All the Great Car Names Have Been Taken
Elon Musk is not a funny man. Well, not the sort of funny that makes you laugh until your ribs ache. Forward-thinking people in the U.S. and beyond initially embraced Tesla for its all-electric foresight, and techy types recognized the genius of its software integration. But did anyone notice the company’s tongue-in-cheek naming strategy? There was the Model S, followed eventually by the 3, X, and Y. Arrange them in Musk’s preferred order and you get S-3-X-Y. See what he did there? Never mind the pesky numeral—or, for that matter, the actual order in which the cars arrived. Musk isn’t the sort of guy who’s lets a minor linguistic or chronological irritation get in the way of a grand plan. The aberrant digit only crept in because Ford owned the rights to Model E and wasn’t interested in selling. Still, 3 works, right… ?
It’s conceivable that all the great automotive names have been taken. Let’s hope not, but inspiration is increasingly difficult to come by. I was in the room—the Sky Lounge of San Francisco’s Transamerica Pyramid, in fact—when Ferrari executive chairman John Elkann revealed that the company’s first electric car would be called Luce. In Italian, it means “light,” as in “seeing the light,” rather than the opposite of heavy. Quite clever, really, although English speakers invariably pronounce it “Lucy” when, in fact, it’s “LU-chay.” Judging by the online reaction to the car’s launch, pronunciation issues are the least of its challenges. Turns out Ferrari’s ardent fan base is curiously conservative. Still, I admire the bravery.
Besides, everything sounds better in Italian, which is why Maserati could get away with calling its large sedan Quattroporte, a tangle of vowels and consonants that rolls evocatively around the mouth, but simply means “four-door.” The company also has Ghibli, Khamsin, and Mistral in its back catalog, all named after exotic desert winds. Ford tried it with the Zephyr in the mid-20th century but with less success.
My personal favorite is the Lamborghini Countach, a pairing of manufacturer and model name that has unparalleled phonetic potency. Marcello Gandini, one of the greatest car designers of them all, once explained its origins to me: It was an expression used by one of his team while the concept version of the car was in build. “He was a huge man, very strong, with enormous hands,” Gandini explained. “He spoke almost entirely in the Piedmontese dialect, and he used the term often. It actually means ‘contagion,’ but he used it in the sense of admiration or amazement. I chose the name, and we cut out the script that appeared on the show car and stuck it on.”
Contagion might be a polite euphemism in this context, but we get his drift. Alfa Romeo’s early ’50s Disco Volante is a great example of nominative determinism: It translates to “flying saucer.” Give it up, too, for the ’70s Lancia Stratos, which basically looks exactly as it sounds.
America’s contribution here can’t be overstated, either, especially if you lived on the other side of the Atlantic. In ’50s and ’60s Britain, we made do with the Austin Cambridge and MG Midget; Americans grew up dreaming of the Cadillac Eldorado, Corvette Stingray, and Dodge Charger. Our small island has arguably contributed more in terms of popular music than any other nation, but British driving songs are unavoidably parochial. Americans were born to run; the British, born to queue.
These days, the process by which a marque chooses a name for a new model is tortuous. It needs to make sense in the market it’s aimed at, while fitting in with the rest of the manufacturer’s lineup. Car companies prefer consistency. Names don’t actually need to have meaning, but when an automaker sells its products in more than 170 counries—as is the case with, say, Land Rover—then the challenge is finding something that works in all of them. And one that’s still legally available.
That’s how you end up with fabricated nonsense like Land Rover’s Evoque, Nissan’s Qashqai, or random numbers. Fine if it’s a BMW 3 Series, less so if it’s the Honda e:Ny1 or the Toyota bZ4X. These are electric cars, which apparently justifies a vaguely techy-sounding alphanumeric assemblage. (Optimists thought perhaps e:Ny1 translated to “anyone,” which would have been annoying but cute. Honda confirmed that it doesn’t mean anything, which is just annoying.)
Then there’s the new electric Jaguar, a machine that inflamed the Internet and became the subject of global controversy when its conceptual precursor was revealed in late 2024. That was the majestically radical Type 00. And the real thing? Well, that’ll be called the Type 01, the “0” representing electric propulsion and zero emissions at the tailpipe, while the “1” signifies the start of a new era for the brand. Honestly, it makes me crave the Honda Legend. Or the Hyundai Stellar. Maybe even the Oldsmobile Intrigue. They were all ineptly named, but at least they were names. As was the Volkswagen Thing. (Yes, it was real.)
Choosing the most abject—or unfortunate—car names will never not be funny. Mitsubishi’s long-serving off-roader is called Shogun in the U.K. but better known around the world as Pajero. Except in Spanish-speaking markets, where it translates… poorly. (Look it up.) Toyota’s MR2 sports car was called simply MR in French-speaking territories—apart from Canada, bizarrely—for reasons obvious to anyone with even a basic grasp of Gallic profanity. Audi, which disastrously reconfigured its entire model-naming strategy a while ago before changing it all back, must have missed that memo. It has pushed on with the “e-tron” nomenclature for its electric models even in France, where the word means “excrement.” (How many words do the French have for this stuff?)
Meanwhile, Japan has long excelled at the “lost-in-translation” school of automotive naming. Perhaps you know these already, but if you don’t, we give you the Mazda Bongo Friendee, Daihatsu Naked, Nissan Cedric, and Isuzu Mysterious Utility Wizard.
Something for Elon to ponder before he hollows out his next social platform.
