A pleasant week in Lincoln's MKZ sedan (pictured here) has me contemplating the unpleasant disappearance of actual words — thoughtful, compelling, inspiring words — as car names. The MKZ arrived in Lincoln showrooms in the fall of 2005 as the Zephyr, a great name that dates all the way back 1936. For model year 2007, it was revised and renamed. Why? Lincoln's had a load of great names over the years, pretty much any of them better than MKZ, MKX, MKS, or Mark LT. (Okay, Aviator and Blackwood were pretty regrettable, but they're rare exceptions.)
Lincoln is hardly the first manufacturer to succumb to the alphanumeric bug that has transformed the automotive world from something defined by real, evocative words (things like Fury and Nomad and Dart) to one where cars are labeled with strings of letters (randomly assembled, like RDX, or representative of some foreign phrase, like SLK) or numbers usually related to engine displacement (2.0 or 335).
So what are the automotive world's most memorable car names? After the break, we've taken the liberty of nominating ten of the best (all American marques for this go-'round). So vote early and vote often, or nominate your personal favorite.
Don't miss our Best Car Names poll, after the break!
Photo courtesy of Lincoln.
The Germans are to blame — or, rather, young American marketers are to blame, in their relentless effort to convince consumers that their companies' vehicles are as thoroughly and passionately engineered as their German rivals (real or imagined). Historically, Mercedes-Benz and BMW and Audi have had no interest in evocative or adorable names. That may have something to do with the fact that the German word for Pinto has seventeen letters in it, or it may simply signify that although the Germans care about cars, they simply see no point in affixing pet-like names to machines.
But Americans do. Or did, at any rate. Oh, there are holdouts, great nostalgic names that linger and brands that have thus far resisted the alphanumeric urge (often, however, with less than ideal results). Ford's naming department has been out to lunch for years, coughing up lame-o F-monikers such as Freestar and Fusion and Flex, but the company used to be the hands-down best in this game (to wit: Maverick, Thunderbird, Mustang, to name three.)
General Motors is and has been hit-or-miss: For every Torpedo there's an Aztek, and for every Corvair there's a Celebrity.
Ditto Chrysler, because where there's a Barracuda there's a Breeze, and where there's a Demon there's a Diplomat.
So what are the automotive world's most memorable car names? We've taken the liberty of nominating ten of the best (all American marques for this go-'round). So vote early and vote often, or nominate your personal favorite.
