What were they thinking? --Car Names

[Old Crabby]

Panhard Levassor, their slogan,displayed proudly on the radiator up to the mid '30's was SSS, Sans Soupapes Silencieuse, I,E, without valves silence.

They were pioneers of steel sleeve valves as opposed to the cast iron sleeves used by almost everyone else.

[Guest DeSoto Frank]

Now, take it easy...some of these vehicles were named for their progenitors;

such as Mr. Dallas Dort....

And the Hupmobile was a "natural" derivative of the Hupp Motor Co. (although with an extra "m" in the wrong place, and you have another car "your parents would not let you date in"...)

Shall we include "unpronouncable surnames" in our survey?

At the moment, I'm thinking of the huge billboard I just saw while driving into to work, proudly touting the new Volkswagen SUV: the "Touareg"...

Now that's just not nice! How are we poor dumb Americans supposed to pronounce a name that has four consecutive vowels ?

(I think they should call it the "Blitz-Buggy"... )

[Guest DeSoto Frank]

Oh, I see this is not a NEW thread, as a scroll down to find my new post and find my previous "witty offering"...

Early -onset old-timer's disease?

[48LCCOUPE]

"And the Hupmobile was a "natural" derivative of the Hupp Motor Co. (although with an extra "m" in the wrong place, and you have another car "your parents would not let you date in"...)"

And that brings us to the HUMMER

How about vehicle names that are not only hard to pronounce but hard to spell, like: AMC, MG, BMW, GMC

keep in mind I have trouble remembering the phone number for 911.

[Guest Skyking]

David, it must be all that Florida sun...

[Richard_Dover]

Toyota once thought of having a Mini type car, you know Toyota-let or Toyolet!!

Desoto Frank .... pardon me but I think you'll find Touareg has only 3 consecutive vowels and as the USA is responsible for California where English is spoken with over 45 vowels and only 3 consonants I fail to see the problem.

BTW Alldays & Onions are more accurately known as "The Alldays and Onions Pneumatic Engineering Company of Birmingham". Trips off the tongue doesn't it?

[TG57Roadmaster]

Y'all watch what you say about the Dort; my great-uncle has one (since the late-'50's).

Rather than riff on all the Japanese crapboxes with hallowed American nameplaces, I've always thought that a certain GM import should have had a model named the

GEO <span style="font-style: italic">PISMO</span>...as in Pismo Beach, CA.

Who can forget the orchid and pink '56 Dodge <span style="font-style: italic">La Femme</span>?

And few 240Z enthusiasts will admit that, over there, the cars were called FairLady Z's.

My favorite PC American car series? The '31 Chevrolet Confederate.

TG

[ex98thdrill]

What about the Hummer??

[Dave@Moon]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: ex98thdrill</div><div class="ubbcode-body">What about the Hummer?? </div></div>

Hummers are O.K., but you can't beat a well-built A.S.S.

[Steve Moskowitz]

I actually was involved in discussions about names of cars when I was on the board at Oldsmobile. They spend fortunes with firms that specialize in this and after listening to the presentations I thought i should go into the business myself! I could pull any 10 people off the street and get similar results!

When they were coming up with the name Intrique there was a name they were thinking about when I mentioned that i thought the name was for a feminine hygiene product. They do attempt to check out names as they would apply to foreign languages but obviously their research is not always great.

I was a Honda dealer when the Accord came out and almost every dealer I knew said "what the heck is an Accord"! People were lampooning the name and even the trade magazines found fault. Now in 2007 it does not seem like a bad name so it still seems to me that if you built the right vehicle you could call it a "Burgess" or even a "Moskowitz" and it would sell!

[R W Burgess]

That "Burgess" would have at least 500 horsepower (if you complain about gas milage, you need not order..), independent suspension all around.....wait a minute, Chevy already makes that, a Corvette, right?

Wayne

[RocketDude]

Many long years ago, when I wasn't nearly as smart as I am today, I actually owned a few foreign cars. That mistake hasn't been repeated in over 30 years, so I feel vindicated...! I'm sort of a reborn virgin..!

Back to the subject. I was always fascinated by the transmission in my '56 Healy Le Mans.... Manufactured by "La cock de Normansville"...! I won't guarantee the spelling, but you get the idea.......

[Rusty_OToole]

I pronounce it "Toerag". For some reason this pisses off Touareg owners.

