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Manufacturers re-using names


Black Knight

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Having a cuppa and a scone a thought came to me

How many and how often did manufacturers re-use names for their products?

 

Criteria;

The name has to have been re-used by the same manufacturer, the same stable,  thus all the 'Lightnings' are out

No type 'nicknames' such Emil or Gustav for German types E and G

No derivatives such as 'Lancastrian'

Used on a totally different type, thus no mark 1, 2 et cetera of the same type, but some exceptions*

 

To start;

Most of us are familiar with Westland Whirlwind - WW2 fighter and helicopter

Then there is the Westland Wessex name - a 1930s 3-engined airliner and a helicopter

 

de Havilland; Comet, the DH 88 racer and DH 106 airliner

 

Hawker;  Harrier VTOL and the Harrier of 1927

Nimrod, 1930s biplane and the DH Comet derivative (Hawker Siddeley, almost same stable)

 

Skoda cars has re-used the names Felicia and Estelle* a few times

 

Can you add to the list?

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Triumph had Dolomites pre-war and in 70s

Vought runs through Corsair biplane, WW2 Corsair and Vietnam Era A-7 Corsair (aka Corsair 2 which makes no sense as it was the third type of the name!)

The famous wartime Spitfire is the second type to use the name as the Type 224 was briefly named such.

P-38 Lightning and F-35 Lightning meet your criteria?

Alfa have reused Giulia on quite different generations 

Toyota notoriously claim Corolla as the worlds best selling car even though the various generations are massively different 

Which brings us to VW and two eras of Beetle (can’t remember if gen 2 was called Bug in the US?)

Mini reused by BMW and there is a continuity of company (just) from real Mini

Ford Mustang

Dodge 300, Charger and Challenger names have been resurrected 

All the different Mirages?

Riley Elf’s

Riley One point Fives?

MG Midget and Magnette were both used pre- and post-war for very different models - to be honest there’s a whole tranche of suspects in the sorry badge engineering of BL and it’s constituent predecessors 

I suspect there must be hundreds of examples, any company with a “winning” name tends to reuse it for “reflected glory”.

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1 hour ago, malpaso said:

I suspect there must be hundreds of examples, any company with a “winning” name tends to reuse it for “reflected glory”.

Very much the case.

In addition to the Lockheed P-38 Lightning and Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning, the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt and Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II are prime examples of that.

 

Stretching the concept, but perhaps a good inclusion for an 'Eponymous GB' are ships. Discussions of FFG-58 SAMUEL B ROBERTS often include references to DE-413

 

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HMS Alert was the name given to various types of ships commissioned in 1753, 1777, 1779 (twice), 1790, 1793, 1795, 1804, 1813, 1835, 1848, 1856, 1894, and 1945. As well as several 'hired armed vessels' of that name.

 

That's a group build all of its own.

 

Edited by Bertie McBoatface
apostrophe catastrophe
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The Soviets re-used designations: Su-7 - 1940's early jet fighter and 1960's fighter-bomber. Su-9 - 1940's early jet fighter and 1960's fighter/interceptor. Tu-12 - first designation of the Tu-70 (a transport derivative of the Tu-4 bomber) and was also used for the jet-engined development of the Tu-2 tactical bomber. I sometimes wonder if the Soviets did it purposefully to confuse Western observers.

 

Regards,

 

Jason

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9 hours ago, malpaso said:

Vought runs through Corsair biplane, WW2 Corsair and Vietnam Era A-7 Corsair (aka Corsair 2 which makes no sense as it was the third type of the name!)

Weren't there four Corsairs? I think the 1920s O2U and 1930s SBU were different aircraft. So really the A-7 should have been the Corsair 4. Whoever came up with Corsair 2 had a short memory!

 

The C-17 is the Globemaster III after the C-74 and C-124. And two Tiger Moths (DH.71 and DH.82, completely different aircraft and only four years apart).

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Many car manufacturers love to keep the same name while changing the car, see how VW Golf has used the name Golf for 8 different generations. The same company has done the same with many other cars and so have done Ford and most Japanese manufacturers.

 

More interesting are maybe those names that reappeared after several years. Alfa used the name Giulietta 3 times, first in the mid '50s, then in the mid '70s and latest in 2010. 

Fiat is one company that usually prefer using new names (the Panda is an exception) yet they have reused older names a few times: the 2005 Croma had nothing to do with the previous one and same with the current Tipo. Another "name" recently resurrected has been 124 for their Mazda based 2-seater.

Even Ferrari has reused names: the '70s Mondial took the name from a '50s car designed for racing. The Testarossa on the other hand was only inspired in name by an older racing car but this was not officially known as such.

With Ferrari traditional way of designating cars there were also several that featured the same numbers while being very different cars, however I would not consider this as reusing a name

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50 minutes ago, Alex Gordon said:

How dull?

 

far-north-rally-2001-credit-greg-olesen_

Not the image which pops into my mind, when I hear Vauxhall Viva I think of something more like this, very popular with the teachers at my school in the 80s 😅

 

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We'll not get bogged down by the 'rules'

Its just a bit of a lark., a bit of fun to see what we can come up with or find

Like Pete and Dud and their 2 men in a pub conversations

 

On 16/07/2022 at 16:00, Bertie McBoatface said:

This smells like a Group Build to me.

 

23 hours ago, Bertie McBoatface said:

HMS Alert . . . 

That's a group build all of its own.

 

Will ya knock it off with the Group Builds waves Moriarty!  :blink:  :lol:

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2 minutes ago, Black Knight said:

We'll not get bogged down by the 'rules'

Its just a bit of a lark., a bit of fun to see what we can come up with or find

Like Pete and Dud and their 2 men in a pub conversations

 

 

 

Will ya stop with the Group Builds waves Moriarty!  :blink:  :lol:

 

I believe that seed may have fallen on fruitful ground...

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Lockheed reused the "Electra" name across at least four aircraft:

Model 10 Electra

Model 12 Electra Junior

Model 14 Super Electra

L-188 Electra

 

Boeing used 'Stratotanker" for both the KC-97 and KC-135 tankers

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Another Italian car name just came to my mind: the Maserati Ghibli.

First was the late '60s coupe/spider. Then came the Biturbo based model of the early '80s. Latest is the current 4-door saloon.

Three totally unrelated models and very different from each other.

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As well as all those Hawks, Curtiss built three Shrikes, all basically light bombers.  And Marcel Dassault went through a phase of wanting to call everything a Mystère.  Even the very first Mirage was originally the Mystère-Mirage or similar - and then, of course, while there were all those Mirage fighters, his first executive jet was the Mystère 20.

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On 7/16/2022 at 2:56 PM, Black Knight said:

Skoda cars has re-used the names Felicia and Estelle* a few times

AFAIK the "Estelle" moniker only applied to the UK market Š105, 120 and 130 saloons.

 

Story goes that, much like Mercedes, it was renamed after a manager's daughter...

 

Favorit, Felicia, Octavia, Superb and Rapid have been reused 2 or 3 times since the 1930s.

 

IanJ

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