From an outsider’s perspective, the FCA fleet is in some sort of doldrums. The Ram pickup line has been the same since 2009. The Dodge Charger and Challenger have more or less taken the Porsche 911 route and have only evolved and updated. There’s a new Wrangler coming up, sure, but outside of that and the Grand Cherokee, the Jeep line makes me think of plastic Tonka toys…looks tough, but not so sure about whether or not they are. And don’t ask about Chrysler’s lineup. The Pacifica was a good step forward, but Chrysler has been de-contenting the 300 for a while now and the 200 was a solid screwup on investment. The company needs to get new and fresh product out there, and a couple of trademark filings have raised eyebrows.

The first of two, and the more interesting, is the “Atlantic” nameplate. First seen on a 1995 Chrysler concept car that looked like a 1930s Delahaye for the 1990s, Atlantic is a name that hasn’t been run through the ground, hasn’t been overly teased, and could be put onto just about anything. The best-case scenario for putting money into the FCA coffers is for Chrysler to get into the crossover game, as distasteful as we view it. A crossover that slots somewhere between the Jeep Grand Cherokee and Cherokee would be ideal, and it would offer up a platform that Chrysler could use to promote a hybrid drive system. Hey, if they knock down their CAFE budget, maybe someone within FCA will have the guts to bring the 300 SRT back into the U.S. market, making that car more interesting all of a sudden. Just a suggestion…

The second name that got trademarked is “Cuda”. While this is going to fan the flames of a revived model, I sincerely doubt any new car will ever appear with that name tacked onto it’s ass. There has been a rumor mill of a “Cuda” in the works for what feels like a decade now, and until I see a car debut on the stage of an auto show wearing the badge, I ain’t buying it. I will say this: if FCA is even lightly entertaining the idea of bringing back the nameplate, I suggest that they don’t. And I mean that. Look at the hell Dodge got when the Charger returned for 2005…now imagine it plastered to a car that has no hope of comparing to the darling of the 1970s musclecar world. Find another name…Venom, Sidewinder, and Rampage come to mind…and build the rally rocket that will pair off nicely against the Focus RS, Subaru Impreza, and others like it. You blew it when you failed to offer up an SRT version of the ill-fated Dart. Don’t make that same mistake twice.