Montreal. Malibu. Aspen. Many cars throughout automotive history have been named for places. Such names are often evocative or, at the very least, pleasant. You can picture a ’57 Chevy Bel Air cruising through that SoCal neighborhood back in the day, even if the name was eventually relegated to a fleet special. A Chevy Monte Carlo or Chrysler Cordoba probably never drove through those locales, but the name conveys a sense of luxury and prestige.
Names like Santa Fe, Tucson, Tahoe, Denali, Colorado, Rainier, Durango, Dakota and Yukon make sense: these names are exotic to foreigners, but those vehicles are likely to actually be driven in those places. The choice of the name “Reno” for one of Suzuki’s hatchbacks was baffling though, no offense intended to the Biggest Little City in the World.
My vote for the most ill-suited geographic name would be the Ford Torino. At least with cars like the Chevrolet Corsica and Oldsmobile Firenza, they were European-sized if not European-mannered. But compared to most cars on the road in Turin, the Torino is positively gargantuan. And while the Torino nameplate started as a high-end trim of the Fairlane, it ended up being applied across the entire intermediate Ford range. Cognitive dissonance arises when you consider a 1970s Ford pillared sedan with dog-dish wheels bears the same name as a beautiful Italian city.
What geographic car names make sense? Which don’t?
Perhaps Cortina? Beautiful ski resort, but somehow became the most English of car names. The standard rep car, standard family car, standard boy racer car with Colonel Bogey horn and sun strip on the window. About the least Italian car there has ever been.
Lol
The problem is that the Ford Garmisch-Partenkirchen does not really have the same ring to it…
Lol, I just logged in to say exactly that 🙂
The Cortina name was deemed famous and prestigious enough because of the Winter Olympic Games that took place there, around the time the Ford was launched
911 Carrera. Some Porsche may have had luck in this obscure Mexican road race, But really.
The Porsche 550 Spyder won its class in 1953, Small Sports Car.
I think that name is ok. At least the brand has some real life connection to the place. And they did recognize that fact quite early in their history. It’s not just a name taken completely out of random, like so many other…
Carrera is not a place, it literally means “Race” in Spanish.
So a legendary car, made for over 50 years, gets saddled with a name from a race won by another car 10 years earlier in a country that had little if any market for 911. This one is a stretch.
And the Panamera too! It has to be also in honour of the Carrera Panamericana (Panamerican Race).
And what about the Cayenne?
I think Porsche meant the pepper, not French Guyana. Although that is where Euroland blast off their rockets, so who knows.
Dodge Monaco for a junky 70s big sedan, probably best known today for the number of them wrecked in the Blues Brothers movie. Would not be at home in a densely-populated enclave of millionaires on the French Riviera.
Ford Everest (Aus) is an outdoorsy name, but the mountain isn’t exactly accessible by road no matter how rugged your vehicle may be.
And a Korean-made econobox Pontiac LeMans is unlikely ever to race at that track.
Not to mention the Torino’s sometime cousin, the Montego. Also doubt that a Polara will visit Polaris.
Best? Alfasud!
Worst? Volga, with a honourable mention to Austuioin for using so mnay English town and county names in the 1940 to 1960s.
Soviet badge engineering; the Volga car was made by the Gorky Automobile Works, while the Volga Automobile Works called their car the Lada.
Badges? We don`t need no stinking badges.
Bavarian Motor Works Bavaria.
Most appropriate: Chevrolet Suburban. Self-explanatory.
Least appropriate: This one is harder. There are plenty of cars named for pleasant, balmy seaside locations or history-steeped Mediterranean locales that end up being nothing more than bland middle-America sedans, and you could claim any of those (Torino perhaps being the exemplar).
But instead, I nominate the Ferrari America/Superamerica series. It doesn’t get more Italian than Ferrari, so to name a whole line after the continent that builds the exact opposite type of car? Puzzling.
Correct on Suburban Ford Ranch Wagon and Country Squire are also in that category.
The Suburban one is interesting to me. My (American) father in law has a Suburban. My wife and I used it to collect my (Scottish) parents from the airport and my mum asked what it was. I said “It’s a Chevrolet Suburban”, and she burst out laughing.
From a British point of view, Suburban is about the last name you would attach to that car, and is probably a name you just wouldn’t attach to a car.
