Whats old is new in automotive marketing

[Bill B]

I just saw an ad on TV for one of the Dodge Ram Trucks. They were bragging about the virtues of the Torqueflite auto transmission. Chrysler started calling their slushbox auto a Torqueflite back in 1956. I guess they figure that all of these young folk had never heard that term before, so why not use it again. Toyota had an ad campaign a year or so ago that wanted you to ask the person that drives one. Packard had a similar slogan in 1901 that would not be politically correct today that said "Ask The Man That Owns One" Dodge has the fairly new Dart. Most people under 30 or 35 would not remember the old Dart, so why not use the name again. I remember my parents old 1969 Dodge Dart that I drove without the parents permission before I was 16 and got a license. It had the old 273 V8 in it. I guess that car companies recycle old ideas when they run out of new ones.

[Rope-Pusher]

I just saw an ad on TV for one of the Dodge Ram Trucks. They were bragging about the virtues of the Torqueflite auto transmission. Chrysler started calling their slushbox auto a Torqueflite back in 1956. I guess they figure that all of these young folk had never heard that term before, so why not use it again. Toyota had an ad campaign a year or so ago that wanted you to ask the person that drives one. Packard had a similar slogan in 1901 that would not be politically correct today that said "Ask The Man That Owns One" Dodge has the fairly new Dart. Most people under 30 or 35 would not remember the old Dart, so why not use the name again. I remember my parents old 1969 Dodge Dart that I drove without the parents permission before I was 16 and got a license. It had the old 273 V8 in it. I guess that car companies recycle old ideas when they run out of new ones.

I can never finger out why they think it's OK to discontinue a carline and then resurrect the name onto something very different years later. The last GTO deserved a different name, as does the latest Cherokee, the middle-years Challenger,

the FWD Charger, the late-model Charger.....the list goes on and on.
Also, GM seems to have renamed nearly every truck they make, Ford renamed the Taurus and then switched back again, and who can forget the Rabbit/Golf?

[theholycow]

It's got to be increasingly difficult to come up with new names. Besides lack of originality there are all sorts of studies that need to be done to make sure you won't step on anybody's trademark, offend anybody, mean anything silly in another language, etc. An old name is grandfathered past all those issues so resurrecting it is easy and cheap, and of course may contribute some value by reminding people of something they liked back then.

I do think it was a shame to use the Charger name on a FWD subcompact though.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_Charger_(L-body)
They could at least have called it the Charger II...

[ClutchDisc]

It seems that if they don't resurrect old names and reuse them, you just get letters for your cars name. MDX, MKZ, MKS, MKX, CX-5.....etc. Comon, can't they come up with anything more creative?

[watkins]

You mean like Geoff?