On July 12, 2021, a curious little application came across the desk of someone at the United States Patent and Trademark Office. It was a trademark for the name “Skyline,” but it wasn’t from the brand you would associate that name with.
That’s right, Ford, not Nissan, has called dibs the name for “motor land vehicles, namely SUVs, trucks, and automobiles,” as was first noticed by Ford Authority. Of course, we can’t be sure what the blue oval is planning for the name Skyline, but it’s an unusual decision all the same.
The name is most famously associated with a Nissan sedan. Although the name is currently used in Japan on the local version of what Americans would call the Infiniti Q50, many still associate it with the GT-R, since it tracks its history back to the high-performance variants of the Skylines in the ’90s.
Read Also: Nissan Denies It Will Stop Developing The Skyline, Says Never Gonna Give It Up
Rumors recently suggested that the Skyline would even be discontinued in the Japanese market, though, as another victim of SUV sales domination. Nissan’s executive vice president, though, shot down those rumors saying that the company “will never give up on the Skyline.”
Whether or not that will pose any problems for whatever Ford is planning with this trademark remains to be seen. As some have pointed out, though, Ford’s 7.3-liter V8 engine is popularly referred to as the “Godzilla” engine. Meaning that there could potentially be a Skyline with a Godzilla engine that has nothing to do with Nissan, which is as amusing as it would be confusing.
Unfortunately, if history is any gauge, what Ford does with the name is unlikely to be all that exciting. Although we don’t know of any Ford Skylines, the company has used the name “Skyliner” in the past. Most recently, the name was used for a 2014 concept Transit van that was luxuriously appointed inside.
Although this is just a guess, too, u/ChickenPotPi pointed out on Reddit that the name could fit in rather well to the Lincoln lineup. A Skyline does work alongside the Navigator, Nautilus, Aviator, and the Continental, which is also a name with some brand confusion.
Just because an automaker trademarks a name does not always mean that anything will come of it, though, so don’t hold your breath waiting for a Skyline in the U.S. just yet.