Superamerica isn’t so puzzling since the series was specifically aimed at Americans. Ferrari knew Americans liked big engines, and they were the richest and biggest buyers of his cars, so he dedicated a whole series to his best customers. You Americans are super!
And all this time I thought Il Commendatore had named it for a chain of gas stations in Minnesota!
It had more to do with where they hoped to sell them, and the idea that America was a free, open space where you could let a car have its head.
Two appropriately named after the place the factories they were built in were located: Fiat Mirafiori (131) and Morris Cowley.
Ford Zodiac. What are you going to do, strap it to a rocket?
In terms of being absolutely right for the location, I don’t think you can beat a soft-top Rolls-Royce Corniche.
Bentley Azure and Brooklands?
I don’t know that you’d ever have seen many Malibus in Malibu, but in 2015, any you see there will almost certainly have a rental car barcode on it.
+1 to this–I have driven a Malibu to Malibu, and yes,it was a rental.
The Chevy Biscayne was probably not very much at home around Biscayne Bay.
Ditto the 1958 Chevrolet Del Ray – a strippo of a car at a beautiful seaside village.
The short-lived Plymouth Plaza was equally bad when it was named, but accidentally turned appropriate after Plymouth abandoned the name. A plaza sounded like an elegant town square in some exclusive tropical locale, but by 1960 it meant a shabby strip mall. Exactly the right sort of place for a strippo car.
I thought the Plaza name came from the NYC hotel — still quite ritzy, but obviously not what the Plymouth represented.
Savoy and Belvedere were also famous hotels.
But the Delray didn’t start out at the bottom — it was an uplevel option package first used on ’55 Chevy 210 2-door sedan.
Here’s an italian-plated Ford Torino (altough i doubt it’s actually in Turin) :
http://www.targhenere.net/gallery/photo.php?photo_id=8443
Somehow the “Starsky and Hutch” livery on that four door sedan (sorry, saloon since it’s across the pond) version of the Gran Torino. At least the model year of that car appears correct or at least close (74-76), although it’s missing some trim between the taillights.
As I’ve said before, the B-body Pontiac Parisienne is a very ill-fitting name. Maybe “Seine” would’ve been more appropriate, reminiscent of the huge barge-like river boats that travel on it.
I’ve also never understood why Hyundai names their crossovers after places in the American Southwest and Mexico (Santa Fe, Tuscon, Veracruz).
Pontiac Quebecoise would’ve fit. And I dare you to listen to the song “Sedona” by Houndmouth without thinking of Kia minivans.
+1 re the Parisienne which was sold new here for a few years in the late 1960s, so were the huge chrome-beaked ones; the antithesis of a typical Parisian car!
The SEAT Alhambra, Altea, Cordoba, Ibiza, Leon, Malaga, Marbella, Ronda and Toledo all come from Spain. 100% correct.
But the SEAT Arosa doesn’t come from Switzerland.
The Triumph Toledo, on the other hand, comes neither from Toledo, Spain nor Toledo, Ohio. And may not have ever been sold in either location.
Arosa is part of two towns in Galicia, you might find it under the official galician name, Arousa. But it’s that one. It’s in Spain 🙂 But it’s also Portuguese and Swiss:
https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arosa
The only of the latest SEATs without a name of a place in Spain was the Exeo.
The Alhambra is a famous palace… in Granada!
Aha ! Thanks.
MOST: Buick Park Avenue. Although I’ve never been to New York’s Park Avenue, I can picture such a Buick parked in front of an elegant apartment building there. It just seems fitting.
LEAST: Austin America. It’s hard to think of a car was less suited American tastes at the time it was built.
“I’ve also never understood why Hyundai names their crossovers after places in the American Southwest and Mexico (Santa Fe, Tuscon, Veracruz).”
Would you rather have them named “North Philadelphia?”
Or “Camden?”
How about “Baltimore?”
In those places, they’d get STOLEN. 🙂
If they named them after places like Incheon, Chongup, and Kwangju, geographically-challeneged Americans would have no idea where those places were. Nor could we pronounce them.
Maserati Kyalami – named after the South African racecourse
DeTomaso Longchamp – either named after the French racecourse or a town near Alejandro DeTomaso’s Buenos Aires birthplace.
Chrysler Sebring – not so much.
