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800k car names trademarked globally, suddenly alphanumerics seem reasonable

What's in a name? This cliched phrase probably gets tossed out at every marketing meeting that happens when a new car gets its nomenclature. We know the answer, though: everything. The name of a car has all the potential to make or break it with fickle customers that are more conscious than ever about what their purchases say about them.
That's giving headaches to marketing folks across the automotive industry. "It's tough. In 1985 there were about 75,000 names trademarked in the automotive space. Today there are 800,000," Chevrolet's head of marketing, Russ Clark, told Automotive News. Infiniti's president, Johan de Nysschen, echoed Clark's sentiment, saying, "The truth of the matter is, across the world, there is hardly a name or a letter that hasn't already been claimed by one car manufacturer or another. You can go through the alphabet - A, B, C and so forth - and you will quickly see that almost all available letters are taken."
What has that left automakers to do? Get creative. In the case of Infiniti, it made the controversial move to bring all of its cars' names into a new scheme, classifying them as Q#0 for cars and QX#0 for SUVs and crossovers. So the Infiniti G, which was available as the G25 and G37, is now the Q50. The FX37 and FX50 are now the QX70.

Chevy to reveal new Spark in Seoul and New York

Chevy is preparing to roll out an all-new Spark next month, giving us a taste of things to come with the teaser image above. The new Spark is set to debut simultaneously at car shows in Seoul and in New York on April 2, joining the new Malibu that will also mark its debut at the Manhattan expo. Why introduce the new Spark at the same time in South Korea and in the US, you ask? Probably because those are the two biggest markets for Chevy's smallest car, accounting for the lion's share of the 1.1 million units sold in 71 markets around the world since its introduction in 2009. Chevy hasn't revealed much about the new Spark, except to say that its styling will be more sophisticated than the "youthful whimsy" of the current model. A Spark of Sophistication Chevrolet's redesigned global minicar to debut in Seoul and New York on April 2 2015-03-09 DETROIT – The all-new 2016 Spark will debut on April 2 at the Seoul and New York auto shows, Chevrolet announced today. A sleeker, more aerodynamic profile and a progressive take on Chevrolet's signature design cues will give the redesigned Spark a more sophisticated aesthetic that reflects the changing tastes of the global minicar market. "The new Spark's design has evolved and grown up with the segment," said Michael Simcoe, GM International vice president of Design. "The youthful whimsy of the original Spark is still in its genes, but it is conveyed in more traditional proportions that reinforce the customer's refined expectations." Chevrolet has sold more than 1.1 million Sparks around the world since it went on sale as the Beat in India in late 2009. Today, the Spark is available in 71 markets worldwide, selling the most in South Korea, followed by the United States and Mexico. Spark is attracting younger and first-time car buyers to Chevrolet with 26 percent being under the age of 35. Sales of the Spark in the U.S. are up 32 percent in the first two months of 2015 versus the same period in 2014. Founded in 1911 in Detroit, Chevrolet is now one of the world's largest car brands, doing business in more than 115 countries and around 4.8 million cars and trucks a year. Chevrolet provides customers with fuel-efficient vehicles that feature engaging performance, design that makes the heart beat, passive and active safety features and easy-to-use technology, all at a value. More information on Chevrolet models can be found at www.chevrolet.com.

Are you the 2014 Corvette Grand Sport?

When are stripes more than just stripes? Follow up question: Is the product development team at Chevrolet really cocky enough to hide the next C7 Corvette variant in plain sight? This very recently spotted, and ostensibly obscured C7 asks a lot more questions than it answers, but there's at least some evidence to support that it might be the next Corvette Grand Sport.
The first and most obvious tip-off that something is up with this 'Vette revolves around those silver stripes. Obviously the stripes themselves don't necessarily denote a new model. However, when Chevy recently launched its "colorizer" website for the Stingray, there was no provision made for racing stripes - solid colors only.
Grand Sport exhibit number two is actually an incriminating lack of badges. The production Corvettes we've seen to date have all carried Stingray badges on their fenders, just behind the vent. The car seen in these images has no such badges, which is an intriguing omission on an car that looks like a production-spec vehicle otherwise.