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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.

Driving McLaren's Sports Car and 'The Best Corvette' at the M1 Concourse | AutoblogVR

There's nothing better than a track day. Great cars on a great track are always great fun. Recently, we had the opportunity to check out the new M1 Concourse in Pontiac, MI, with two of the coolest cars in the game; a McLaren 570S and a Corvette Grand Sport. Driving the 570S was Autoblog senior editor Greg Migliore, and he didn't hold back. Getting behind the wheel of the McLaren, Greg explains that although this is McLaren's idea of a sports car, "it's all relative." Topping out at 204 miles per hour with 562 horsepower, there's no two ways about it: this thing is a monster. While the 570S was fantastic, we had another sports car we wanted to drive and editor-in-chief Mike Austin was just the man for the job. Enter the Corvette Grand Sport. Mike pushed all 460 horses of the 'Vette to the limit and came away impressed with the car, even calling it "the best Corvette." Comparing it to its more powerful sibling, the Z06, Mike goes so far as to say the Z06 has too much power, while the Grand Sport seems to be the third bear's bowl of porridge in the Corvette family... It's just right. We captured all the action of the day with 360° cameras so you can feel like you're right there in the car sitting shotgun with us! You can check out the McLaren and Corvette laps above, but the best way to view them is through the AutoblogVR app, where you can watch the videos on your VR headset or in a nice swivel-y office chair so you can take in the sights all around you. Each month, new episodes will launch on the AutoblogVR App. We'll be posting them here on Autoblog, but for the best experience, head over to the app, which you can download for free from the App store and Google Play. Be sure to try it with a cardboard viewer, too!

GM might outsource vans to AM General

General Motors will possibly boost production of the Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon at the Wentzville Assembly Plant in Missouri by contracting out some commercial van manufacturing to AM General. Demand for the two midsize trucks continues to boom, and GM would like to take advantage of the strong market for them. The possible deal came to light in a letter to workers at the factory, according to Automotive News. "This potential partnership would free up production capacity and allow the organization to capitalize on our ability to build midsize trucks to further satisfy customer demand," a portion of the document allegedly said. AM General would reportedly only take over assembly of the cutaway versions of the Chevy Express and GMC Savana. Customers and critics have quickly embraced the latest Colorado and Canyon since their introduction. The Chevy just won back-to-back Motor Trend Truck of the Year awards. GM also had to add a third shift and extra workers in 2014 just to keep up with demand. The Wentzville plant even increased employment on the weekends earlier in 2015 to assemble an extra 2,000 of the trucks each month. While the two pickups boom, deliveries for the Chevy Express and GMC Savana are down 26.9 percent and 26.6 percent respectively through the first 10 months of the year. GM doesn't break out numbers for the cutaway versions, but they make up about a third of production, according to Automotive News. AM General built the Humvee for the US military and does some contract work with automakers. For example, the company's Indiana factory now produces the Mercedes-Benz R-Class for export to China. Here's hoping this potential deal will help both GM and AM General keep their factories humming. Related Video: