GWM Ora have decided that the iconically named Ora Funky Cat is going to be renamed to the ‘GWM Ora 03’ as an effort for the brand’s vehicles to better tie into the parent company, Great Wall Motor. GWM is looking to improve the strength of its brand here in Europe and the UK.
The brands under GWM will now come into the new ‘One GWM’ plan, meaning that the sub-brands underneath GWM will use the GWM brand tin part of its identity, Just like the GWM Ora 03, we’ll now see the Wey Coffee 01 become the GWM Wey 05 and so on with the other models from Wey. The new saloon car from GWM Ora, which was unnamed up until now will become the GWM Ora 07. In other markets, it was known as the Ora Lightning Cat in other markets.
GWM has said that this will make the parent brand behind these companies more visible.
“In the UK market, GWM will adopt a phased approach to the implementation of its new brand strategy, with a focus on introducing a new naming convention for GWM ORA products initially. This update also coincides with an amicable settlement of an opposition to the registration of the ‘Funky Cat’ trademark in the UK market. GWM ORA’s launch model, ORA Funky Cat, will soon adopt the model name ‘ORA 03’, with additional models to follow this same approach.”
GWM UK
In other markets, such as South Africa, Australia, Singapore and the Philippines – GWM Ora is already using the new number based naming convention. Starting in January, the company has said that this will now rollout to all markets in Europe where the model is sold.
Our Take
We recently reviewed the rather charming Ora Funky Cat over on our YouTube channel. Changing the name of the model removes a lot of the charm from the car, everyone knows when you say Funky Cat what car you mean. I mean, how many other cars out there have the word cat in them? I can see how it might have put some people off, which might have affected sales. However, if the new naming convention can help secure more sales, then that is a good tradeoff. However, Funky Cat was a great name.
