Oh yeah… I would even name my tooth brush… definetly a car should have it’s personal name attached to it,
when stack at busy junctions and traffic jams, if i could be talking to my car it better have a name…
Some cars deserve a name. I have a friend who had a 1980’s era Toyota named Ted (it was a stick), and they later upgraded to a Cellica… named Tom of course.
Only if your car reveals it’s name to you =] My 1978 Datsun pickup acquired the name Murphy after we’d been traveling together for some years. Someone asked if it had a name, and Murphy just sprang to mind… When I received an unsolicited little beaded Indian from an orphanage, I put it on a leather lace and hung it from the rear view mirror – which then became known as the Spirit of Murphy. I was so attached to that truck that when I finally had to put it out to pasture, I just took the Spirit of Murphy from the truck and put it on the mirror of my next vehicle. Well, heck – it worked for me! That little beaded Indian is now in little pieces (from the sun beating down on it all these years) – but resides in the ashtray of every vehicle I’ve owned since then. Because I drive so much, I almost live in my vehicles; and I always end up driving them until they can’t go another inch, so I get pretty attached! They’ve all ended up with their own uniquename… Sunbird Murphy, Aerostar Murphy, Montana Murphy; and now Safari Murphy… Well loved and used – why shouldn’t they have a name?
When the time is right… We’ve named our last three cars, all at different times and all at different points of ownership. They just told us there names…
It makes inside conversations a lot quicker, “Are you driving Alice or Mitch tomorrow?” or “Now where did we park Frank?”
It also makes great storytime, for instance, when camping, for everyone to tell the stories of their car-naming - it’s usually somewhere after s’mores are made and before the flasks are kicked! Always amusing!
Because life is short - have a little crazy fun once in awhile!
Well, sure. Your car cost a lot of money, it usually is with you for an extended time, you go places together - of course it needs a name. My current vehicle, a 1993 blue Plymouth Voyager, is The Great Blue Whale. My former car, a 1973 orange Volvo station wagon, was the Tangerine Dream Machine when I lived in Calfornia, but evolved (devolved?) (deVolvoed?) into the Orange Blossom Special when I moved to Idaho. Both were appropriate for the vehicle, time and place. And what else would you call a 1959 3/4 ton 4-wheel drive Ford truck but Jake? You NEVER name something that’s going to end up on the dinner table, however . . . .
Oh, now I just want to share the stories! All Hollywood inspired, actually…
Alice is a 99 VW Beetle, black, a little beat up (that happens to plastic cars) - name inspired by the only musical I can tolerate: Alice in Wonderland, for like Alice, my ride is kinda cute, can’t run too fast and sometimes finds herself in trouble (wet roads, the law, etc.) We still commute together.
Frank, aka Frank the Tank was a 99 Isuzu Vehicross, my husband’s pride and joy, that well, drove like a tank. Picture Will Farrell as Frank in “Old School” at Mitchapalooza doing funnels, then streaking through town. Well, the four-wheeled Frank guzzled gas instead of beer and accelerated impressively, often attracting attention. Just very heavy and hard to stop. Frank was unceremoniously separated from my husband while working in Montreal, swiped from a hotel parking lot, never to be seen again (and he had 116K+ miles!).
The upside of Frank’s disappearance was an insurance check that brought Mitch into our lives. 2006 Saab 92-X Aero. Subaru guts in Saab trimmings - sweet ride with some crazy turbo for a ‘wagon.’ “Mitch,” tagline “Unleash the Fury” after Tom Green’s snake-feeding episodes in “Road Trip.”
Oh yeah, we named our canoe “The Mad Hatter,” as it was made by Mad River Canoe Company, has an image of a bunny smoking a pipe on it, and that of course reminded me of the aforementioned Alice in Wonderland characters, the March Hare and the Mad Hatter. Voila! Mitch and Alice are both equipped to carry The Mad Hatter!
I don’t know if you SHOULD, but we always do. For us it is kind of a shorthand–rather than saying HIS Corolla, HER Corolla, the old red truck, etc., it is so much easier to refer to Buddy, Jewel, Ruby, and so on. It was especially easier to say “Jewel” for the one Corolla when my college-age son and I were having dispute over who really owned the '99 Corolla.
I’m of the “Love Bug” generation, heavily influenced by the idea that cars do have their own personalities (case in point was Ehtyl, the '84 Buick Century that my sons hated to drive–she didn’t like them).
No new car should be named. Instead a car must begin to exhibit it’s own, uh…unique, personality prior to receiving a suitable moniker. This should not include any expressions that escape the drivers mouth in a fit of rage(this is a family show). I had a '72 Vega that disappeared in my driveway many years ago affectionately christened “Rusty”
I do think it’s ok to name a car. When I sold my 1990 Isuzu Trooper, also known as the Beast, I inhereted the wife’s 1995 Geo Prizm. it was christened the ‘Man Sedan’ and from then on, everyone we know, from family to friends to co-workers know it by name. The wife got a 2007 Pontiac Vibe which is known as ‘The Viberino’.
