When I was growing up (and starting to take an interest in cars - when I was about 2 months old…) cars generally seemed to have such exciting and interesting names. In the UK you only ever really saw British cars apart from the very occasional VW Beetle (whose owners always used to wave to each other!), so the names you saw were ones like Zephyr, Zodiac, Tiger, Avenger, Vanguard, Continental, Jupiter, Californian – as well as the thoroughly boring Oxford, Cambridge, Somerset etc from BMC! In the US there was the Mustang, Fury, Challenger, Coronet, Monterey, Comet, Cobra and lately Viper.
The French had some interesting names too, like the Citroen DS conjuring up images of Goddesses, or the Renault Fregate (who but the French could get away with calling a car after a ship? Bentley Battleship? Rover Barge? Er, no thanks, although I’m surprised names like Destroyer haven’t been used, and the non-marine Annihilator).
So what’s happened to the exciting names conjuring up faraway places and vicious animals? Do the Asian manufacturers have whole departments charged with inventing the most awful names imaginable, like Optima for the latest Kia? What does that mean exactly? That you have to be a real optimist to buy one in the hope that it’s some good? Or the mis-spelt Carisma of Mitsubishi, naming it after the one thing it really did not have? Not that that was the only name they couldn’t spell: what about the Mitsubishi Starion? Perhaps some non-English speaking employee thought Stallion a really good name for a sports car but never really got it across properly and it got all the way to production mis-spelt? Kia don’t seem to have found a copy of an atlas either, what with their Sorento..
How much do Toyota spend inventing their boringly dreadful names? Avensis? Auris? Verso? What on earth do they all mean? And what’s a Rodius, as SsangYong insist on calling the most hideous car ever made?
Although not exactly having the monopoly on awful names the Japanese nevertheless are far and away in the lead, with cars like the Mitsubishi Chariot Grandio Super Exceed, Mazda Bongo Friendee, Honda Life Dunk, Isuzu GIGA 20 Light Dump etc. Do they know what 'Dump' means? And just who would be seen dead in a car named the Yamaha Pantry Boy Supreme? Some people apparently!
Even the Germans seem to have taken a leaf out of Japan's book though. Who precisely at VW was responsible for calling their new city car the "up!"? I was thinking about getting one for my wife as it's had such good reviews, but frankly I just coudn't live with that stupid name, so another Fiat Panda it's going to have to be.
Numbers have always been used but they are so boringly efficient, usually just describing the engine or body size. Thankfully Ferrari have rediscovered the magic of their old names like Monza with new cars like the 458 Italia; long may it continue. Their numbers must have been the most confusing ever and I wonder if even the people at Ferrari themselves can tell you which is which out of the 365GTC, 365GTS, 365GT 2+2, 365GT/4 2+2, 365GTB/4, 365GTC/4, 365GTS/4, 365GT4/BB - all completely different cars! And Fiat does still try with cuddly names like the Panda, although fellow Fiat Group company seem unable to grasp how awful a Lancia Dedra must have sounded to an English speaker!
Surely there are enough exciting words out there to give cars decent names without having to invent idiotic ones or use boring ones?
Boycott cars with crap names I say!