I’ve driven a Chevy Tahoe to Lake Tahoe and could conceivably drive a GMC Yukon to the Yukon Territory. Although it should probably be a Yukon XL to be more correct. Or as of yesterday I could keep going and try to climb a mountain if I had the Denali version.
Since you need a pickup, how about a GMC Sierra? Then you could drive it to any number of mountains.
Good thing my Ford Sierra has 4wd, as the RWD Sierra may not be capable of as much mountaineering… 😉
For that, you need a Suzuki Sierra. 😉
Ha! 😀
It’s a stretch, but the Olds Cutlass Ciera fits in there. Somehow.
I doubt if any of the beautiful people in uber tony Aspen ever owned one.
Same with devotees of the elegant Plaza hotel, not to be confused with the dowdy Plymouth stripper.
But the Imperial Southampton would mingle effortlessly in that Long Island bastion of wealth and style.
I can absolutely imagine a well-off dowager resident of The Plaza stepping into a Plymouth Plaza, given the broad preference for taxis over car ownership in NYC.
Actually, Aspen was fairly crawling with the Aspen SUV, and just about any other SUV – the well off never lost their affection for the SUV during the recession – they just decided that Hummers were a bit too gauche and dialed it back a little.
I could probably get to the rendezvous in a Buick Rendezvous but driving a Rendezvous would make me hopeful that the other participant in the rendezvous would not judge me based on my Rendezvous…
Hard for me to say since even the worst offender is better than alphabet soup or a sterile raise zero eyebrow/translate positively in all languages/focus group friendly name like Fusion(the Torino’s class descendant).
I think the worst offender would actually be Bel Air, not in the golden years of 57 and prior, but nearly all years since. Chevrolet constantly demoted it’s status to the point of stripper fleet model in the nameplate’s twilight years, I can’t think of a less desirable car to be seen in cruising through Bel Air.
But it would have been at home in the working class/rural town of Bel Air MD, which during the heyday of the Chevy Bel Air, was mostly a sleepy town.
I can see a Black 73 Bel Air at the guard’s station at the entrance to Bel-Air,Ca.
“Hard for me to say since even the worst offender is better than alphabet soup or a sterile raise zero eyebrow/translate positively in all languages/focus group friendly name like Fusion(the Torino’s class descendant). ”
Excellent point.
Yes, Fusion has all sorts of connotations – confusion, profusion, diffusion, infusion, cold fusion…a truly weird name for a car.
Milan is unlikely to ever see its Mercury namesake but much more likely to see an Alfa Romeo Milano. Or maybe not, since the Milano was badged as the “75” over there…
I like to joke that the Mercury Milan was named after the city in Michigan 40 miles from Ford HQ. Stress on the first syllable, with a long I.
The Alfa Mito supposedly is a pun of both “myth” in Italian, MIlano (historical home of Alfa Romeo) and TOrino (where they are made today – hometown of Fiat).
Chevrolet Vega. Hitch your wagon to that star, and the bumper’s likely to fall off!
Has a badge-engineered Ford Granada ever been to Versailles?
Well, the Monarch did reside there…
Very true.
Maybe the UK Granada the US version not so much.
Only if you are thinking of Versailles, Indiana. And that is pronounced Vur-sales.
Well in that case the Lincoln should be pronounced “Vur-e-few-sales”.
Good one.
That is how the natives of Versailles, Kentucky pronounce it as well. I’m fairly certain that all of the towns named Paris in U.S. are pronounced as it is spelled (Pair-us), and not in the French fashion. Just as I’m sure that towns in the U.S. named Cairo are pronounced like the corn syrup (Ka-ro) and not like the city in Egypt. I could go on but will not.
There’s a Brazil, Indiana that everyone pronounces BRAY-zil.
Brings to mind a terrible old joke:
A couple driving through Texas had been embarrassed frequently when they mispronounced names of towns and people snickered. So, when they arrived in Mexia they expected an odd pronunciation and decided to ask first when they stopped to get something to drink.
Couple: “Can you please tell us where we are and say it slowly and distinctly so we can understand?”
Clerk (looking at them like they must have just landed from Mars): “Of course. Glad to help. ‘Dairy Queen'”!
In Wisconsin, there are a Berlin and a New Berlin, both pronounced BER-lin. Supposedly this changed from the correct pronunciation during either WWI or WWII, so as to disassociate the towns from the then-enemy Germans.
