The Secret Behind Car Names: Why Are They Often Dumb?

All right, guys. Thanks for coming to the meeting today. We're going to be naming our brand new, ah, hybrid mid-size crossover. Question, is it fast? Is it powerful?

Ah, absolutely not. Perfect. I have a name for it. Great.

Approacha. Sounds Italian, sounds exotic. Did you just take the word approach and add an 'a' onto the end of it? No. Anybody else? I've got an idea.

Are you eating soup in a meeting? What is it a crime to drink soup in a meeting? No. How about we call it the X Five S T IM 440 I X drive P Zev? That's great. How'd you come up with that?

I dunno. Well, that's awesome. Really love the synergy guys. Does anyone else have any other pitches? Ebussy.

Hey Rich, did you, by any chance, Google that? Car names are dumb. Today on Wheelhouse, where do car names come from? Why do some areas of the world do it differently than others? Why are they dumb so often?

And at the end, I'll choose the definitive five worst car names of all time.

Big thanks to Omaze for sponsoring today's video. I cannot see anything out of these things. It's like very chrome. I'm going to change, okay. I might look like 2021 Nolan, but as you can tell from this fit, I'm actually from the year 3000 where skate parks are now hover parks.

The president is a freaking cyborg. And yeah, we finally stopped robocalls. Might have to wait for all that cool stuff, but Omaze is bringing you the future today, by giving you the chance to win this 2021 Ford Mustang Mach-E GT performance with taxes and shipping included.

Just go to omaze.com/mustangmachefor your chance to win. This Mach-E features a panoramic fixed glass roof, Brembo brakes, and an RTR design package, including 20 inch RTR Aero 5 wheels and Nitto NT 555 G2 tread boys, that's tires for all you non-future people.

And the best part is every donation helps build a better future by supporting the Joey Logano Foundation, which uses the platform of motor sport to invest in organizations that offer second chances to children and young adults during times of crisis. Very cool.

So go to omaze.com/mustangmacheto enter for your chance to win and to help support a fantastic cause.

It looks like future Job needs my help. Good luck.

Because of recent cars like the Nissan Kicks and Hyundai Iioniq, it might seem like automanufacturers don't put a lot of thought into their car names, but it's actually quite the opposite. It's always been this way.

It even took a while to land on the word automobile over competing names like; autobaine, buggyaut, oleo locomotive. I think we chose the right one though.

It was actually only when The New York Times mentioned the name automobile that it started gaining popularity. Even though the newspaper hated it.

On January 3rd of 1899, they wrote: "You have a car carriage which is quote..."

WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: en- All right, guys.Thanks for coming to the meeting today.We're going to be naming our brand new,ah, hybrid mid-size crossover.- Question, is it fast? Is it powerful?- Ah, absolutely not.- Perfect. I have a name for it.- Great.- Approacha.Sounds Italian, sounds exotic.- Did you just take the word approachand add an 'a' onto the end of it?- No.- Anybody else?- I've got an idea.- Are you eating soup in a meeting?- What is it a crime todrink soup in a meeting?- No.- How about we call it the X Five S T IM 440 I X drive P Zev.- That's great. How'dyou come up with that?- I dunno.- Well, that's awesome.Really love the synergy guys.Does anyone else have any other pitches?- Ebussy.- Hey Rich, did you, byany chance, Google that?Car names are dumb. Today on Wheelhouse,Where do car names come from?Why do some areas of the world do itdifferently than others?Why are they dumb so often?And at the end, I'll choose thedefinitive five worstcar names of all time.- Big thanks to Omaze forsponsoring today's video.I cannot see anything out of these things.It's like very chrome.I'm going to change, okay.I might look like 2021 Nolan,but as you can tell from this fit,I'm actually from the year 3000where skate parks are now hover parks.The president is a freaking cyborg.And yeah we finally stopped robocalls.Might have to wait forall that cool stuff,but omaze is bringingyou the future today,by giving you the chance to win this2021 Ford Mustang Mach-E GT performancewith taxes and shipping included.Just go to omaze.com/mustangmachefor your chance to win.This Mach-E features apanoramic fixed glass roof,Brembo brakes, and an RTR design package,including 20 inch RTR Aero 5 wheelsand Nitto NT 555 G2 tread boys,that's tires for allyou non-future people.And the best part is every donation helpsbuild a better future by supportingthe Joey Logano Foundation,which uses the platform of motor sportsto invest in organizationsthat offer second chancesto children and young adultsduring times of crisis.Very cool.So go to omaze.com/mustangmacheto enter for your chance to winand to help support a fantastic cause.It looks like future Job needs my help.Good luck.- Because of recent carslike the Nissan Kicksand Hyundai Iioniq,it might seem like automanufacturers don'tput a lot of thought into their car names,but it's actually quite the opposite.It's always been this way.It even took a while to land on the wordautomobile over competing names like;autobaine, buggyaut, oleo locomotive.I think we chose the right one though.It was actually onlywhen the New York Timesmentioned the name automobile,that it started gaining popularity.Even though the newspaper hated it.On January 3rd of 1899, they wrotethat the new-fangled motor carriages quote"are all unutterably uglyand never a one of them has been providedwith a good or even an endurable name.The French have evolved automobile,which being half Greek and half Latinis so near to indecent thatwe print it with hesitation."I do say Greek and Latin, how scandalous.(spitting)Since then automobile companies have beenin an endless contest to find theperfect most sellablenames for their cars.Sometimes they come up with a classic,like Ford Mustang.Sometimes they come upwith an incomprehensiblecollection of letters and numberslike the Mercedes GLS 350D 4Matic.And sometimes they come up withthe Mazda Titan Dump.(booing)Naming a car is a massive process.Think about it,these are huge companiesand not only are they spending millionsto produce these vehicles,but they'll be spendingmillions on top of thatto market the hell out of them.This name will be on billboards.Matthew McConaughey mightmumble it in a commercial.So there are some requirements.Most obviously the namehas to appeal to thedemographic it's being marketed to.And has to be original enough tostand out.For example, in the early 2000,there was a boom in crossoverSUV's that ushered in nameslike Ford Escape and Nissan Rogueto attract a rebellious clientele.That's definitely not following the herd,but it's not always that simple.There are a couple of huge obstaclesthat might derail an otherwiseawesome car name.One, is that someone maybealready trademarked it.There's not much use intrying to market a Chevy Xboxbecause that territoryis pretty well claimed.Ford actually ran into this problemwhen they tried to sellthe Mustang in Germany.Another company alreadyowned the copyright.So, Ford had to sell the pony caras the T5 over there.It doesn't really havethe same ring to it.It's not even a horse.Can't ride a T five.How am I supposed to ride a T five?Another hurdle is thatbecause car sales is a global business,most names have to work in any languageor at least not beoffensive in any language.The most famous example ofcars that broke these rulesare probably the ChevyNova and the Mazda Laputa.Seems like neither companyhad a Spanish English dictionary on handduring the brainstorm.And let's not even dissect the thoughtprocess behind the eBussy.Once the possible name is clearedthe marketing department,the legal department,and the let's make sure this isn'tthe Swedish word for colonic department.It finally goes to theCEO for ultimate approval.This is true of pretty muchany company these days,but there are some subtleways that American, Europeanand Asian car companiesall do it differently.The naming journey for American carsbegan about as simply