Now Audi is being moronic too

I have no problem with the look of the new RS5; it is muscular, aggressive, and pretty damn awesome.  

I have no issue with the performance, 0-60 in 4.0 and this thing will spank pure sports cars.  

No, what I have an issue with is the naming.  The A5 is the 2-door, coupe version of the A4.  Loose two doors, go up a number.  But then the A7 is the sloping hatchback version of the A6. Add another door, also go up one number.   Confusing right?  Now, this RS5 is a 4-door version of the A5, which is a 2 door version of the 4-door A4.  WTF?  And it has a sloping hatchback, so that makes it "sportback" instead of adding a number.  

BMW started this crap by messing with the perfectly-good 3-Series coupe and convertible. When will it end? 

The green seems pretty wild given that Audi of recent are mostly in the silver/gray pallet. 

I never cared much for alpha-numeric names, but I flat stopped caring at all when the M3 became the M4. Berk that noise.

That is an attractive car. I agree the naming 'convention' is annoying. 

Volvo names used to make perfect sense.  142 was a 1 series car, with a 4 cylinder engine, and two doors.  A 145 was the same, except with 5 doors (a wagon).  Nailed it thorough the 2 series and... then... they got to the 7 series.

740 - a 7 series car, with a 4 cylinder engine, and no doors...

*sigh*

I search Audi by the number of cylinders. And since I will never get one new the Wikipedia will be up to date by then for me to get it strait. 

I do like the color but you could slap a BMW badge on that and I wouldn't blink.  Nice style though. 

The BMW 4 series thing made sense as their even numbers were coupes and odd numbers were sedans/wagons except the 3 series. The issue was the addition of the gran coupes and GTs. 

BMW got silly when they dropped the "E" designation for "F". Where as the E actually meant something, F is just the next letter in the alphabet.

I won't go into how marketing ruined Lincoln's "Mark" series of cars by writing ads that didn't realize that Mk, meant "Mark" and not "Em Kay" and X was supposed to be 10 and not "ex"

I like names. Number which tell the truth are good, but BMW was lying on their numbers before I was even born. Names don't tell you engine displacement, but they can be cool. Like the Jensen Interceptor, which is named for fighter aircraft. Even the Jensen FF stood for something (wiki it). Rolls Royces are named after ghosts and weather and what not. Mustangs, Broncos, and Colts are named after horses while Pintos are named after beans. Elva Courier is perhaps a joke name, because you're not going to fit too many parcels in one of those. The Peugeot Bipper Tepee is... I guess named after a conical tent that uh... Bips?

Other favorites:

Isuzu Mysterious Utility Wizard

GLH(S)

Ford Probe

Subaru B.R.A.T.

And my absolute favorite, TVR, which stands for Trevor.

you must be very young then, BMW has been relatively honest with their numbers until recently. Yes, the 318i was really a 319i towards the end, but for the most part, a 325 had a 2.5 litre engine in it.

Give me Boss, Eliminator, Super Sport, GT500/350, Tempest, GTO etc.

mad_machine said:

you must be very young then, BMW has been relatively honest with their numbers until recently. Yes, the 318i was really a 319i towards the end, but for the most part, a 325 had a 2.5 litre engine in it.

If by "recently" you mean the last 20 years.  An E46 323 had a 2.5L engine it, the E39 540 and E38 740 were 4.4L, the 750 was a 5.4L, and the "5.0" in the M5 should have rounded down to 4.9.  :)

That looks nice, but I still think the A/S/RS7 is the best-looking.

pinchvalve said:

No, what I have an issue with is the naming.  The A5 is the 2-door, coupe version of the A4.  Loose two doors, go up a number.  But then the A7 is the sloping hatchback version of the A6. Add another door, also go up one number.   Confusing right?  Now, this RS5 is a 4-door version of the A5, which is a 2 door version of the 4-door A4.  WTF?  And it has a sloping hatchback, so that makes it "sportback" instead of adding a number.  

BMW started this crap by messing with the perfectly-good 3-Series coupe and convertible. When will it end? 

Thank you.  This bugs the ever-living berk out of me.

THE NUMBER OF DOORS IS THE IMPORTANT PART.  NOBODY GIVES A BERK ABOUT THE SUBTLE DIFFERENCE IN ROOFLINE.

Using BMW as the example, the system should be that odd-numbered series have 4 doors, even-numbered series have 2 doors.  Each pair of series denotes a chassis size (1/2, 3/4, 5/6, 7/8).  That's arbitrary so it's no issue to reverse it like Audi does.

I think there was maybe 1 year after BMW established this system across their entire line before they berked up their own nomenclature.

And I thought Germans were supposed to be logical?

I agree. I also am glad that hatchbacks are making a comeback.

How is this different from an RS7? Wouldn't it make more sense if it were named RS4 Sportback instead of RS5 Sportback based on the number of doors?

ebonyandivory said:

Give me Boss, Eliminator, Super Sport, GT500/350, Tempest, GTO etc.

 

I think Mopar had/has the best names. Charger, Challenger, Demon, Royal Lancer, Barracuda, Road Runner, Superbird, Magnum, Nitro, Avenger, Aries (Let's name a car after the Greek god of war!)

The Studebaker Dictator probably wouldn't be a popular name today.

This belongs in the first world problem thread. 

I'm just glad it can be delivered in a color that isn't monochrome.

I could care less.  That's a great looking car that kicks serious performance butt.  I'd love to have one

Cactus said:

Mustangs, Broncos, and Colts are named after horses while Pintos are named after beans.

the Pinto was named after a color of Pony https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinto_horse. The logo even had the pony and a "tail" on it:

Names are great, but they can be quite troublesome, in that they may already be trademarked or copyrighted elsewhere (and many automakers have copyrighted and trademarked hundreds of names they don't actually already use). Plus names can actually mean different things in different languages, so you have to try to make up words that have no other meanings, which is itself troublesome. Alphanumeric names have few such difficulties.

I can just picture this at the dealership.

Me: "I would like to look at that car over there" pointing towards car.

Salesman: "You mean the AS53Ti-Boogiti?"

Me: No, the green one."

STM317 said:

How is this different from an RS7? Wouldn't it make more sense if it were named RS4 Sportback instead of RS5 Sportback based on the number of doors?

It's different from an RS7 in that it's smaller, missing 2 cylinders and 150 hp, and about $60K less expensive.

Don't look for consistency in the nomenclature.  Marketing rules that, not engineering, and marketing really doesn't care about consistency.