There’s a BERlin in central Massachusetts, too.
We have Versailles and the larger and better known North Versailles here near Pittsburgh, both are pronounced phonetically by everyone in these parts (Ver-sails). I still refer to the Lincoln that way, and the Pontiac Parisienne is the Paris-een.
Surprised it has not been mentioned yet, but the Buick Riviera seems very unlikely to be seen on the French Riviera, and almost as unlikely in Riviera Maya. …or perhaps the Buick Lucerne.
The Pittsburgh area also has Mount Lebanon, which is pronounced “Mont Lebnen.” Oddly, there’s a Lebanon over on this (eastern) end of the state which is mispronounced exactly the same.
And McLean and Staunton in VA are pronounced “McLane” and “Stanton.”
Also there’s a Rio Road in Charlottesville pronounced “Rye-oh.”
That’s how McLean is supposed to be pronounced.
Same goes for Lima, OH. It rhymes with “I’m a.”
Beat me to it on Lima, OH. But there’s always Bellefontaine, OH (pronounced ‘Bell-fountain’).
We have Bellefontaine Neighbors, Missouri just on the other side of the I-270 bridge. It’s pronounced the same. Like Ferguson, St. Ann and other North St. Louis County burgs, it exists primarily to write traffic tickets.
My personal favorite is Iowa, Louisiana. Pronounced I-O-WAY.
Cadillac Seville – I can picture one of the original Sevilles, especially with the Elegante package, parked in Seville, Spain in all its glory. Definitely fits the name.
The Riviera is another car that fit its name well along with the Park Avenue. I can picture both in their complementary setting.
I still say Edsel Bermuda wagon, two tone and wood! Uggggggggggg.
There was also a Willys Bermuda, complete with two-tone.
Worst: Yugo Florida.
Best: Plymouth Sapporo
Well, the Sapporo was Mitsubishi based…
Exactly!
But the plain Yugo was right on the money.
The Pontiac Bonneville was both – the 1958 firebreather, yes. The 1980s H body version, no.
The Chrysler New Yorker – yes. Chrysler Newport, no.
Studebaker Lark Daytona – only when supercharged.
Saturn was sort of a moonshot but over time went as wide of the mark as the panel gaps. Apparently those had to do with that space-age polymer, plastic.
Dodge Charger Daytona – definitely “most” for the original winged wonder, then decreasing as time went on.
Well they did race Daytonas in IROC racing in the 80s/90s, which did race at Daytona. Hard to call that inappropriate other than not being low production.
Maybe the Torino Talladega beating them at Daytona in 69?
Triumph Dolomite which was actually made (in between strikes) in a rather grim part of the British midlands
Named after magnesium ore…reminiscent of milk of magnesia….
I like the Triumph Dolomite… It’s tough, just like the famous, pimp, Dolomite…
You jive turkey!! Lol 😉
That’s what I always associate with the Triumph Dolemite, which makes it an even more badass car than it already was…
Here’s the only one I’ve ever seen, and it was a Sprint too. Probably one of only a handful in the U.S.:
Cool pic, Sean.
Give me this one… I like the color, vinyl top, ducktail trunk lid, and rally wheels. I wouldn’t change a thing about it. 🙂
I see the Mercury Colony Park as going both ways. While they probably chose the name to evoke an image of an upscale subdivision, the only real life Colony Park I know of is a slightly down at the heel apartment building on Beaverton-Hillsdale Highway in SW Portland.
RE: the Torino….”Cognitive dissonance arises when you consider a 1970s Ford pillared sedan with dog-dish wheels bears the same name as a beautiful Italian city.
this car might disagree
Im no Ford fan…but you nailed it on that one.
Agreed, a model name spanning model range complicates this challenge.
I find it pretty ironic Pontiac’s LeMans made any best catagory, while the Torino makes the worst. I don’t think you’d see this powering down the Mulsanne Straight
Maybe not, but I still love the lines of that wagon, esp. with the wood.
How about Monte Carlo? Way swankier than any Chevrolet.
Toyota Tacoma is not a bad name, they’re very popular in the NW.
Subaru is missing a bet by failing to thank Spokane for being the Subariest city in America.
Admittedly Spokane is a clattery name, but then Subarus are clattery cars. If they wanted a nicer-sounding name, they could pick the fanciest parts of town, where Subs are especially dense. The Subaru Audubon or the Subaru Manito.
