Name Game: The History of Car Model Names

That last name has me wondering Y.

can we get a shoutout to De Tomaso Mangusta? Named after the mammal that can kill Cobra, which was it's rival?

8:39 The last Opel Senator was manufactured in 1993:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opel_Senator

4:20 Lumanca = the Italian word for "snail"

Model names seem to start with the 1936 Buicks. They were all numbered series, like most other makers. In 1959 the whole series got new names-a popular gimmick as time went on.

Why do you pronounce Porsche like an Alabama redneck? It's disrespectful to Ferdinand Porsche.

Marketing is largely idiocy. It's like psychology or astrology, there's a little something there or maybe there used to be, but 95% is pure scam.

funny that you dont see why car makers would name their cars after certain fish types!
its because the car basicly "dives" through air! air basicly behaves or moves like liquids .. so i kinda found it pretty obvious to name your car after a fish! especially when its designed with aerodynamics in mind!

As someone that didn't grow up around car culture and is now trying to learn the naming conventions of vehicles, it's nice to know that there isn't one

Late soviet vehicle naming system is also quite interesting. One the one hand- it shows the specs of the vehicle in the name, but also it was spread across all (!) road and off-road vehicles in Soviet Union.
For example, Vaz 2103 means:
2 in case of passenger cars stands for small car (class is chosen as a mix of engine displacement and vehicles weight)
1 stand for vehicle class- passanger car
01 is the vehicle's own number.

And this system was same for everything. For example- Maz 64229 semi truck

6 stands for full mass- more than 40 tons (7 is only for Belaz and some others super heavy trucks)
4 stands for semi-truck body
22 is an actual model name (it's a 6x4 Maz truck)
9 stands for vehicle variant (kinda like trim number)

It was the main system, but still some vehicles had their own names- like Volga or Niva.

3:56 GTA has a stallion, its based on the Mustang (mostly of course, its a mishmash of muscle and pony cars)

The explanation for most car maker names is simple, they’re usually just named after some guy. Examples include: Ford, Lamborghini, Ferrari, Dodge (two guys technically), Cadillac (the guy who established Detroit, not the automaker but still), Porsche, Toyota, McLaren, Chevrolet (two guys again), Buick, Chrysler, Suzuki, Bizerinni, Koenigsegg, Pagani; the list goes on.

In the 20s, after WW1 the name Torpedo was popular with sporty roadsters. Several companies used it.

"Don't sell cars in Spanish speaking countries" 😂

Hate the current vogue for completely meaningless alphabet soup names...lazy, lazy, lazy!

My favourite car-name tale is the over-the-top bonkers involvement of poet Marianne Moore in deliberation about a name for what became the Edsel brand. Some of the stuff Ms Moore cooked up was flat hilarious...

And you forgot to mention Toyota used to name their car based on "crown related words". there's Crown , Tiara , Corolla (Latin , "small crown") , Corona (Latin , "crown") ,
Camry (derives from the Japanese word "kanmuri"(冠)....which is (one of the) Japanese word for "Crown") ,
Cresta (Latin , "a decorative, ceremonial feature to a headwear") ,
Scepter (a royal accessory to a crown).....and so on.

Chinese/brazilian automaker CAOA Chery names their cars like smartphones... Tiggo Pro 7, Arrizo 7. It's goofy af, but they're good cars. BYD has their Song Pro, which also sounds like a smartphone.

It’s unfortunate you didn’t mention that the Fairlane name came because Henry Ford and wife Clara lived in an estate on Fair Lane.

"Big Dog" works.

Hilarious! I really enjoyed this one, Ed. Thank you! (How about a Hillman Hilarious?)

OH MAN 15:31 that Mazda Bongo Friendee had me WHEEZING. I'm on the floor struggling to breathe 🤣

When I think of cars with really weak wussy names, I think of Renault and no other brand: Zoe, Clio, Twingo... It's just sad... Other times they're full-on bizarre: Kwid, Kiger, Koleos?? Sorry, but a name I'd be embarassed to pronounce is a car I would simply never buy.