as it could have.When Ford motors introducedthe original model Ain 1903, as Henry Ford continued todevelop and experiment with new models.He named them the model B model C, etc.all the way to thehistorically popular model T.Though not every newmodel was put on sale.Now model T is still one of the top 10bestselling cars ever.So clearly, no one wascomplaining about the nameand Ford liked the system so muchthat he even started at over in 1928,by re-introducing the new model A.His rivals and formerpartners over at Cadillacused the same exact naming scheme as Ford,but they did perhaps makethe first American carwith an actual name in 1905.The Osceola Coupe was named after aSeminole chief and was an early prototypefor closed body vehicles.In the 1930s and 40ssome American companiesbegan more commonly using word namesrather than simple model names to tryand chip away at Ford andChevy's market dominance.Most notably Studebakerused the two world warsas a backdrop to marketmodels like the Commander,the President, andunfortunately the Dictator.This is a contender for the earliest,extremely stupid car name.Yo Mussolini and Hitler and Franco likelet's name cars afterthose guys, really cool.By the sixties and seventiesmarketing departmentshad finally wrestled control of namingaway from the engineersand they thought it was important thatAmerican cars give theimpression of power and speed,which led to cars like the Challenger,Charger and Corvette.Another naming conventionthat quickly becamepopular among American manufacturers,was to name cars after impressive animals.You had your Cougars,Stingrays, and Roadrunners.This makes sense.The right animal association instantlytells you something about the carand Rams can't sue fortrademark infringement.One notable downside to this naming schemeis that there's only so manycool animals to go around,which is how you end up with odd nameslike the Chevrolet Bisonor Dodge Super Bee,and more generally American companiesdefinitely tend to get carried awaywith their endless searchfor bold image basednames like the Pontiac Aztec, Ford Probe,and Dodge Dart Swinger.You get the idea, but reallyhow did Swinger get approved?I'm surprised it didn't come with likea pineapple decal on the side.Was it built for the bar who's constantlyswapping cars with their friends.How do you leave the party when your keysare in the fishbowl?I could go on.Like early American automakers,their European counterpartsalso saw a lot of sense inkeeping track of theirmodels with simple lettersand numbers as labels.The difference is, is thatthey never really stopped.Particularly the German luxury brands.On one hand, it's a good systembecause you don't have to worry about theBMW 330 CI, getting confused foranything except a barcode.And it can actually behelpful when consumers areconsidering their cars.I mean, for example, BMWhas possibly the easiestof the alpha numeric names to decode.In the 330 CI, the first 3 means 3 series.The 30 means a three liter engine.C means coupe, and I means fuel injected.Somewhat, Similarly, Audi uses A, Q, and Rfollowed by 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8.A means sedan, Q means SUVand R means sports car andthe numbers ascend in size.If I want the roomiest Audi sedan,I'm looking for an A8, easy.But the system has limits,for one thing even if aname is a mix of numbersand letters, car companies still want itto be easy to pronounce.So it can't just be anynumbers and letters.Nobody is ever going to buy a BMW WW 2.For another, the more cars you make,the more confusing the naming system gets,which is problematic,if you want your carcompany to last long time.Mercedes's naming system used to makea lot of sense with the lettersand numbers for eachmodel correlating with theengine size and vehicle class.But they also didn't use to makenearly as many cars ortrims as they do now.These days they haveconfusing competing nameslike the SL, SLK, SLS and CLS.BMW features the ultimateexample of confusingand unnecessary letteringbecause in the 70s,they started adding thelittle lowercase I to modelswith a fuel injected engine.This probably seemed like a cooland stylish way to advertise that thesecars featured better technology.Except now nearly every car thesedays uses fuel injection,and there's not really anypoint in bragging about it,but they're still stickingthat little i on thereon pretty much any car that's not diesel.The absolute worst name andBMW's lineup though has to bethe M635CSi, which sounds like eithera default internet passwordor a new crime show starring David Caruso.Of course, it's notjust European companiesthat still use lettersor numbers to differentiate their models.Some of Tesla's firstcars where the model Sand the model Xand Elon Musk wanted to nametheir next car, the model Ebecause he thought it wasfunny that the lettersS E X spell sex,but Ford already ownedthe model E trademarkfrom back in Henry Ford's day.So Elon settled on the model threebecause S 3 X almost spells sex.And of course, in 2019 Tesla unveiledthe model Y an SUVThat's extremely S E X E,and corny, A F.Got him (beep).Got you, Elon.You think your namingconventions are funny, bro?You think it's funny to spell S E X,are you S I X bro? Nerd.So American companies preferbig, bold image based names.European companies often stick withthe alpha numeric combos of yore.And then there's Japan,which does a mix of both.But why?Well, for one