How about a luxury model to keep Subie owners looking to move up to an Audi or AWD Lexus from jumping ship? I’m thinking “Montpelier by Subaru”. It’s a distinguished, upscale sounding name, yet it’s also the name of a nice little town where it is simply impossible to step outside without seeing an FHI product.
+1
I snorted coffee thru my nose at the thought of Montpelier – because I automatically think of Montpelier, VA (on US33, twenty five miles northwest of Richmond) where I lived for the past fifteen years. Basically a wide spot on the road with no traffic lights which exists because there was an inn and stagecoach transfer station back in the 1850’s.
The kind of town that when you drive thru you figure it was founded because somebody’s covered wagon broke a wheel in that area, and by the time they fixed the wheel the oxen pulling the wagon died. So they set up home there.
That’s what the LL Bean edition is supposed to do (and Freeport, Maine is sufficiently populated with Subarus and close enough to tonier parts of Maine…).
Maybe after the election they’ll come up with the fancy new SUV, the Subaru Kennebunkport.
I wonder how plentiful Subaru SUVs are in TriBeCa, small trucklets in Baja, or jacked up Legacy wagons in Australia.
No Legacy wagons in Australia the WW1&2 veterans association owns that name, Subaru rebadged their car Liberty for the Aussie market.
Bryce beat me to it, They even get the diesel option that we don’t.
Oz is Subaru’s second largest market after the US. There’s no shortage of Outbacks, though oddly enough the Baja was never sold in the land of the ute.
Bellingham would like to contest that claim…
The Tacoma name is fine if the truck comes equipped with dents, grafitti, and a couple of missing windows… cheap tint on the rest. They can call it the Hilltop Edition.
At the time they started using the name Tacoma it was also still pretty famous for the “Aroma of Tacoma” from the pulp mills.
So I thought yeah that sounds like a great name. The marketing campaign could be “The NEW Toyota Tacoma, it sticks and it is dangerous.”
Beat me to it.
Vauzhall Cresta. One is bound to have been driven there at some point.
About 13 or 14 hrs drive from its native Luton, according to Google.
How many Toyota Crestas have you seen there, though?
Unlikely: Oldsmobile Calais
Likely: Cadillac Eldorado in towns called El Dorado; 1931 Chevrolet Independence in Independence, MO; a GMC (or even Ford) Sierra in a mountain range called Sierra
So I was born a Taurus and I was in my Mondeo, driving through the Sierras on my way to Cortina…Good thing I had an Escort and was able to Focus like a Laser on the task at hand…by the way, have you seen my Crown, Victoria? (Okay, I know they’re not place names, but some things are too punderful to ignore!)
I salute the gentleman from New Zealand.
I took my Consul Classic 315 to Capri and someone flattened the roof down and stole two doors.
Imperial Southampton. I can’t imagine these being driven in this English port city, but considering that this is also the home port of the Queen Elizabeth 2 maybe it is appropriate.
That’s because it was named after a tony vacation beach town on Long Island, New York, USA, which, itself was named after that port in England. “Southampton” was a descriptive term used by Imperial for any pillarless hardtop, which evoked a certain feeling of luxury over the common sedan with its framed windows.
I can imagine an AMC Matador Barcelona 2dr coupe being driven quickly thru the streets of Barcelona, Spain, driven by a dashing and handsome bullfighter on the way to see his lovely senorita all dressed in white lace.
This sounds like an old Marty Robbins song!
“This sounds like an old Marty Robbins song!”
QOTD!
Marty had a lot of great songs and this could have been another one!
Makes me think about the Spanish name craze during the Brougham era. Why was that? Seville, Granada, Cordoba, Barcelona…
More Spanish language than Spanish towns, but you also had Elegante, Grande, Trofeo, Cimarron, El Camino, Caballero and Matador badges stuck on cars within 5 years either way.
Spain has a very powerful, rich history, which also is mingled in with our own history. It’s exotic foreign but domestic and familiar at the same time. Had things gone a little differently years ago we could be speaking in Spanish or even French.
Quite a geography lesson, this. I had no idea some of these were American place names.
