American's Moment of Truth

After a recent assessment of the nation's social unrest, American Motors officials decided that it was no time to be selling a car called Rebel, as it had been doing. The company's marketing men conducted many expensive consumer-research polls and found a new name for A.M.C.'s intermediate model: Matador, which the studies found meant virility and excitement to consumers. Last week A.M.C. introduced its Matador in Puerto Rico--and ran right into language trouble. Matador, it turns out, is the Spanish word for killer, hardly a good selling point. In an editorial, the daily San Juan Star tsk-tsked: "We suggest that the name is an unfortunate choice" for Puerto Rico, which has "an unusually high traffic fatality rate."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.