A car by any other name...

The other day I was blithely driving along in my tiny little two door car. My sound system, otherwise known as a factory issue AM/FM radio, was tuned to a local music station. Then all of a sudden the world went dark. I don’t get a chance to watch the news very often, but I was pretty sure there had been no mention of a total eclipse of the sun happening around 5:00 PM on Thursday. I looked to my left and learned the sun had not been blocked by a celestial body, but rather the sky had been blotted out by a vehicle large enough to apply for statehood. (“We recognize the fifty-first state in the union: The Jones Family’s SUV.”) The car, car is such an inadequate word; the gasoline powered pachyderm passed and merged in front of me. That is when I was able to read the model name, the Armada. I had to look up to see the chrome plate affixed to the rear of the car. It was a like driving a car built for Hobbits behind a vehicle with Paul Bunyan legroom.
The name makes sense. The Spanish Armada was, in its day, the largest group of fighting ships ever assembled. The gargantuan vehicle in front of me could have been assembled using twenty or thirty 1990 Ford Escort hatchbacks similar to the one I was driving. Then it occurred to me, maybe it had been made from unsuspecting compact cars, maybe I was in danger, maybe I had better start evasive maneuvers. That was when I started laughing. Evasive maneuvers in a sixteen year old Escort were as likely as Dick Cheney being named People Magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive.
Naming cars sounds like a great job. I am sure there is tons of research done by market analysts to best target just the right audience. I am not sure they are always sending the message they intended. For example, there is a car called an Aspire. It is a little car, so little it looks like the consumer needs to buy two, one for each foot, to be a useful mode of transportation. The name fits. It appears to be something which hopes to be a car one day. It aspires to be a real car like Pinocchio hopes to be a real boy.
There are quite a few that just do not make sense to me. The Hummer is someone who doesn’t know the words. There was a car called a Citation. Isn’t that what police call it when they give you a little slip of paper requiring the payment of a fine or an appearance in court? Tundra? Yep, I want to drive a car named after a frigid nearly lifeless part of the frozen north. If we follow that logic we might as well name a car after a dangerous region of the world. Ladies and gentlemen introducing the Chevy Beirut. There is an Expedition. How about the Ford Donner Party, with a built in barbeque for those gridlock traffic jams in Los Angeles?
The next step in the evolution of car names will probably go along the lines of food and cigarettes. The government will require truth in advertising. Instead of the Chevette the government would have required it be called “The Boxy Car which Guarantees Never Attracting Girls.” When a person goes to his local dealership to purchase one of those giant SUV’s he wouldn’t ask for an Escalade but rather, “Do you have a ‘To Heck with the Environment’?” One of those flashy little two-seater sports cars would be called the “Mid-Life Crisis.”
The majority of car names are rugged and macho: Magnum, Viper, Mustang, and Explorer. This only made sense. For years men were the chief consumers for cars. It was a true rite of passage for a man to buy his first car. It usually entailed things like looking under the hood and kicking the tires. Both of which I can do. The problem lies in the fact that as long as there is an engine in plain sight and the tire doesn’t explode when my Chuck Taylor high top makes contact with the radial I have no further insight.
With more and more attention being paid to equal treatment for the sexes I fully expect Detroit to start targeting the female demographic. I can hear Queen Latifah doing the voiceover for a new commercial: “For Mother’s Day the Mazda Bouquet – That new car smell beats sniffing a dozen roses any day.” Maybe a television commercial featuring Julia Louis-Dreyfus introduces a new car: “the Nissan Lifemate – more dependable than any man. It takes you shopping, waits patiently in the parking lot, and even carries all your packages home without complaint.”