“Ranier, Tucson, Santa Fe,Yukon”…I have to disagree on all of those…not a single one of those vehicles is capable of much more than moderate offroading these days. The Yukon and Tahoe once WERE decent offroaders, properly prepped. Anymore, theyre low riding mall crawlers.
Im sidestepping the geographical element of this, but the current ‘Renegade’ is the most blatant case of overselling a vehicle with a much too aggressive name out there. That car may be the most capable version of a Scion xB or Kia Soul you can buy, but considering the nature of the CJs that once wore that name it does NOT fill those shoes. I owned a CJ-7 Renegade…my first vehicle. Even with the factory 304 V8 it was pretty deserving but by the time I got hold of it, someone had swapped in an AMC 360. Add 13 years of wear and tear, dual cherry bombs and a crazy 17 y/o driver….THATS a ‘Renegade’. Jeep had shown a 2 door JK Wrangler with the 345 Hemi and Rubicon running gear as a concept. Anything less than that doesn’t deserve the name.
Well I know what I think is the worst…
Pontiac Bonneville. Those tanks are not suited to the salt.
60’s Best – LeMans
60’s Worst – Belvedere (as in castle or hotel, NYC)
60’s Worst – Belvedere (as in castle or hotel, NYC)
Not to be confused with a town in northern Illinois where Ma Mopar never built B-bodies…..
The Daewoo Pontiac LeMans is unlikely to be seen at the racing circuit, though the Opel it’s based on may have been popular in France when new.
There are probably quite a few Toyota Avalons in the middle income seaside NJ town.
“The choice of the name “Reno” for one of Suzuki’s hatchbacks was baffling though”
Worse was the choice of the Suzuki name for one of Daewoo’s hatchbacks.
Nothing beats Suzuki Kizashi, though.
Silly sounding in English, but holds some symbolic (if ultimately failed) message about Suzuki conquering the midsize segment.
I think it sounded it really cool. And it was a real Suzuki. Japanese products are good, I wonder sometimes why Japanese carmakers don’t streets their origin by Japanese names like Kizashi.
““Kizashi” is a Japanese word meaning “a sign of great things to come”
At least it wasn’t a Suzuki Kamikaze!
Some of the JDM model names make no sense in any language, including Japanese!
I agree the Ford Torino doesn’t evoke images of Italy… The Pininfarina-styled IKA Torino, on the other hand, it’s perfectly named! A mix of American and Italian, just like most Argentine people 🙂
I doubt Kia sells many misspelled SUVs in either Sorrento, Italy, or near Borrego, CA.
I could see some Olds Delmont 88s having floated around blue-collar Delmont, PA, back in the day.
Since WV outlawed Tesla’s direct sales model, I’m sure there aren’t many yuppie-mobile electric sedans in unincorporated Tesla, WV.
There’s Sorento, Illinois, a depressing little burg of 500 in Bond County where many folks would have trouble affording a used Rio, let alone a Sorento.
Versailles wasn’t only used by Ford on Lincoln…
Ford later revived it in Brazil (on a VW)
As a wagon too 🙂
Did any Hillman Californians actually make it to the Golden state?
We had Minx, Husky and Hunters badged as Chrysler Arrow, but I’ve never seen a Californian (Imp coupe, right?) here.
Two door MK7/8 Minx was the one I was thinking of 55/56 models 3 piece rear window like Studebaker Starlight coupe fore runner to the Audax Rapier. But yeah I think there was a Imp too
Imp Coupe was either a Hillman Californian or a Sunbeam Stiletto, in the UK
Did you know this Brazilian Verona?
The famous VW Brasilia
And the SP2 refers to São Paulo.
Parati is also a city (more commonly now spelled Paraty)
Ups, forgot the pic
No one has mentioned the Kia Rio yet? Quite unlikely to be the ride of choice for Girls From Ipanema.
Then there is the general question of why so many cars have names derived from the least car-friendly city in North America: Park Avenue, Fifth Avenue, [Kaiser] Manhattan, New Yorker, Tribeca . . .
Most: What else Rambler American. Can’t get anymore red, white and blue than the Hurst SC/Rambler which was a very tricked out American.
BMW Bavaria?
I’m actually a Chevy El Camino buff, but in some ways it does evoke the stretch of El Camino Real, “The King’s Highway” which wends interminably from Santa Clara to South San Francisco in California, lined with miles of strip malls, auto dealers, fast food and motels.
