Hate seeing cherished nameplates used in new ways? Do what I did: Decide you only care about defunct automakers

Like so many great marques, Duesenberg stuck to its guns, never compromised and with its head held high … proudly went out of business. Its hallowed name will never be besmirched by a crossover! Or any other new vehicles, for that matter.

To the shock of absolutely no one, a lot of people who were never going to buy a Ford Mustang Mach-E have extremely strong opinions about Ford’s repurposing of the Mustang brand. The reactions are visceral and worryingly personal; it’s as if this new vehicle means the numbers-matching ’67 fastbacks they have in their garages will be confiscated, crushed and replaced with an electric crossover. This vehemence cannot be healthy.

Ford must have some rationale for naming it as it did. Time, and sales numbers, will tell whether this rationale is fundamentally sound.  

Me, I don’t really care either way. I think I’m in a spot where I can assess the Mustang Mach-E, which I am very much looking forward to driving, on its own merits. I won’t claim I’ll be totally objective; no reviewer can be. But I have mostly liberated myself from the baggage that seems to weigh down so many observers and commentators. You know who you are.

How have I achieved this state of automotive zen? It’s simple: I decided that I only really care about the so-called orphan brands.

That’s not to say that I don’t appreciate modern vehicles; from the Jeep Gladiator to the Bentley Continental GT, there are plenty of present-day offerings that do justice to their respective brands’ storied histories, and that I’d happily own. Nor do I think every new vehicle is intrinsically good or worthy.

But at some point, I think around the time Lamborghini rolled out the Urus, I more or less stopped investing any emotion in what a still-active marque was supposed to stand for. A brand is just a tool used to help sell cars, and as long as an automaker is still in business, it will twist and bend and torture that brand in truly confounding ways if it thinks it means moving more product.

Often, this seems to lead to a lot of people being mad online. And “mad online” is never a good or productive state of being.

On the other hand, we can spend hours debating whether a merger with Nash and Hudson, rather than Studebaker, would have saved Packard. We don’t know if that proposed tripartite pact would have worked or not. Maybe it would have led to a glorious future for the Independents, or maybe we would have ended up with a bunch of crappy cars that forever tarnished a trio of beloved badges.

But it’s all academic: The Studebaker merger happened, it was a total disaster and the last cars wearing the Packard name were built in 1958. Who knows what might have been, but at least we never had to suffer the indignity of a Packard compact luxury crossover. Right?

I’m not going to pretend this is the courageous way out. Instead of ridding myself of brand attachments and pursuing the long road toward true brand-agnostic gearhead enlightenment, I’ve simply projected this attachment onto orphan marques whose histories are effectively encased in amber.

It’s a compromise, but for now, it’s working. And maybe it will work for you. Try it: Pick a long dead marque—could be Duesenberg, could be Crosley—and embrace it wholeheartedly.

And then when, for example, Ferrari announces its inevitable SUV, use it as a source of comfort and stability. Rather than being one more member of the herd posting an identical “Enzo must be rolling in his grave” comment (believe me, you’re not as clever as you think you are), meditate on the brilliant economy of the COBRA engine and the Hotshot’s unparalleled blend of sportiness and sensibility. You will actually feel your blood pressure start to drop.

Remember: Dead brands can’t hurt you anymore. At least until they get bought by the Chinese and their reanimated corpses are used to build crossovers.

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