Talking Point: Mondeo, Impreza, Vel Satis, Bora . . . names of cars are almost as puzzling as the off-side rule in soccer. So where do they come from? Brian Byrne looks over the thoughts of those in charge of the name game.
So what's in a name for a car? An awful lot of money these days, as carmakers spend literally millions with specialist name-makers (yes, they DO exist) in coming up with new nameplates.
And many times, the names don't actually mean anything. They just have to sound like they do.
Ford's Mondeo sounds vaguely sounds like it comes from the Latin for "world". It was chosen to reflect the company's original strategy that it should be a "world car". However it's actually a completely invented name, though there might well be etymologists who can tell me otherwise.
Ford has had its share of inappropriate model names: when the US company marketed its Comet in Mexico as "Caliente", meaning "hot", it didn't realise that "caliente" was also Mexican slang for a prostitute. Ford had a similar problem with their Fiera, a name which among Latino-Americans means "ugly old woman".
Even Rolls Royce grappled with a nomenclature problem. The British luxury car company likes names such as Silver Cloud, Silver Shadow and Silver Wraith. But after spending a lot of time and money developing the name for a new model, Silver Mist, somebody noticed that in Germany "mist" means excrement. Sensibly, they dropped the idea.
Then there's the wish to establish something luxurious without tradition. In the US in the past decade, Honda did it with the Acura brand, Toyota did it with Lexus, but Mazda failed with Xedos, a name that's due to disappear.
In the old days, it was the reputation of the actual car builders which established nameplates in various niche areas. Messrs Rolls and Royce were essentially an engineer and a salesman who produced superbly engineered underpinnings on which customers would have eminent coachbuilders put their own bodies. Yet, today it's mainly the Rolls-Royce names which are remembered.
It was racing reputation which brought such carmakers as Jaguar, Alfa Romeo, Lotus and Maserati to their place in motoring history. The marketing importance of such a link is today evident in the effort being put into Formula 1 by major brands such as BMW, Mercedes, Honda, Renault and Toyota. And, of course, Jaguar, which needs a competitive fillip after becoming merely a luxury brand.
But the individual model names of cars come from a variety of sources. The SEAT division of the Volkswagen Group, for instance, typically names its cars after cities in Spain - Toledo, Ibiza, Leon. Chrysler-Jeep use names such as Cruiser and Voyager to establish their cars as the ones in which to take that long and perhaps adventurous road trips while the same company's Cherokee icon is redolent of the wilderness romanticism that underpins the psyche of even modern Americans.
Land Rover's Freelander, Discovery and Range Rover follow the same routes of creating wide open spaces perception, even if the vast majority of buyers never take their vehicles off the tarmac.
Volkswagen has traditionally liked wind and weather themes - the Golf, for instance, had nothing to do with small balls, but rather a "gulf wind", while other winds have included Scirocco, Passat and Bora.
Makers such as Mercedes-Benz don't dilute their core brand name with model names. Instead they very cleverly use label designations such as "C Class" and "E Class" and indications of engine size such as "E320". BMW does similar with its 3, 5 and 7 series configuration. Be aware, though, that the second part of the BMW number doesn't always indicate the actual size of the engine - a 316, for instance, actually has a 1.8-litre engine. Otherwise the trailing digits do give a reasonable approximation of size.
Nissan, like many Japanese manufacturers, used to have children's storybook car names such as the Bluebird, which did very well in Ireland despite its name. In recent years, however, Japanese makers are using much "stronger" nomenclature, such as Primera, Almera, Micra and Maxima.
Honda's long-time Civic and Accord names aren't so tough either, but the recent Jazz does have very cheerful overtones and reflects well the character of the car - in Asia the Jazz is called the Fit and it has become one of the best selling cars in that part of the world.
Circumstances can change the value of a car name. When Subaru introduced its rather bland Impreza, even the "impressive-sounding" name wasn't much help to sales. But once it began making a reputation in rallying (albeit as a wildly different actual car), the name became sexy in the extreme to the boy-racer breed, and the add-ons to the bodywork today reflect that market. As does the "World Rally Car" WRX tag.
But I doubt that if it was called something like Sunny, as was an early Datsun (Nissan) car, it would become a best seller even IF it was a World Rally Car championship leader.