How do manufactures badge their trims? LX? SX? EX? LTZ? Limited? LUX?

"Der Käfer" (Rhy) 06/23/2015 at 12:15 • Filed to: None

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I had a conversation this morning with one of my co-workers about how sometimes the trim level badge of a car doesn’t quite add up and leaves most guessing what the hell does LTZ mean? What does SX mean? SE? Special Edition? How do they go about it?

I surely don’t have a clue but sometimes things do make sense.. Executive trim obviously means tippity top model, SS means fast and so on and so forth.

What do you guys think?

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > Der Käfer 06/23/2015 at 12:19

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!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 06/23/2015 at 12:20

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Short list of some of the common ones from Wikipedia. SS is one of those missing - usually SuperSport or similar.

sm70- why not Duesenberg? > Der Käfer 06/23/2015 at 12:21

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Nobody knows. Especially not the companies themselves.

Alex B > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 06/23/2015 at 12:21

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Haha, what brand is this for? Honda’s LX trim is everything but luxury! SL for Nissan is often close to the top of the model range.

Alfalfa Romeo > Der Käfer 06/23/2015 at 12:22

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After researching what the GLS stood for on my wife’s Hyundai, I discovered that although some dealerships give them meanings (usually grand luxury sedan), it doesn’t actually stand for anything.

sm70- why not Duesenberg? > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 06/23/2015 at 12:22

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Are you saying I have and Audi A8 “base”?

:(

Textured Soy Protein > Der Käfer 06/23/2015 at 12:23

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They mean nothing. Nissan is particularly confusing with SL, SV and SR. Which one is supposed to be better?

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > Alex B 06/23/2015 at 12:24

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It’s from Wikipedia, so taken with a grain of salt, and there are a lot of manufacturers who don’t play by the rules at all (Benz, so much), and others that adopt phrasings differently. These are relatively common across multiple brands, though. I imagine Nissan is using SL for something more like SLE.

Dunnik > Der Käfer 06/23/2015 at 12:24

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The marketers think about who the car will be pitched to, then reach into their bag of acronyms. And yes, just like lots of marketing, the description has little to do with the product.

SS “means fast” because it means Super Sport.

S almost always means Sport.

L almost always means Luxury.

T almost always means Touring.

So SLT on a GMC truck would mean Sport Luxury Touring. Uhuh.

SE means special edition. This is supposed to make you like a precious snowflake.

Some letters don’t correspond to a word. X is just X (unless it means eXperimental or eXtreme!). X as a letter carries meaning: mysterious (X-Files, Mr. X) , cutting-edge (the X-planes), restricted content (Rated X). I think Z exists because X has been overdone.

Zohaibman72 > Alex B 06/23/2015 at 12:24

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LX is Honda’s Mid Range. EX is believe is the top-of the line. But so is Touring for some models. If I recall EX is the top-of-the-line on sporty models like the Civic and Accord Coupe, and Touring is for the Odyessy and Accord and family vehicles.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > sm70- why not Duesenberg? 06/23/2015 at 12:25

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If it were made by GM, it might be. That’s one brand that accords relatively well to this schema. You can imagine what happens when one maker uses just “L” for what another would use “LE”.

Milky > Der Käfer 06/23/2015 at 12:25

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Buy a car that doesn’t have trim levels with those “names”. Problem solved.

Carl (@stuffcarlsays) > Der Käfer 06/23/2015 at 12:29

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By and large, it varies by manufacturer. Where the majority of my cars have been Saabs and Volvos, I am familiar with their naming schemes.

base = base

S (eg. 900S) = Sport

Turbo = Sport model with Turbo engine

GL = Grand Luxe

GLE = Grand Luxe Electronic (injection)

GLT = Grand Luxe, Turbo

EMS = Electronic Manual Special

L = Base

LE = Base + Electronic Injection (Saab 99)

SE = Special Edition

SPG = Special Performance Group

T5 = Turbo (Volvo)

T6 = Turbo (Volvo)

X7 = Really base Saab 99

Alex B > Zohaibman72 06/23/2015 at 12:29

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No, EX is midrange for most USDM cars. LX is base. Then EX. EX-L trim adds leather to the EX. Then Touring-Touring Elite is the ultimate trim for some models.

BigBlock440 > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 06/23/2015 at 12:29

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!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!