I currently live on El Camino Real, a portion of it near Los Angeles, and yes, occasionally see a Chevy El Camino go by.
The Volvo Amazon, OTOH, does not bring to mind a steamy tropical jungle or even anything remotely Latin American.
Cadillac Fleetwood, a once thriving fishing town near Blackpool now very run down.
What’s a Fleetwood girl use for protection when having sex?
A bus shelter
Actually, the name comes from the Fleetwood coachworks of Fleetwood, PA, which is about 25 miles from here. I spend a good amount of time there as several of my co-workers live there. The old coachworks factory is still standing, but vacated. It is a small town with not much industry, a downtown stuck in the mid 1970s, lots of Amish and quite a few Allentown and Philadelphia commuters.
Fleetwood (the British one) was twinned with it’s American namesake, always wondered were the American Fleetwood was thanks
Fleetwood is a long running brand of mobile homes.
Your criticism of “Torino” is confused.
There are limitless examples of names and adjectives in American culture that seemingly apply to foreign cultures…but…in reality apply to the AMERICAN VERSION of those cultures. For instance, Chinese food in america is anything but chinese. It is a style of cuisine invented in america by chinese immigrants to america. Chinese people who have never traveled outside china have never tasted the food we americans call “chinese food”. They have heard of it before and the first chance they get, they go and try it.
The Ford Torino is a car in the style of the italian american. It has nothing to do with Italy just as american chinese food has nothing to do with China. There was a time when “mediteranean” style was all the rage. People were buying mediteranean furniture, mediteranean food, mediteranean art, and even mediteranean clothing. None of it was true mediteranean stuff. It was all made to look like the stuff a successful mediteranean immigrant to the USA would fill his house and garage and wardrobe with…and did.
Dutch uncles rarely come from the Netherlands. Let alone they can speak the language properly.
Are you familiar with the American expression “going Dutch”?
It means when there is a group of people, or a dating couple, at a restaurant, everyone pays their own bill separately.
then there is the American expression “double Dutch” which means to jump rope using two ropes simultaneously.
then there is the expression “in Dutch”…which means to be in big big trouble.
Where do these expressions come from? I have no idea.
One might surmise from these American expressions that Dutch people are known for doing things agin the law, are stingy with money, and are really good at tricky tasks like jumping rope.
but that is purely a simple amateurish explanation.
P.S. my mom and my dad and all my grandparents and aunts and uncles were ALL “Dutch uncles” and the only languages they knew besides American English were German, Danish, Swedish, and a wee-bit-O-Scott.
All these “Dutch expressions” can be traced back to the Anglo-Dutch wars in the 17th century.
Dutch comfort, treat, uncle, courage, etc.etc.
They hated us.
Aha!
I know nought of this war
I will endeavor to
Thanks
Interesting that the expressions carried over to America. I would be interested to know if these expressions are still in use in England!
Do you know if they are?
More about two Dutch brothers (not uncles) tomorrow, here on CC.
Of course, if you were English, you don’t know much about these wars. Because they weren’t England’s finest moments. Little matters of: The English Commonwealth under Oliver Cromwell, and the (not quite yet) mighty English navy being beaten by the Dutch.
BTW, Johannes, I must say our discussions that go astray from the cars we are supposed to discuss are my favorite thing on this website.
I have not traveled the world. In college I was the only American citizen in my group of friends even though I went to college in the middle of America. I used to tell my college buddies from round the world that they were my escape from my home town and that they saved me the expense of actually traveling. All I had to do was listen to their stories and absorb them and in exchange I taught them about America in a detailed way that they could not get from any other source. I seemed to have a knack for that and I became popular with the guys(and gals) from the other side of the planet because of that knack. I still remember taking my antique British Literature books(which came from my great grandmother who was a school teacher) to college and sharing them with students from Asia and Africa and South America to show them how much the English language had changed in the last one thousand years.
They LOVED IT!
The guys from the middle east were absolutely riveted by my discussion with them about: Mormons, Mennonites, and Amish.
Some of those three came from the Netherlands if I’m not mistaken.
The guys from India were astonished to learn that there were lots and lots of white English speaking people who hated the English more than they did. LOL! Namely, the Irish, the Scottish, and Americans.
I guess I knew how to put a spin on my knowledge of America and American history that amused or attracted my fellow students from foreign lands.
