I like the name Genesis for a specific model, but not for the brand. The chosen nomenclature is doomed from the start but I guess some senior VP said, "hey, Infiniti did it, so should we!". ![Roll Eyes ::)](https://www.autos.ca/forum/Smileys/CarTalk/rolleyes.gif)
Volvo did it first.
Infiniti started it at the brand's launch 1989 with the Q45 and M30, and later introduced the G20 and J30...
It had meaning back then. First letter was the car, the next 2 numbers were displacement.
Volvo's pretty meaningless for almost 2 decade.
What was meaningful about 740 and 850?
700 series, 4 cylinder; 800 series, 5 cylinder. In the early '70s Volvo made more sense -- 144, 100 series, 4 cylinders, 4 doors, for example.
Overall the Europeans started this a long time ago, witness the Peugeot 302 of the 1930s, for example...
Then again, the names of cars often have nothing to do with body styles, number of cylinders, or engine displacement...
The alpha-numeric soup just makes it more confusing to keep track of everything.