Never heard that one before, I’ve always heard it as Special Edition, which makes more sense to me. Though I don’t rule out that a manufacturer could use it as “sport edition”.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > BigBlock440 06/23/2015 at 12:30

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I didn’t pull it entirely out of my butt, I pulled it out of Wikipedia’s butt. The shared butt of the internet. Which means that somebody probably does use it as that, but how much it’s that and how much it’s something else may vary - a lot.

Twingo Tamer - About to descend into project car hell. > Der Käfer 06/23/2015 at 12:31

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My favourite is the Corsa Limited Edition. They are absolutely everywhere and in no way limited.

Zohaibman72 > Alex B 06/23/2015 at 12:33

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My civic is USDM and it went DX, LX and then EX.

G_Body_Man: Sponsored by the number 3 > Textured Soy Protein 06/23/2015 at 12:33

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SL>SR>SV>S

G_Body_Man: Sponsored by the number 3 > Der Käfer 06/23/2015 at 12:34

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Why not have a base-model, an SE for sportiness, and a Brougham for luxury?

Alex B > Zohaibman72 06/23/2015 at 12:34

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Hm, I guess they’ve changed it. If you go to configure a Civic on the US site the lowest is LX.

Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To > Alex B 06/23/2015 at 12:37

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Yeah... in Canada the Civic LX is the lowest-tier model you can get.

OPPOsaurus WRX > sm70- why not Duesenberg? 06/23/2015 at 12:39

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i dont know how bad even a ‘base’ A8 could be.

AthomSfere > sm70- why not Duesenberg? 06/23/2015 at 12:41

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Or a Jetta EXLE....

AthomSfere > Dunnik 06/23/2015 at 12:43

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X and Z are also some of the “masculine” letters that do well to sell to men, supposedly.

C,X,T,S,Z,R I believe are the ones...

Cé hé sin > Twingo Tamer - About to descend into project car hell. 06/23/2015 at 12:53

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But they are limited!

The limit is how many they can sell.

Cé hé sin > Der Käfer 06/23/2015 at 12:57

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Basically they mean nothing.

Even when they did there was badge inflation, like this:

De Luxe means luxurious.

Then it meant something above basic.

Then it became DL and became poverty spec.

Having used up “De Luxe” we had to go on to Grand Luxe and after that GLS and so on.

Another example is Ghia. Used to be an Italian design studio and coachbuilder, ended up as a badge stuck on to a Fiesta. Now Ford has taken on the famous name of Vignale and that’ll go just the same way.

450X_FTW > Der Käfer 06/23/2015 at 13:18

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If it has an X in it then you know it’s extreme!

If it has a lowercase i then you know it’s electronic and makes the environment better

As Du Volant > Alex B 06/23/2015 at 13:46

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Most models have had “trim level creep” going up over the years. Honda’s LX trim used to be one of the better ones. Below it you had DX across the line, as well as CX and VX in the Civic model for a few years. And going back even further there was a base model with no name... just base. So the Accord with no trim name was the base, DX was a step up, LX was even higher.

Pick almost any brand and it’s pretty much the same story. Fox example the Toyota Corolla LE used to be top of the line, now it’s the entry level.

Nibbles > Carl (@stuffcarlsays) 06/23/2015 at 13:51

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SPG = S ports P acka G e

I know it’s dumb as hell, but that’s apparently what it “really” meant

blackchair > Der Käfer 06/23/2015 at 15:03

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Since I have a Kia they go by

LX - Base

EX - Standard which can be optioned up

SX - Premium/Sport trim with trim exclusive items.

SX Limited - Super exclusive.

Nauraushaun > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 06/23/2015 at 17:00

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SLX? VXi? And the only SV I can think of is the Lambos, where it stands for Super Veloce. Which probably means fast.

Nauraushaun > Der Käfer 06/23/2015 at 17:01

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In Australia, Executive has been used to denote a base model

Dunnik > Dunnik 06/24/2015 at 00:55

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Forgot a couple important ones:

GT - Grand Touring (or, for the pedants, Gran Tourismo )

GS - Gran (or Grand) Sport

R - Racing

E - Edition

And, as I said, sometimes the term has no meaning. Sometimes, it’s badly translated. When researching my Worst Cars of the 1980’s FP article, I learned that the GLS trim level for the Hyundai Pony means “Glorious”. Uhuh.

ly2v8-Brian > Dunnik 06/25/2015 at 16:13

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The spongebob meme is really all that needs to be said with regards to trim level names.