To win a BIMA Check this out, If I was to win this I would call it luckyBEE
No. But!
For a time we had twin 1993 Taurus wagons. Our teenage sons called them the Taurari (plural for Taurus, rhymes with Ferrari). In 1975 my wife and I bought a 1971 Toyota Corolla - boy were they small back then. My late mother, never one to name a car laughed out loud when she saw the make, pronouncing it, “Toy Auto”. The name stuck.
I did name my car, just as I named my boat. The car is Up Yours and the boat is Up Yours II.
Paul
Kingston, Illinois
Yes, if it has a soul. Most cars do not but some do. My 73 Beetle (Dudly DeBugly) had a soul but that was College in the 70s. My other was (Vinney the V8) a 67 Impala SS Convertable. All my other cars were/are soulless transportation.
If the car has a distinct personality then YES they should have a name!
My husband, Joseph, and I are painfully aware of your hatred for Italian cars. He is a mechanical engineer and just adores Alfa Romeos. He has two ‘last of the mohican’ rear wheel drive Milanos. The first Alfa is named Fifi in honor of his father’s Fiat still residing in east Beirut. The second is named Laz (short for Lazarus) because he ‘brought the car back to life’. He was heart broken that the previous owner had so terribly abused such a lovely car. He lovingly brought Laz back to life so much that previous owner ran into Joseph some months after purchasing the car and he didn’t even recognize the car. He asked what my husband had done to it to which he replied,“Elbow grease”.
So you see some cars truly deserve names.
Katie, Joseph, Fifi and Laz from Norman, Oklahoma
I have a 99 Jeep wrangler.Me and her have all kinds of fun offroad. In the mud and even a few times we did some very hard stuff. And her name is Big Green and muddy.
99 wrangler 31 inch good year mtr tires warn M8000 winch 2.5 lift skyjacker shocks a lot of lights (winch,hood,bumper, wind shield) Even more toys to come
Some people have an addiction to drink…
Some people have an addiction to drugs…
I just have an addiction to Jeeps and their accessories…
Here are a few pictures of my rig I will update soon as I get new batteries for my cam
It varies, and I don’t know what determines whether or not a vehicle gets a name. I had 3 cars, all unnamed, until I got Crusader Rabbit (a VW). The Chevy, 4 Saabs, the 1st Alfa, the Subaru - all unnamed. The 2nd Afa was “the Alfa”. The Subaru was “the Soob”. Not very imaginative. The 1st Alfa & the Mercury Sable were mostly sworn at. “the Alfa” was wonderful. The current car is TWC - Tom the Wonder Car. It’s a Camry with 170,000 miles and it’s a wonder that it starts each morning. Actually, today is a very sad day, because Tom lunched his transmission and died today. Maybe I’ll buy a new car tomorrow and call it Gloria. Then I can say “Sick transit, Gloria Monday”.
My family has always had names for our cars, and I have continued the tradition. In fact, how could you not name your car? It’s (He/She) part of the family! Here are a few names given to our cars over the years: Leapin’ Lena, Jimmy, Blue Jet, Beep, “Horrible” Herman ('59 Chevy- my first car), Charlie Brown, Dusty, Big Blue, Baby Blue, and Rosie.
We have 4 cars here, a toyota landcruiser traytop 1989 called the cruiser, a landcruiser short wheel base troopy 1977 called Shorty, a Peugeot 505 1984 called the Pug and finally a little red Daihatsu called Annies car. Not sure if they are names as such. A friend had to named cars a Dodge, ute called red and a yellow Holden Kingswood called the yellow peril. Both because they were red and a peril. But really why not name them, provided it reflects the beast and not the owner.
Prompted by yawl’s current CarTalk car-naming campaign / crusade [ http://community.cartalk.com/posts/list/318211.page ], my '96 Subaru / urabuS Impreza VIN JF1GF4858TG811616 (and once NC license-plated/tagged FRISBEER) is hereby christened: Helen.
As such given-name honors the impressive spirit of my three children’s late maternal grandma, Helen Gawlinski Zabuski, of the motor-city Detroit / Motown, MI – and “impreza” is also Polish (* as follows) – HER full vehicular name now beith “Helen Impreza Zubaruski”.
- Introduced in 1993, the Subaru “Impreza” name (a coined-word?) derives from meaning in Italian a “feat” or “achievement”, and in Polish a “party”, “event”, or “show”. [ my para-phrasing from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subaru_Impreza ]
Ciao-ski, Joseph Tomczyk, Blk Mtn, NC
828/230-4442