[Rusty_OToole]

The English should get the prizes for odd names. The Humber Super Snipe, (a luxury car) the Scott Flying Squirrel (a 2 stroke motorcycle).

[Shop Rat]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Steve Moskowitz</div><div class="ubbcode-body">

...or even a "Moskowitz" and it would sell! </div></div>

Just don't let the person that put your name tag on your golf cart two years ago be the one to make the car nameplate.

[TG57Roadmaster]

Mr. Hummer, let me introduce you to the

Hillman <span style="font-style: italic">MINX</span>.

TG

[Guest aussie610]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: TG57Roadmaster</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Mr. Hummer, let me introduce you to the

Hillman <span style="font-style: italic">MINX</span>.

TG </div></div>

that wasnt......

I raise you the panel van version the Hillman Husky

[Ivan Saxton]

The honourable orientals are charmingly blessed in the malapropriate choice of words of other languages that sound nice for model identification of their cars. Mitsubishi's long usage of "Pajero" for their 4 wheel drive is one of the rudest accusations that you can make to a Spaniard. Does owning one mean that you are one???? A friend here of Italian descent says that a differently insulting Italian word for someone despicable is "kaforne", pronounced :caf-orn-ay". That might be a good name option for an oriental car.

Ivan Saxton

[ex98thdrill]

It's funny that you mention Hillman Husky. Although I've never seen one, my dad had one in his younger days with a Chevy 265 V8 that he use to drag race.

[Guest ZondaC12]

How 'bout those new Chinese cars that imploded in our gov't crash tests? The "Brilliance BS6". A car built scarily like a tin can......so we can have more Guiness? BRILLIANT!!!! haha

[Clipper47]

I really get a laugh out of the names used for monster SUV like Escalade but the funniest to date has to be the Nissan "Armada". It conjures up a huge Spanish galleon in my mind and we do need a Francis Drake to sink this fleet!

[Guest ChrisSummers]

From the Rabbit to the Touareg to the Phaeton (we all know how to say it right, but try visiting your local dealer and seeing how he does...it's fun), Volkswagen wins all-around as far as I'm concerned.

If Ford had accepted any of Marianne Moore's suggestions for the Edsel, we would have a unanimous winner. According to Wikipedia they included such beauts as "Intelligent Whale," "Andante con Moto" (James Bond villain?), "Varsity Stroke" (now appearing at your local XXX theater), "Utopian Turtletop," "Turcotinga," and my personal favorite, "Mongoose Civique."

[john2dameron]

Don't forget many of those odd names came from the name of the creator of them. Hupmobile--R. C. Hupp, also the RCH; Oldsmobile--the cars were brand new but named for Ransom E. Olds, also the Reo;Dort--Dallas Dort, etc. I always thought Alldays and Onions was one of the worst names but I think it was also named for the men that began it. Absolutely fitting was the Charade; the biggest lie ever put on an autombile had to be "Yugo!" It was one of the least-going cars I ever knew of.

Jay 1124

[john2dameron]

That's cool! It would be interesting to know which one will last the longest; you taking care of yourself or the Buick with you taking care of it. Best of luck.

Actually this message did not concern names but was for the young man with the Buick. I love to see the younger generation taking care of cars in a responsible way.

Jay 1124

[Guest Moepar]

How about a Gremlin. Gee, just what I want under the hood - more GREMLINS! ugh

And as far as new cars, Murano sounds too close to <span style="font-style: italic"><span style="font-weight: bold">Moron</span></span>o.

[Sweepspear]

One that struck me as an odd name from a marketing standpoint is the new Nissan Rogue.

Rogue? A dishonest person, vagrant, an outcast.

What were they thinking?

[Guest BruceW]

Rogue also describes an animal living apart from its herd. Using that definition, I can see where it kind of ties into what Nissan says was the purpose of the name

According to Nissan:

"The Rogue name was chosen to reflect its independence-oriented positioning"

[Guest Ken G]

What about NoVa, the name that had to be changed for Spanish-speaking markets?

I have always been surprised at Mustang, a wild, untamed and therefore unpredictable horse.

Ken G, 1925 Rover 16/50 (no problems with that model name!), San Francisco

[55PackardGuy]

I believe Mr. Moskowitz mentioned Oldsmobile spending a lot of time, money and effort on their car names. I wonder how much they spent on Achieva? That always struck me as strange.

Then there's the Chevy Citation... why not just call it the Chevy Traffic Ticket? I bet quite a few cops made some choice remarks when writing up those.