thing, themajor Asian car companieswere generally founded more recentlythan the big auto makersin the US and Europe.So by the time their carsbecame globally popular,it was already a well-establishedtradition that each one needed a good nameto stand out.In fact, they were largelywelcoming of American style model names.To the point that nearly all Japanesecars are branded with English lettering,including those that stay in Japan.Former Nissan design chief Shiro Nakamuraeven told Jalopnik thathe thinks Japanese carswill never have badges in Japanesebecause Japan is very culturally welcomingto words borrowed from other cultures.But that's not to saythere's no Japanese influenceon the naming process.Toyota's vehicle names often come fromreferences to crowns, architecture,royalty, mythology, and natural patterns.The name Camry is a phonetic spellingof the Japanese word Kan-Murri,which means crown.And also references to the crown sedan,which Toyota has been making domesticallyin Japan since 1955.Similarly, the Corolla is named afterthe outer crown of a flower.However, there's also alot of European influence,particularly in theJapanese luxury brands.The most prominent of these brands, Lexus,has a made up name,which Toyota says, quote,"combines, word roots, evoking imagesof luxury and technology."To enhance that image,they borrowed the naming conventionsfrom their German competitorsand called their flagship car the LSor Luxury Sedan.Honda and Nissan also wentwith European styling,alpha numeric names whenthey introduced Acuraand Infiniti respectively.But when Japanese andKorean companies lacktradition to fall back on,they often seem focused on finding namesthat are cool and hip for the kids.AKA your kicks in your Kia Stingers.This points to another thing that hasalways been true about naming cars,both in Asia and around the globe.Sometimes it's just nonsense.Hyundai and Kia both love making up wordslike the Veloster or the Sportage.One legendary story is that Mitsubishiwanted to take a pagefrom the Americans bookand named their newsports coupe The Stallion,except that the name was misinterpretedon a garbled phone callwith US representativesas the Mitsubishi Starion.And then they just kind of went with it,it's a cool name, heckNissan, literally named a carThe Fair Lady, becausethe head of the companyliked the Broadway musicalMy Fair Lady so much.So we've learned how carmakers name their cars.It's pretty straightforward.Choose a word that evokes thefeeling you want associatedwith the designand make sure it's not theVietnamese word for prostate.But somehow companies still mess it up.Without further ado, here are theunequivocal worst names in car history.- Number five.the Great Wall Wingle 5.A pickup truck manufactured by theChinese company Great Wall Motors.Wingle either means horse in Chineseor is a combo of windand eagle in English,depending on what story you believe.- Number four- The Gaylord Gladiator.Jim and Ed Gaylord werethe heirs to a hugebobby pin fortuneand wanted to make a carnicer than a Rolls Royce.Unfortunately, though,the Gladiator proved tooexpensive to produceand only four were made.And with a name like that,maybe that's a good thing.- Number three.- The Dodge Challenger Scat Pack.Dodge invented the termscat pack in the 1960s.By combining the wordscat, as in get lost,with Frank Sinatra's popular Rat Pack.And for some reasonthey've kept it around,even though Sinatra hasbeen dead for 25 years.And as much as I love Dodge, scat stinks.- Number two.- The Subaru Touring Bruce,the lesson of these last two is don'tname your cars after celebrities.The Bruce was a rebadged 1993 Subaru Legacysold only in Japan because Bruce Williswas in a Subaru TV commercial there.That's the whole story.- Number one.Is a tie, the Renault Le Carand the Ferrari LaFerrari.The Renault Le Car andthe Ferrari LaFerrarishare the embarrassmentas two names that aresomehow extremely dumband extremely uncreative at the same time.The Renault 5 was rebrandedfor the American marketas Le Car, in order to help market itas the most popular car in Europe.40 years later, after the Renault,Ferrari explained that in context,the LaFerrari name issupposed to mean that it's thedefinitive Ferrari.But neither is really working for LeNolan.Of course, car names are stupid.Look at all the stuffthey're trying to do at once.They have to stand out,they have to be trademarked.They can't accidentally mean a bad word.What you sometimes end upwith is corporate mediocrity.In light of the manyobstacles that stand betweenany car and a good solid name,it's actually a miracle wehave any cool ones at all.So don't focus on the fact thatmost car names are kind of corny.So just hold close yourLamborghini Huracan's,and your Ford Lightenings.Even if you drive a Titan Dump.Thank you very much forwatching Wheelhouse.It's a fun one, goofy one.Let me know your favorite carnames down in the comments.Make sure to show your work, tell me why,you know, or don't it's fine.I mean, even off the top of my head,I can't even think oflike a cool car name.It's a really hard job.Like the first for some reason,the first word that cameto mind was the vision,which is kind of cool actually,but Disney probably owns that trademarkor something, but it's hard.Looking around the room for the,the Ford Succulent.Boom done.Hire me.If you, excuse me, I have to go parka Scat Pack on my own.Be kind I'll see you next time!