New Faces of Tucson > Read the entire article at    azstarnet.com.

The car model was targeted for people Hyundai defined as comfortable with who they are, with curious spirits, open minds, multifaceted personalities and easygoing natures.

Hyundai picked a name for the SUV: the Tucson.

As a brand name, Tucson does brisk business these days.

Last month, Hyundai delivered its first Tucsons to showrooms across the nation, said Mike Anson, spokesman for Hyundai Motor America in Fountain Valley, Calif.

This month, the company has bombarded the airwaves with ads for the Tucson. It's the midsized SUV designed to complement the larger, more expensive Santa Fe. Unlike some Hyundai models, Anson said, the name Tucson will stay on the vehicle in international markets as well.

Tucson also is showing up on other products: discount cigarettes, Harley-Davidson motorcycle boots, cabinets, camping trailers, faucets and furniture.

Tucson currently has 41 products registered, or applying to register, to use its name, according to the Web site of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

That's a long way from such icons of Western style as Santa Fe (142 products) or Monterey, Calif., (133). On the bright side, Tucson may be losing its distinction as a place that people can't spell, pronounce or find on a map.

Take that, Seligman.

"I would say that there is a segment of the population for whom Tucson represents a certain sophistication," said Sidney J. Levy, the Coca-Cola distinguished professor of marketing at the University of Arizona's Eller College of Management.

That's a big change from 15 or 20 years ago, Levy said, when "if you said Tucson to many people, they wouldn't have an idea what you were talking about."

Levy said Tucson may be developing a reputation for luxury resorts and spas, thanks to places like Canyon Ranch and Miraval.

The folks at Hyundai's world headquarters in South Korea seem to agree.

Anson said the decision to name the SUV Tucson came from corporate headquarters.

An internal company document from Hyundai explains that "Tucson is the name of a resort city in the middle of the desert in the U.S.," Anson said, and is "a harmonious mix of modern and traditional."

A harmonious resort city. Take that, Scottsdale.

Tucson's reputation also rubbed off on Blanco America, which specializes in faucets and sinks. Blanco introduced its Tucson faucets in 1997. The Tucson takes its place alongside the Madison and the Milano in the product line of the company, based in Germany.

"I have been traveling to the wonderful city of Tucson for many years now, for both business and pleasure," said Chuck Burhans, president of Blanco America, in an e-mail interview. "The city's blend of eclectic atmosphere and country charm were a perfect fit to name our faucet the Blanco Tucson."

"There's a cachet about Arizona and the West, and they're trying to capitalize," said Michael Bolchalk, president of Michael Bolchalk Marketing in Tucson.

Jeff Nordensson of Nordensson Lynn Advertising in Tucson said it appears the SUV is being branded for a sense of rugged characteristics and individualistic tendencies. Most cities would be smart to pay to put their name on a car, he said.

"These guys are going to do more for Tucson name recognition," he said, "than we've been able to do, or afford to do, for the last 20 years."

When it comes to image in Arizona, Phoenix casts a long, long shadow. When most Americans think of Arizona, Levy said, they think of Phoenix. The name Phoenix is registered 437 times - about 10 times as often as Tucson - although it's unclear how many of those uses refer to the mythic firebird rather than Arizona's capital.

While Phoenix has an unmistakable claim as a major, modern city, Tucson's reputation hasn't necessarily made the same leap.

"They have more of the glamour," said George Kalil, president of the Kalil Bottling Co., which has operated in the Tucson area for 56 years and also does business in Phoenix and Flagstaff.

Historically, he said, Tucson marketed itself "as a rough-and-tumble cowboy area, or it was presented as a resort area."

Today, "we don't have a bad reputation. We just may be short of a well-known reputation, " Kalil said. He added that many of Tucson's positive attributes - its richness of Hispanic culture, its university and its arts scene, among them - haven't become readily recognizable.

It's enough to give a city an inferiority complex.

Tucson was proud when Nederlander Producing Co. of America announced last year it would start bringing traveling versions of its Broadway shows here, placing Tucson alongside the likes of San Francisco, Los Angeles and London. It turned out Nederlander Chairman James M. Nederlander has a personal connection to Arizona: He has a home in - you guessed it - Phoenix.

Dare we mention that Phoenix got its own car more than 40 years ago, and that Elvis Presley helped make the Dodge Dart Phoenix convertible famous in the movie "Blue Hawaii"?

Still, the Hyundai should help a city trying to build some name recognition, said Steve Weathers, president and CEO of the Greater Tucson Economic Council, which works to persuade businesses to locate here.

"The biggest thing it shows is Tucson is gaining cachet in the national market," he said. Weathers said he recently has been asking professionals from other states about how they perceived Tucson.

"One hundred percent of them said, 'I had no perception,'" Weathers said. "It wasn't negative, but it wasn't positive. … A lot of them think Tucson has about 30,000 people."

Curt Bertelsen was out Friday looking to purchase a new car for his 17-year-old daughter. Bertelsen said he liked the look of the Tucson, and that it's good to get the city's name out.

Bertelsen said he thought the vehicle represented the city well, and that he could picture himself driving around in it.

"It's a nice-looking, well- thought-out, well-built vehicle," Bertelsen said.

Until Hyundai's SUV started showing up in showrooms, the best-known car associated with Tucson was a race car sponsored by North Carolina-based Renegade Tobacco and its Tucson cigarettes, about one-third the cost of a big-name brand like Marlboro.

Tucson has caught on in other places as well, such as York, Pa., home of Blockhouse Contract Furniture.

Blockhouse specializes in selling to colleges and other places that need durable furniture that withstands heavy use, said April McKeel, marketing manager for the company.

Before the company introduced the new furniture line in January, McKeel said, it asked employees to suggest product names. Tucson was the winning suggestion, taking its place alongside the Mesa and the Sedona in the company's catalog.

"A lot of a customers were looking for what they call a different or new look," McKeel said. The Tucson delivers that by pairing a bold upholstery print with a "timeless" design that reminds some people of Southwest style.

Cynics may suggest that if the Hyundai Tucson goes the way of the Ford Pinto or the AMC Gremlin, the Old Pueblo may wish it had its anonymity back. Nordensson said that based on rising recent customer satisfaction ratings, Tucson's reputation should be safe in Hyundai's hands.

Nordensson hopes the increased visibility of Tucson's name will have at least one other side effect: geographic literacy.

There's a chance, he said, people may see some of this marketing and learn to spell our city's name right.

* Star reporter Aaron Mackey contributed to this story. Contact reporter Scott Simonson at 573-4104 or at simonson@azstarnet.com.