinations seeming to provide a sophisticated and even high-tech sheen to model names, in contrast to the names of mainstream vehicles that are usually words, including coined names.
Naming architectures that provide understated but complementary names to individual vehicles also underscore the importance of the overall brand and its characteristics instead of individual vehicles. This is where luxury marques get the biggest payoff from their investments in brand marketing.
In this regard, BMW, with its easy-to-understand laddered-number system beginning with the 1 Series and extending on up through the 5 Series and so on, has set the standard. Audi has done something similar with its A3, A4, A6 and so on designations for cars and Q3, Q5 and Q7 and so on for SUVs.
Infiniti and Cadillac are two other brands that covet naming schemes more akin to these German competitors. Cadillac, for example, is embarking on a new nomenclature with its decision to call its next major sedan the CT-6 and to designate all future cars with a "CT" prefix, while all future SUVs will be designated with "XT" plus a number.
Will Mercedes-Benz's new "logical" system provide extra magic to the brand in its intense global competition for the luxury auto consumer? Or amount to a murky new bowl of alphabet soup?
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[Images via Mercedes-Benz]
