What's In A Name?

Naming an automobile is no easy task, as the number of cars with poorly thought out monikers has dotted the marketing landscape for over a century. My first awareness of what could be a laughably inappropriate choice was a car I owned, as did hundreds of thousands of others, a Chevrolet Nova. As it turned out, the Chevy was renamed when it went on sale in South America as the Spanish translation of Nova meant "no go". More recently, it has since come to the attention of Buick that their model, the LaCrosse, is popular teen slang for masturbation in French-Canadian dialect.

Sometimes, a name is a poor choice just because circumstances change. One of Studebaker's models in the 30s was the Dictator, probably not the best choosing with the advent of Germany's Hitler. Did Studebaker drive a Dictator to war? Or sometimes the name was a lousy selection in terms of what it couldn't accomplish. The Oldsmobile Achieva - sounds like a New Englander pronouncing "achiever" - was an embarrassingly slow seller that led to the demise of Oldsmobile. I guess you could call it an "underachieva". Some names are perfect descriptions while still perfectly horrible. The Daihatsu Charade was an absurd pretense of a car.

Of course, if a name didn't work for one manufacturer, who's to say it couldn't work for another. The American consumer, that's who! The Edsel model designation for two of their series was Pacer and Citation. That anyone would even consider reusing names from one of the best known automobile failures from Ford Motor Company must have been crazy, but Chevy tagged their first front-wheel drive model the Citation and American Motors dubbed their tub the Pacer. The Citation (originally to be named the "Condor") was so horribly assembled that they were falling apart on the dealership lots and died their natural death five years later. The AMC Pacer, also dead five years after introduction, is now the iconic symbol for 70s poor taste. Was the outcome of naming new cars after failed cars a foretelling? Paradoxically, the Edsel was introduced 0n September 4, 1957 and canceled for further production in January 1961.. five years.

Occasionally names just didn't seem to agree with the car they were to represent. How about the Lincoln Versailles? A cheap Ford tarted up to a "luxury" car was more than an insult to the French, it tarnished the reputation of Lincoln for decades. Ditto Cadillac, which took the lowly Chevy Cavalier and gussied it up as the Cimmaron. Great name for a breakfast pastry from Pillsbury but a complete disaster for Cadillac's standing as a premium luxury automobile, the Cimarron's failure was part of a series of events throughout the 80s and 90s that left the brand a shadow of its former self and from which it has only recently begun to emerge. Conversely, the Ford sub-compact Aspire was more appropriately tagged, in that you had ambitions toward achieving something like a real car with your next purchase. And nothing pretentious about the Chevrolet Celebrity. Why I can see Paris Hilton riding around in that piece of mediocrity right now, can't you?

I have laid off Asian car names because they always translate into weirdly feminine fractional sentences that bother me, such as "my pretty little pink pet" or "Blossom time for driving". Although Honda's "Big Dump" conjures masculine symbolism that... Let's stop there.

Lastly, auto manufacturers could avoid the turmoil and headaches of naming by not naming it at all. A Car Without A Name was an automobile built in 1909 by a company that identified itself in advertisements only as Department C, 19 North May Street, Chicago. The idea behind the name, or lack thereof, was that it would allow its buyers of the generic vehicle to name the vehicle as they wished, (or as ego permitted) without the expense or bother of setting up their own automobile concern. Such practices in the early days of the automobile market were not uncommon, however most companies that were involved with such endeavors at least had publicly known names. A Car Without A Name was equipped with a 30hp engine, three-speed transmission and came in three body styles, roadster, coupe and touring car, and continued in production through 1914 until its assets were liquidated at auction.

I wonder what name they put on the tombstone?

So...How's your day going? #2

An Oscar Meyer Wienermobile crashed into the home and outdoor deck of Nick Krupp in Racine, Wis. on Friday morning, July 17, 2009. According to a witness, the vehicle was parked in the driveway. The driver lurched the vehicle forward instead of backing out of the driveway, hitting Krupp's deck and cracking the foundation of his house.

It'll take a wing and a prayer

When you sign a pack with the devil, hell is right around the corner. And so it is with the "new" GM. I mentioned in earlier posts that government types would find it irresistible not to meddle with a reborn General Motors. After all, the $50 billion they threw at the company, the secured creditors they pushed under the bus, plus shepherding the company through a speedy process that abrogated all previous bankruptcy law, GM was going to pay the piper one way or another. Now we are seeing how.

