The blonde leading the blonde

Those fun-loving Aryans at Volkswagen are at it again. Producers of the horrendously named “Touareg” SUV, they remain true to form by naming their new “compact, more fuel efficient SUV”, wait for it… “Tiguan“. A truly phlegmatic choice, from both a personality and linguistic stance.

The Touareg has the distinction of being “The number one most polluting vehicle of 2008“. The Tiguan is being marketed as a “Greener SUV”. The obvious third problem is that the names are so similar, that the Touareg name betrays the Tiguan’s positioning.

How was the name “Tiguan” chosen? Why, by a focus group consisting of a mere 350,00 mortals. But the other name choices were worse. Funny thing is, the other names were so bad, it is obvious to us that VW stacked the deck, subverted democracy, and got the name they wanted all along. Be careful what you wish for.

According to Wikipedia:

As part of a marketing strategy by Volkswagen the name was chosen by the public through the Auto Bild group with over 350,000 voters through Auto Bild’s magazines and Web sites. The other possible names were Namib, Rockton, Samun and Nanuk. Tiguan is a combination of the German words Tiger (“tiger”) and Leguan (“iguana”).

We often fantasize about cats and reptiles mating here at Igor, we just never pictured the 17-inch chrome wheels.

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