Choosing a name for a new model is far from an easy process for automakers, and unless they are related to mythology or a place, car names often make little sense in the eyes of consumers.
Take the 911, for example, Porsche’s iconic sports car, whose exterior design is an evolution of the 1963 original, the year it was born.
Nevertheless, ‘911’ wasn’t the original moniker that Porsche was going to use, as they initially planned to sell it as the 901. However, they soon received a “friendly” letter from Peugeot, informing them that all three-digit numbers with a zero in the middle are a no-go as they had already trademarked them.
This meant that it was time for a brainstorming session, whose result was supposed to keep production costs to a minimum. Still, before knowing that they cannot use the original moniker, Porsche had the idea to add ‘901’ badges on the tailgates and dashboards of the vehicles, so they already had the ‘9’, ‘0’, and ‘1’ printed out and ready to use.
So what did they do? Well, basically, they put 1 and 1 together, thus giving the sports car the iconic name that’s become famous worldwide as revealed in this case not by Google, but by Porsche themselves, in an official video.