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?
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.