3:40 🤓☝️puta also means prostitute in Portuguese. Back here in Portugal hyundai had to change the name in one of their cars, back here hyundai kona is known as "kauai" because in Portuguese cona means vagina in a pejorative way

Pretty sure they've taken to tossing darts at a dictionary now. Like the Nissan Pallisade. Seriously? When can we expect the Rampart, Moat, Bastion, Glacis, Murder Hole etc?

i was thinking about this today. It used to be like "Corolla 1.6 GLE" or "Datsun 1400", "BMW 320"... where the model, engine capacity and trim levels were all on the badge. Walk thru a parking lot today and it's a sea of plastic and logos you've never seen before. So guess they all have awful engines.

That last one is even worse than the merkur xr4ti

Honda has got the model JAZZ, which was suppoused to be called FITTE. But had to be changed in the last minute, as they found out here in scandinavia the word Fitte is the name of a sertain female body part.

The best name ever for a car is the Gaylord Gladiator.

Los peores nombres los pinian los argentinos,revisen eso.

3:55 GTA V

Hey ed,great video,but when you made the expample for the ferrari named "Lumaca",its not pronounced "lmanca" but u have to spell all the single letters,there are no mute letters

The Renault Wind name never worked in the UK and probably contributed to its terrible sales.

The Opel Karl name sounded like a ridiculous name for a car model in the UK, which led to Vauxhall using the name Viva, the first time in many years where the Opel and Vauxhall model names were not the same.

I think the most questionable name from a 21st century perspective is the American Gaylord Gladiator from the 1950s

Fart would be written Fahrt, not Fhart in German

Canyonero

I've seen some model naming like MWN10FR350Y in China, but that mostly happens to commercial vehicle such as truck, van, and bus.

My favorite name is from the movie "Robocop"...the fabulous 6000SUX!

Ford Ranchero - 1957 - 1979
Chevy El Camino - 1959–60 and 1964–1987 or GMC Sprint / Caballero
Thanks for copying FORD's Better Idea !

Soviet Union had specifying the production vehicles by dividing it into types by :
- Gross weight for trucks, Length for buses, and Engine displacement for cars/pick-ups/vans (from 1 to 7)
- Application (from 1 to 9)
- Model production by the manufacturer (2 or 3 digits, decided by the auto-makers itself)
Example :
- VAZ 2107, 2 stand for engine displacement from 1100cc to no more than 1800cc, 1 is for passenger car, and 07 for model designation by VAZ.
- KamAZ-55111, 5 stands for vehicle's gross weight from 14 to no more than 20 tons, 5 stands for tipper truck (or dump truck), 11 stands for model, and 1 stands for the second/later variations of the preceeding model, which is 5511.
- PAZ-4234, 4 stands for the length of the bus ranging from 8 to no more than 9.5 meters (if I remember correctly), 2 stands for bus, and 34 is model designation by PAZ.

That's from mid-1960s, before mid-1960s, it's based on Soviet industrial numbering with each auto-makers given certain numbers, for example UAZ which is given number 400s (like UAZ-469), GAZ with number 60s (like GAZ-66), and so on.

Some Soviet auto-makers keep use the pre-mid-1960s production model index even though it still on production right through the end of Soviet Union and even into this day...
Nowadays, the Russian and Belarussian as well as ex Soviet stated which has vehicle industry of its own still retain the numbering. Ukraine however, just retain it on the old production models, the new models built with West's help have new namings.

Fhart? Fahrt!

Nothing about the Dodge Rampage said "rampage."

Great Video, Enter-tainińģ unt En-Ğágińģ , I dothé Ênjõý

OH MY FUNKYCAT

As a spanish speaker, I am so going to go to the JDM car market and import a Mazda Laputa and/or a Nissan Moco; just for laughs. I don't even care if those cars are any good. Oh, if you are married and then get divorced, you are guaranteed to keep the car if it's a Laputa.

My personal favorite is the Toyota TRD or turd Especially the Tundra Turd Poop on the the desert

2:37 how about plymouth duster and renault duster?

Id love to see a Toyota making Avery cheap car named TOYOTA Budgefrendlia