Where have all the good names gone?

I’ve been noticing recently the amount of car and truck names that are totally meaningless. For example, the Qashqui. What the heck is a Qashqui? Sounds like a small orange fruit! And what the hell is a Atego? Some kind of Brazilian hair style?

I can’t help thinking back to the classic days of car and truck names that had a meaning, the ones that conjured up exotic visions in the mind of the drivers. Remember the Guy Invincible? The Leyland Comet, or the Marathon, the Roadtrain and the buffalo? Ok, maybe the Beaver caused a few nudges and winks, but you knew what you had with a Chieftain, and I don’t mean a tank. The Borderer would produce visions of night runs up the A1 on a cold and stormy night. Imagine driving a Landtrain or a Roadtrain, not the ones that ply their way across aussieland, but the ones that used to plough along the M1 and M4 etc. OK, not the best trucks in the world, but the names allowed your imagination to take you away. The Mandator was a Latin name for messenger, not a lot of people knew that, but it just sounded so exotic, so commanding. Think of the great British truck manufacturers that are no longer with us, Scammell, Albion, Commer, Dodge, Guy, Thornycroft and let us not forget Bedford.

 Ok, you can forget Bedford.

What do the foreign truck manufacturers do? Use numbers and or letters. Now how romantic is that? Mercedes of course, use unintelligible names like Atego, Actros and Axor, which I always thought was something used for cutting through prison bars. Renault use Premium and Magnum, which sounds like ordering coffee in a MSA, or choosing an ice cream, and the Italians of course use a practical name with the Iveco Stalls!

Now what about car names? Remember such wonderful names as the Jensen Interceptor, or the Jowett Javelin? The Gilburn Invader or Triumph Stag, how much testosterone does that name contain?  Even everyday cars had exotic names, like the Cortina, not that you would want to drive down the Cortina run, and the Capri, although try accelerating from 0 – 60 on the isle of Capri, and you would end up under 50 fathoms of Mediterranean sea! It used to be common for cars to be named after the place they were made, such as Morris Cowley or Oxford, the Austin Cambridge; lucky they didn’t have factories in Biggleswade or Scunthorpe. Also, the Jaguar E’type might not have enjoyed such iconic worship if it had been the Jaguar Coventry.

 Who can forget the Hillman Avenger? Picture yourself driving along with Diana Rigg sat next to you as you cruise at the top speed of 72 MPH, Or the Montego, your imagination would run wild as you see yourself on a beach in Jamaica, a nubile dusky maiden in a minute bikini serving you endless Pina Coladas, when in actual fact, you are sitting in a rust bucket in Leighton buzzard high street with the wife complaining you didn’t take her to Milton Keynes. The Ford focus RS is a great car, except that hideous green paint, but the RS Mexico still sounds like a real performer. Who could resist the temptation to drive a Frog Eyed Sprite?

Naming cars after people is not such a good idea. The Napier Gordon Bennett might have been fast in its time, but it’s not a name to conjure with, and imagine if John cooper had been called something else, I doubt that Pat Moss and Paddy Hopkirk would have had such a charismatic image winning the mote Carlo rally in a mini Blenkinsopp. Even good old British Leyland tried to make dull cars sound more exciting, the princess and ambassador, maybe because they were worth about as much as a fancy box of chocolates.

We won’t mention the allaggro!

How do our European cousins work? Well, in Germany, Audi and BMW use numbers and letters because their cars lack imagination. Opel call their cars Rekord, when will they learn to spell correctly, and VW, wow, what a collection of names. Toerag, who drives a car called a toerag for goodness sake! Touran, Passat, Scirroco, and of course the Golf, aptly named because just like golfers, Golf owners gather in groups and bore everyone silly about how wonderful their cars are. Who else but the Germans could name a car after a mint? Mercedes call their cars Kompressor, why name a car after a dirty, noisy piece of engineering? And learn to spell!  If you produce a prestige motor, then give it a good name, such as silver shadow, or silver ghost. Porsche managed to get the name right on the Cayenne, It’s so ugly, it makes me want to screw my nose up and sneeze.

The Spanish we will ignore, anyone whose main manufacturer is named after a park bench, and who names a car after a pig farmer, doesn’t deserve to get mentioned.

In France the do it different. Renault misspells every name they give a vehicle, Clio instead of Cleo, Megane instead of Megan and Leguna instead of vegetables. Bugatti don’t get away with it either, Veyron sounds like the material Captain Kirk’s t shirt was made out of. Oh and please Citroen, why did you call a car Dyane? And what were you thinking of with the SM?

This leaves us Italy. Well Lamborghini make it easy for us, they name all their cars with unpronounceable names so it doesn’t matter what you call them, besides they are too fast for you to read the name plate anyway. Ferrari manage to name a car after Fred Flintstones Pet, the U.S state that wants to outlaw gas guzzling cars, and a race track renowned for killing drivers. Lancia tried hard with the Stratros, but then produced the Beta and Delta; The Fulvia always makes me think of a certain part of the female anatomy, and are the only manufacturer who produce cars with a 0 – 60 time for rusting. Which leaves good old Fiat, who make the very appropriately named Punto because it is always coming to a full stop for no reason.

What is my favourite name? well, it has to be the Borgward Isabella.