Mirabile Visu Weblog

See the world in your new 2003 Chevrolet Coriander.

2003-09-24 - 5:57 p.m.

When you're waiting at red lights on the way home from work, there's often not much to stare at except the back ends of cars in front of you, and spending any amount of time looking at the back of cars while drifting into lazy contemplation dramatically underscores a point about the Strange World We Live In that has always somewhat bugged me: car names are often very stupid. Auto industry marketing is plagued not by lack of creativity but by a deadly combination of childlike creative profusion and no editorial sense whatsoever. Anything that sounds a little like a good idea is hurriedly greenlighted (greenlit?) with a passion you can only have when you work in the dayglo fantasy-world of playschool freedom. Only in this type of Crayola think-tank could someone actually believe "Elantra" is a good name for a car.

Some car names produce that most serendipitous fortune, the bit of unintentional humour. Of course there's the Dodge Ram with its sweetly oxymoronic flavour. Or the Lincoln Aviator, for that matter -- if you've seen one of these clunky-looking behemoths you know that a thousand Tinkerbells working round the clock couldn't make the frigging thing fly. Same goes for the Honda Pilot.

And how about the Toyota Sequoia? Nothing conveys a bold image of breathtaking speed, handling and aerodynamics like a tree.

The best are the car names that, if fully understood, utterly mask the image the company hoped to create. Everyone remembers the famous Nova and Pinto stories, but few except Italians and poetry fans chuckle when a Nissan Stanza drives by, since "stanza" is actually Italian for 'stopping place.' Toyota Paseo isn't exactly a great idea either, since "paseo" is Spanish for a leisurely stroll. Along a ditch. With your briefcase in one hand and the business card of a good mechanic in the other.

So, since the naming of automobiles is nothing but random, anything-goes child's play, let's all be auto-industry marketing execs!

The Mirabile Visu Name-The-New-Car Game!

How to play: 1. Select an auto company from the Make List. 2. Match it with a selection from the Words That Sound a Great Deal Like Models List. 3. Clap hands gleefully and ask for a cookie. 4. Become ridiculously wealthy as your new car model sells widely to the complete befuddlement of us all.

THE MAKE LIST

1. Nissan

2. Toyota

3. Honda

4. Hyundai

5. Mitsubishi

6. Ford

7. Chevrolet

8. GMC

9. Subaru

10. Kia

THE WORDS THAT SOUND A GREAT DEAL LIKE MODELS LIST