Name Game: The History of Car Model Names

A classic car connaisseur tells the general history of various model names used by carmakers. How do these car brands come up with them? We also talk about general trends as well as mistakes, leading to rather long, strange, weird and inappropriate car names.

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[EdsAutoReviews]

What is the last time you bought a:

BMW Individual M760Li xDrive Model V12 Excellence THE NEXT 100 YEARS ?

[horizonoftheeast]

For the Shuanghuan S-CEO one, it's registered in the national products catalog as a "bus" (because passenger car production permits are harder to get at that time). Buses are required to show it's registered product catalog ID on the vehicle😂 that's why you see that long string of letter-numerics

[nicolauslr]

Still hoping for a video about people 's cars around the world. Like comparison of VW Beetle, FIAT 500, Citroen 2CV etc..

[kailahmann]

Citroën did this wording game a lot, resulting in totally random looking names like "DS", "ID", "Ami 6" or "LN", which only made sense if you spell them like a French word. A Language that eats half it's letters before speaking helps with this even more.
And then in the early 1990s Toyota brought the "MR2" to France and wondered… Nop, it's not "MR Two" for them, it's "MR deu" or "merde" :)

[stevecritchley]

A little trivia for the Aussies: In the late 60s, Holden had designed a coupe version of their regular 4-door family saloon. The marketing department were brainstorming names, but hadn't come up with anything they liked. One of the other employees took a vacation at this time, and while touring the countryside he saw a sign that read "Monaro Shire Council" and thought "Hmm, sounds promising". When he returned to work and found they still hadn't chosen a name, he said "How about Monaro?" - and a legend was born.

[isakjohansson]

The Honda Fit/Jazz was launched with the name F*tta in Sweden, Fi*ta means p*ssy in swedish and the promotional material described it as a small on the outside but a pleasure on the inside, and a daily joy to drive. They changed the name quite fast. 😬

[monsieurbrochant]

3:30 As a French, the worst example of this is the Audi Etron, which literally means "turd" in French XD

[mintyprojects]

Despite being a great-looking car, I remember the Ford Probe had problems in the UK. The name was meant to evoke thoughts of the future, shooting into space and all that. Unfortunately, here it just made people think of prostate exams.

[darwinskeeper]

Curiously the VW Golf was originally marketed in the US as the Rabbit. This was a follow on the well loved VW Beetle and hinted at the car being fast, which it was compared to other Malaise era American cars.

[kylegellner]

Cadillac's alphabit soup does make some sense. For example, 'DTS' was the Deville Touring Sedan, and 'ETC' took the place of the Eldorado Touring Coupe. Then again, having a name of 'ETC' probably did little to help sell those coupes, I'm sure! LOL

[robertsmith-zzot]

Through the years Toyota named their cars "crown".
Carolla, Cressida, Corona, Celica & Tiara all mean crown in different languages. Camry is a play on the japanese word Kamamuri which also means crown.

[danhogan]

A bit off topic but in the sixties and seventies Hodaka made dirt motorcycles. One model was the Wombat, the racing version was the Combat Wombat. Very catchy as I remember it fifty years later.

[billmcdonald]

The cheap Chinese drone market has taken it to another level. Two of my favourites:

The King Kong [now LDARC - much better] ET100
The Happymodel Snapper 7

Gotta love it.

[robertmills]

Okay, I have decided, you are required to continue making videos forever. You are not allowed to stop 😊

[scotttaylor]

The new Impact! You'll always be the first to the accident scene.

[brokenursa]

I get a chuckle out of cars with people names. Sometimes I can take them seriously, like the Nissan Silvia or Volkswagen Karmann, but others are just hilarious and baffling to me, like the Nissan Cedric or my personal favorite, the Opel Karl.

[andreasbenning]

I remember when the Honda Jazz first launched, it was supposed to be named Fitta. An imaginary nonsense name? Well.... here in Sweden that means... eh.... lady garden.
And while we're at it, about Ford Tudor. In the very southern part of Sweden tudor is a word eh.... lady buns.
Thanks for uploading!! You're always so entertaining and educational! :)

[stanojevicnatasa]

Best story about naming a car was with Edsel, when Ford executives hired poet Marianne Moore to name a car, she proposed stupid stuff like Utopian Turtletop, Resilient Bullet, Varcity Stroke, Mongoose Civique... They sent her some money, a bouquet of roses, a "thanks but no thanks" letter and she continued stalking Ford people with some 400 letters with more than 800 equally stupid ideas.

[arnbo]

I like the editing in this video @9:35. It goes from pre-war black and white...fade to black (WW2) and then emerges in colour for the awakening of the new car era.

[darwinskeeper]

I like the name Funky Cat, it gives the impression of the car being cute and fun. It also matches the styling. This might not work well for a high end car, but it works well for an entry level EV.