Ugly payback actually began when President Obama and his government minions called for the resignation of CEO Rick Wagoner. GM's board happily obliged, with Wagoner's head promptly delivered on a silver hubcap. In desperate need of immediate cash, what else could the board do? But this sent the first message to Washington that they did, indeed, have the power to remake GM in their own, dare I say, distorted bureaucratic vision.

Next to follow, with some good old fashioned arm-twisting Obama is now famous for, was GM's reversal of building a new sub-compact car in China. "No way," said the president and his hatchet men at the UAW, "the car must be built in the USA!" And so GM again capitulates and presto, GM will assemble the car in the soon to be remodeled Michigan Orion plant. Forcing the company to build a green car stateside is one thing. Expecting a profit is pure fantasy. But who would presume two entities, Washington and the UAW, that have never garnered a profit on anything they have ever touched, to understand the business decisions necessary to actually make money. How do we know GM won't make any greenbacks on the new compact? Because every other manufacturer, domestic and imported, has studied countless business plans, each with the same conclusion: you cannot make any profit on a sub-compact built in the USA. That the Asian car companies see this says everything about GM's future earnings. And Fritz Henderson, GM's current CEO, says he wants to repay the 50 billion borrowed back to the American taxpayer? How's that going to work when you make no money building cars? Isn't that what got GM in its fix before. Oh, never mind.

Of course, the curse isn't complete until the US Congress gets its grubby little hands in the mix, which they did last week. The U.S. House approved a bill in a 219-208 vote to reverse the closing of more than 2,500 GM dealers. General Motors currently has over twice the number of dealerships they need to do business in North America and had taken rapid steps to address that. But that's a little too fast for government. Nor does it make "sense" to a deliberative body that annually spends more than they take in. Tell me what our deficit is this year... over a trillion?

It should be patently obvious to even a first-year business student that trouble in profit land is brewing for the new GM. But this go round is different from the past. This time GM has a valid excuse: "The Devil made me do it!"

Drive in the damn street!

Hey, what was it with 50s advertising that cars were shown in the oddest of places either being driven or parked? I suppose the Cadillac in the lobby makes for easy coming and going to hoity-toity events.



And to the couple in the Mercury, watch those steps!



"Hey, bitch in the T-bird, get off my grass!"



"Man, you're cracking the pool apron!"



"I said, you're cracking the damn pool apron!"

Roadside Grub Horrors #1

A friend sent this to me. Don't know who authored it, but F U N N Y!

Krispy Kreme Cheeseburger, a.k.a. Luther Burger

This is it. The razor’s edge of what can reasonably be thought of as food: A bacon cheeseburger with 2 glazed doughnuts in place of a bun. Mankind should be remembered for its greatest achievements -- space flight, the cure for polio, the pyramids -- but shades of this monstrosity will outlive the roaches.

Tastes like: The gastronomic equivalent of finding out you were adopted.

My Suggested GM Ad

Click on ad for a larger version.

Remind me again how this is supposed to work.

GM, now 60% owned by Washington, will take it's marching orders from Congress, the President... hell, maybe even your local postman. You think I'm joking?

Several House members have already started to complain about GM's dealership closings. On behalf of their constituents, local car dealers in this case, some congressmen are mixing politics with business and already hampering the new GM's ability to make money.

That portends well for the company's future profitability, as the government's management of Amtrack, social security... hell, even the post office, will attest.

Pinch me please, I want out of this nightmare.

Michael Jackson's Auto Collection

Well, he might have had a love for music and the talent to match, but Michael Jackson's collection of cars was both tired and somewhat creepy. Two Rolls, both characterized by an elaborately ornamental baroque style of interior decoration and a very late model Lincoln made up his fleet of limousines.

A Ford van looking very 80s and a rather decrepit GMC rounded out the family's transportation needs.

The bus was used for what? He hadn't toured in years. Perhaps it carried him and his entourage of children and bodyguards on his infamous shopping sprees. Or the courtroom.

The mega-star was oblivious to great cars. This trashy assortment of vehicles will probably bring a handsome sum at auction. But only because of who owned them, not because they were great in any stretch of the word.

So...How's your day going?