The Ford Aspire was pretty strange, too. Might as well have a bumper sticker that said "some day I'll have a bigger car."

[novaman]

May I suggest checking the truth on the No Va.

Snopes. com - Nova / No Va - no go

Might want to learn to use proper spanish.

[novaman]

While we are talking about strange names.

Can anyone tell me the meaning of Kodak and how the word came to exsist?

(it's car related, we take photos of them)

oops my bad. I used related which (by terms nova was defined in a post by someone else) means to be late again (re-late)

[Starfire61]

Someody mentioned the Mitsubishi Pajero (Montero in the USA & Spanish countries.)

For clarification, in Spanish, Pajero is a rather nasty slang term to describe somebody.

I'll let the links fill in the details....

http://chameleon-translations.com/Index-Companies-pajero.shtml

http://chameleon-translations.com/Index-Companies-pajero-feedback.shtml

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsubishi_Pajero

[Dave@Moon]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: novaman</div><div class="ubbcode-body">While we are talking about strange names.

Can anyone tell me the meaning of Kodak and how the word came to exsist?

(it's car related, we take photos of them) </div></div>

According to Wikipedia:

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body"> The letter "K" had been a favorite of Eastman's, he is quoted as saying, "it seems a strong, incisive sort of letter". He and his mother devised the name Kodak with an anagram set. He said that there were three principal concepts he used in creating the name: it should be short, one cannot mispronounce it, and it could not resemble anything or be associated with anything but Kodak. It has also been suggested that "Kodak" originated from the suggestion of David Houston, a fellow photographic inventor who held the patents to several roll film camera concepts that he later sold to Eastman. Houston, who started receiving patents in 1881, was said to have chosen "Nodak" as a nickname of his home state, North Dakota (NoDak).[5] This is has been contested by other historians, however, who cite that Kodak was trademarked prior to Eastman buying Houston's patents.[6]</div></div>

[Guest edalfa]

Nissan is not the first with Rogue. AMC used it for an upscale Rambler 2 door hardtop. I always wondered about Mercury Mystique. It just seemed awful close to "mistake".

Ed

[novaman]

According the folks at George Eastman's estate in Rochester, NY, it was concieved by him (and probably his mother too as they were very close). They needed a word to preceed Kodiak and at the time it would place it at the middle of the dictionary.

[Mika Jaakkola]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Steve Moskowitz</div><div class="ubbcode-body"> Now in 2007 it does not seem like a bad name so it still seems to me that if you built the right vehicle you could call it a "Burgess" or even a "Moskowitz" and it would sell! </div></div>

Sorry Steve,

They built Moskvich(Almost Moskowitz ) in Russia ... And it was a real waste of money!!

I remember one automotive magazine test driving a Moskvich and there was a great comment that when they opened the rear door the door panel fell off.. and it was a NEW car then..

[R W Burgess]

Yeh Mika, but what would it have cost up American?

You do realize that Americans will buy anything if they think they've found a deal. Just like this stupid computer that lost it's "N" button 2 weeks ago. But, it was a deal when I bought it!

Waye

[Mika Jaakkola]

Wayne, it's not just the Americans ...

Example:

Got an Apple laptop without power adapter. The new adapter would have cost 50-60 euros.. So, I found an used from Ebay for 30 bucks. I figured out that I could ask them to ship it to my step brother in FL because my other brother was visiting him and I could save few euros if he could bring it for me.

Well, asked the seller ship it fast because my brother had only 2 weeks to spend in FL.. .. The adapter didn't arrive to FL when my borther was there- but after couple of weeks my American brother called and told he found a package on their front door that had been there several days and all wet (they don't use that door frequently, only the one that goes to garage), so he missed the power adapter package.

OK, so, there power adapter is still there and I'll have to pay the shipping to Finland - and I might even break something with that thing because it was in rain for few days... So - something that you may think might not be that cheap after all

[R W Burgess]

I know the feeling Mika.

A "politician" comes to our front door ringing the front door bell!

"What's that strange ringing noice?", I say to my wife.

Wayne

[Rusty_OToole]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: R W Burgess</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I know the feeling Mika.

A "politician" comes to our front door ringing the front door bell!

"What's that strange ringing noice?", I say to my wife.

Wayne </div></div>

"We never did find out where that music comes from, someone comes knocking on the door every time we go looking for it". LOL Beverly Hillbillies 1963