Car Names

I was thinking about car names yesterday. And I wondered what you folks thought were the best and worst car names, not only ever but also right now. Because it seems to me that we have not seen a really good new car name in quite a while. I mean, I love the Honda Accord and plan to keep mine for a long time yet to come, but ‘Accord’? Isn’t that like calling a car the Honda ‘Agreement’, or the Honda ‘Negotiation’? Yaaawwwwn. Toyota isn’t any better, though. What is a ‘Camry’ supposed to be, anyway? Other companies just make up names, like the Kia ‘Optima’ or ‘Sportage’, the Nissan ‘Maxima’, the Toyota ‘Prius’, or the Saturn ‘Vue’? Other companies just gave up with names completely and assigned what seem to be random number-letter series, like ‘350SL’, or ‘CR-V’, or ‘A4’. What happened to using real names?

Maybe cars in the past were less fuel-efficient, less agile, and so on, but they had style, and they had real names, like ‘Charger’, ‘Thunderbird’, ‘Mustang’, and ‘Corvette’. The names conveyed a sense of power, of purpose, of identity. Of course, we also saw some real losers, like the AMC ‘Gremlin’ or the Ford ‘Pinto’. Some cars were plain mis-named, like the weak and unimpressive Ford ‘Maverick’. But in the main, cars in the past had names that resonated with drivers, not the putrid stuff we see today.

All-Time Best Car Names
Plymouth Barracuda
AC Shelby Cobra
Chevrolet Corvette
Lamborghini Diablo
Ford Explorer
Mercury Marauder
Kallista Panther
Buick Park Avenue
Rolls-Royce Phantom
Dodge Ram
Jeep Renegade
Land Rover
Dodge Shadow
Volkswagen Thing
Dodge Viper



All-Time Lousiest Car Names
Oldsmobile Alero
Chevrolet Lumina
Chevrolet Luv (truck)
Pontiac Aztek
Oldsmobile Achieva
Pontiac Astre
Pontiac Fiero
Saturn Vue
(anything by Kia)
Ford Probe
Toyota Prius


Cool Names Used for Concept Cars but not Production
Catapult
Banshee
Slingshot
Contrail
Rhino
Black Widow
Avatar
Thrasher
Thumper
Verdict
Vulcan
Rawhide
Pocono
Drifter
Desperado
Rowdy
Assassin
Intimidator
Vindicator


Good New Car Names
… OK, I’m stumped. Any ideas?