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      05-18-2013, 08:34 AM   #1
tony20009
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Drives: BMW 335i - Coupe
Join Date: Jun 2009
Location: Washington, DC

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Automotive Taxonomy

Clearly you can tell the taxonomy of cars these days is far from straight forward. Coupes have four doors. Sedans have three or two. What is it with car makers that they can't just call a spade a spade?

Consider our beloved BMW which stated that 2-door cars would get even numbers and 4-door cars would get odd numbers. Yet we have:

  • M135 with two doors
  • 6GC with four doors
  • 3 GT with 5 doors
  • 4GC (coming) with four doors

There must be some good reason for all these labels that make no sense and simply ignoring Shakespeare. I realize they are cars and not rose, but the buying public, I think, doesn't really care (within reason) what a car is called. (To an extent...It'll be interesting to see how well the 4 series sells in China. Superstitious as the Chinese are, I cannot imagine they will be keen to ride around in car that is death by name.) I think most people look at the car, decide whether they like the looks, and go from there.

Trying to make some sense out of the car's naming might have made some sense when the numbers referred to something literal like displacement, or liters of oil, or cylinders, or something. Defining a rule about the quantity of doors and then immediately breaking that rule is just ridiculous. Perhaps I've worked with IT types too long and just don't like rules that cannot be relied upon.
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Cheers,
Tony

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