| The dumbest bit of news I've come across lately was the revelation of some GM memo that instructed employees to call their cars "Chevrolets" and not "Chevys." Why the company would want to disassociate itself from such standards of driving lore as the indestructable Chevy pickup or the classic '57 Chevy is beyond my comprehension. Perhaps visions of early '60s Impalas, painted and re-wheeled in hip-hop style, offend the sensibilities of corporate America (though nothing genuinely tasteless ever does). The deliberate abandonment of brand-identification strikes me as about as commercially viable as the decision made by a musician, some years ago, to change his name to something with no pronounciation. |
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