Nissan Sales Surging Due to Stupid Car Names

Nissan is on a role.  Literally.  Sales are up and projections point to a more profitable year than Honda or Toyota.  What accounts for this success?  I have to say that I’m a little surprised.  I’ve owned Honda and Nissan cars and believe Honda makes a better car.  I never cared much for Toyota styling and have only driven them as rentals, never being terribly impressed with the ride.

My Nissan Sentra  with manual transmission was nice.  We drove it for about 8 years until it just fell apart at about 130K.  Anyway, I don’t think the Sentra accounts for the company’s success – no, I think it’s all the new cars in their lineup with silly names like the Juke, Rogue, Mirano, and one of my favorites, the Nissan Cube.  Incidentally, with the USPS running a billion or so deficit, I had recommended they replace their fleet of fuel inefficient delivery vehicles with the  Cube – they kind of look like mail trucks, don’t they? My suggestion has fallen on deaf ears, but I’d like to see a bunch of Cubes rolling around in neighborhoods across America.  The new mini SUV turbo charged Juke is said to be popular, but I’ve yet to see one on the road – not one.

Nissan is on the rise, but I am a little surprised.  I thought when they changed their name from Datsun to Nissan and discontinued the B-210, the automaker would collapse.  I called for the company to bring back the 40+mpg B-210.  They didn’t listen.  Now the B210 is the Versa.  What is a Versa anyway? And a Sentra, come on, they just made these names up, unless they mean something in Japanese.  It’s almost as if the company is mocking its customers, as if to say consumers are so dumb that the dumber the name, the more they’re inclined to drive one.  As the old slogan goes, “we are driven”, or taken for a ride as the case may be.