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Cars with Witty and Bizarre...

Cars with Witty and Bizarre Names

Of late, we have been talking a lot about car names, how car companies acquired their names, origin of the names, evolution of car names et al. This article will talk about some car names which are pleasing, funny and weird. And please, please note that a comment on the car name does not reflect the quality of the car. All that interests us is the brilliance or stupidity or weirdness of its name. So, we don't really mean any offence while writing this article.

We have already read at Carazoo.com about cars named after animals such as the Plymouth Road Runner, Buick Wildcat, Porsche Spyder, Nissan Honey Bee, Volkswagen Beetle, Jaguar cars and many more. But none of these cars have the characteristics of the animals, birds or insect they are named after.

In the same way, driving a Dodge Diplomat does not make one diplomatic or a Pontiac Parisienne will not make the driver French and a Ford Ranchero will not take you to Spain. In the same way driving an Ambassador will not have you feel ambassadorial and a Toyota Fortuner will not make you fortunate. We personally do not think that any celebrity ever owned a Chevrolet Celebrity station wagon.

We have blood-curdling names like Lamborghini Diablo. But a name must not always be ferocious to mean that the car gives a fiery performance. The Ford Explorer delivers an excellent performance but has a very subtle name. Similarly, we have the Bentley Azure. But sometimes, the name can be implicative of the car's trait as we have in the case of Land Rover and Toyota Land Cruiser, which truly stands for vehicles that can go everywhere and can handle virtually any terrain. Similarly, names of cars like Dodge Ram, Suzuki Splash, AC Shelby Cobra, Skoda Superb, Chevrolet Corvette, DeSoto Firedome, San Storm, Maruti Suzuki Swift, Plymouth Barracuda, Ford Mustang, Dodge Viper, Mitsubishi Outlander, Ford Endeavour and Rolls-Royce Phantom personify the trait of the cars.

And we have some nonsensical car names as well such as the Oldsmobile Achieva, Skoda Yeti, Buick Reatta, Saturn Vue, Pontiac Astre, Oldsmobile Bravada, Oldsmobile Firenza, Honda Life Dunk, Pontiac Fiero, Checker Superba, Oldsmobile Futuramic and many more.

Cars with alphanumeric characters can sometime have no meaning at all. To illustrate, we have seen and heard of BMW X5, Audi A4, Volvo S60, Hyundai ix35 and Maruti Suzuki SX4. Of late, we have witnessed that these alphanumeric names have been mushrooming in a wide scale recently in the automobile industry.

Have you heard about the Volkswagen Thing? Yes, Thing is a name of a dune-buggy shaped SUV. Probably the guys in Volkswagen themselves were so confused with the shape of the SUV, that they decided to call it as the "Thing". Well, there are other cars names that will tickle the funny bone. These names are not just humorous, but bizarre. Can you imagine a car being named "That's"? Yes, that's what Honda did. Isuzu only knows what is so mysterious about the Mysterious Utility. Nissan can only explain what is so joyful about the Prairie Joy. In same line, line we can cite some knee-slapper names of cars such as the Rinspeed X-Dream, Mitsubishi Delica Space Gear, Nissan Fairlady Z, Toyota Toyopet, Daihatsu Naked, Mitsubishi Pistachio, Isuzu GIGA 20 Light Dump, Mazda Bongo, Rickman Space Ranger, Mahindra Xylo, Toyota Deliboy, Volugrafo Bimbo, Porsche Boxster and the Suzuki Cappucino. The Cappunico is an affordable supercar which went into production in 1991 and this car is really successful in imparting a refreshing "cappuccino" drive.

Then there are just inexplicable misspellings, such as the Chevrolet Luv truck, Pontiac Aztek, Chevy Cruze and Ford Ikon from many others. "Luv" is not a real word and so are Aztek, Cruze and Ikon.

We bring some enchanting car names trying to conjure images of picturesque places, luxurious lifestyles and country clubs while these cars were made for the middle class. The Maruti Suzuki Ritz, Honda Jazz, Chevrolet Greenbrier, Lincoln Versailles, Chevrolet El Camino, Ford Aspire, Chrysler LeBaron, Hyundai Genesis, Buick LeSabre, Chevrolet Spark, Pontiac Executive, Rambler Country Club, Volkswagen Polo, Mitsubishi Montero and the Dynasty, Coronet, St. Regis and Crestwood from Dodge stable.

We have "derivative" names such as Mahindra Scorpio, Chevrolet Lumina, Toyota Innova and Chevrolet Captiva. These names are not real words at all. Scorpion is an insect, not Scorpio. Similarly, "lumen" is the Latin word for light and Captiva and Innova are derived from "captive" and "innovation", respectively.

Indian car maker Tata Motors exhibits its Indian-ness in all its car brands. Tata Motors has the word "Indi" in the names of all its cars e.g., the Indica, Indigo, India Vista and the upcoming Indicruz. But just as William Shakespeare has quoted in Romeo and Juliet,

"What's in a name?
That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet."

True, a car's name hardly can talk about the car's performance. A Tata Nano will always be a Tata Nano and a Bugatti Veyron will tend to be a Bugatti Veyron, unless it is rechristened to some other name. In the same way, the SSC Ultimate Aero will always be the fastest even if it is renamed as the SSC Snail. Its the engine that defines a car, not a name.

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