Over here, we’ve also got the Amish (German settlers) who became known as the “Pennsylvania Dutch”. Which is the usual American mangling of “Pennsylvania Deutch” (sp? probably mangled).
Old names for “Nederlands” (the language, or coming from the Netherlands) are Duuts / Diets / (Neder)Duitsch. There’s the Deutsch (German) connection.
yes but there were lots of actual nederlanders(not duetschmen) in new england in the colonial times. the fact that new york was originally new amsterdam should be proof of that.
Right, I forgot to mention that “Duits” is now Dutch for German.
So a Duitse man is a guy from Germany, not a Dutchman…
ah yes…
Pennsylvania Dutch and Scotch Irish
Two of the most famous ethnicities in America
I thought nothing of them until I was a college buddy with an irishman and a scotsman and a welshman, among others.
That’s when we nailed down the silly American terminology
What we came up with is that a Scotch Irish person in colonial America is nothing more than a northern irish person of non-catholic persuasion that does not have any lineage in common with the non-english speaking irish people of the island.
Turns out the sneaky English tried to exterminate the irish by sending more rapidly breeding Scots into ireland. They bred fast for only a little while and what resulted was northern ireland. Then the two populations stabilized and two separate nations resulted.
John makes some excellent points. Amercian cars wearing European names really are Italian-American, Spanish-American, etc. and by far they are not European.
And, while I was quite young, I do recall that in the late ’60s and early ’70s that “Mediterranean” was indeed a popular style – Mediterranean-Amercian to be more precise!
The Torino name was initially used at a relative high point on Ford’s mid-sizer as a top trim designation – and it sold well in the upper middle of price points. It was the perfect second car for an upscale suburban household – decorated Mediterranean, of course!
The Ford Torino was a common and innocuous part of the American background in the early-mid ’70s. I sort of understand some of the dislike these poor cars get – after 1973 they were also rans to GM’s Colonnade cars in terms of style, performance and handling, but they weren’t quite as bad as some folks make them out to be – with new names and little tune up in style and quality control the platform became a bestseller during ’77-’79.
The Chevy Celebrity Eurosport was neither European nor sporty (in the sense of a true sports car) in its design.
Cadillac Cimmron.`Nuff said?
Too bad (depending on view) they didn’t have problems with spontaneous combustion. Would have been the Cadillac Simmerin’.
But there’s always a Pontiac Fiero burning somewhere…
A+
this is won outright by the Pontiac Le Mans – the Daewoo / Vauxhall Astra one in particular.
Le Mans the place is ordinary enough, so in that sense it’s suitable I suppose
I’m still scratching my head over the Buick Enclave. Enclave? Really?!? I suppose there is some sense to be made of this if we really ponder it.
The Chevy Orlando – a compact family crossover – would be right at home in the theme-park parking lots of its namesake city but you can’t buy or even rent one there. If you want to drive an Orlando in Orlando you have to bring it down from Canada.
The Scotsman. Both insulting (or at least non-PC) and lacking a plaid interior.
I now must ask; is the Toyota Highlander even sold in Scotland?
I don’t know if Toyota sells that model in Scotland or not. I would guess not as it would be considered too big and too thirsty for most people there. I do know that the Highlander is only called that in North America, in other markets, Australia for example, it is the Toyota Kluger.
Wow, almost 200 comments, and counting.
I’ll say, Kio Rio. When you think of Rio(de Janeiro), you think of sexy women in thongs or skimpy bikinis, plenty of sunshine, and beach parties all night long.
Driving one of those appliances, you can pretty much say, the party’s over. That car was named one of the WORST cars ever in a crash. Yikes!!
Don’t think a Mercury could make it to a Comet. No Chevy will make it to Vega. Or a Nova for that matter. May not even make it around the block. How about a Plymouth catching a Satellite? Will a Pontiac burn up heading for the Sunfire? Of course, the leader of them all would be the Pontiac Star Chief. Could my Jetta reach the jet stream? Maybe if it ran into a tornado that was was big enough. OK I’ll stop now.
Forgot the easy one, my truck can make it to Titan? Maybe I’ll pass a Saturn along the way.
Dodge Monaco, hands down
Kia does have a very appropriately named (though misspelled) model…the Soul…pronounced the same and missing an “e” from Kia’s home country’s capital city.