New york times rabbit exits, as do most animal names.4 3_09

April 3, 2009, 5:00 pm

Rabbit Exits, as Do Most Animal NamesBy Phil Patton

The 1975 Volkswagen Rabbit.

Volkswagen has announced that it will no longer sell its bread-and-butter car in the United States as theRabbit and will return to the Golf nameplate. The change is a reminder of how few animal names remainon cars. Yes, Impala is still going strong; it has been a Chevrolet model since 1958. But cars now oftenseem to carry names and numbers generated by computers. Once, there were more powerful, totemicanimal names that lent cars personality.

The auto-animal may have begun with radiator ornaments, with bulldogs and flying swans and eagles.Animal names for cars are nearly as old as the horseless carriage itself, but today there are surprisinglyfew.

One theory why comes from Timothy Malefyt, an anthropologist who explores the meanings of brandsand names as vice president and director of cultural discoveries for the advertising agency BBDO NewYork. He suggests that animal names have a special function in branding.

“Anthropologists claim that distinguishing things can come from estrangement, or ‘making strange’ thefamiliar,” says Mr. Malefyt. “A powerful way to accomplish this is by animating inanimate objects. Thiswas the case for cars that evoked mythical places, like “Eldorado” or mythical animals like “Mustang.”

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The 1968 Ford Mustang.

Today, he says, luxury brands tend to use numbers in their naming, to focus attention on the brand itselfrather than the model. Mass brands tend toward personalized names like animals.

“What’s interesting with the numbers game now and most luxury cars follow this, is that we witness thegreater working of the parent Brand,” he says. Cadillac, for example, shifted from names like El Doradoand Seville to letter designations like CTS and STS in 2001.

“Luxury cars tend to letter or number themselves, while most mass-market cars do not,” says Mr. Malefyt,referring to cars like the Taurus, a nameplate that Ford returned to after experimenting with a numberdesignation. “Does this suggest some form of elitism of the alphanumeric form of distinction over theanimated distinction?”

Naming of vehicles is far less scientific than customers might think. The Taurus, introduced in 1985, tookits name from the astrological sign of a Ford executive’s wife. And many common animal names cannotbe used because they come with trademark restrictions or other legal baggage.

The design historian Russell Flinchum traces animal names back to the Stutz Bearcat of the 1920s.“Although I’m not too sure what a bearcat actually is,” he notes. “Before World War II, Jaguar was knownas Swallow Sidecar, from the its original motorcycle business.” The poet Marianne Moore suggestedUtopian Turtletop to Ford as an alternative to Edsel.

It is easy to forget the origins of car names and how often silly they can be, especially animal names. Thegriffin on Saab’s seal is taken from mythology, the stags on Porsche’s crest come from Germanaristocratic heraldry, while the muscle car Road Runner comes from the Warner Brothers cartoon. In the1993 film “Coneheads,” Dan Ackroyd has to explain the name of his car to the ruler of the planetRemulac: “Ford Lincoln Mercury Sable,” he intones, “a personal conveyance named after its inventor, anassassinated ruler, a character from Greco-Roman myth and a small furry mammal.”

Here are five favorites:

Ford Mustang. Made since 1964, the Mustang was named not directly for the wild horse but for theWorld War II fighter, the P-51 Mustang. Powered by a G.M. engine, that fighter was known, oddlyenough, as “the Cadillac of the skies.” Other Ford horse nameplates were not as successful: Maverick and


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Pinto.

Chevrolet Impala. The venerable Chevy moniker presents one of the most graceful logos of any car. Inan earlier life, it was the more aggressive Impala SS, but today, it more often reminds us that, as on theNature Channel, the impala is more preyed upon than predator.

Mercury Cougar. With Cougar and Lynx in the 1960s, Mercury attempted to give its brand a felinetheme to match Ford’s equine one. The last Cougar (1999-2002) was a classy if slow-selling coupe inFord’s “new edge” design language. The smaller and very cool Puma, subject of ads featuring the lateSteve McQueen, was never sold in the United States.

De Tomaso Mangusta. The rare exotic (about 400 were made from 1967 to 1971) has had a recentrevival, along with other 1970s supercars. Mangusta comes from the Latin for mongoose, the snake killer.Supposedly, Ford had diverted engines set for De Tomaso to Shelby Cobras and the name was chosen inrevenge.

Chevrolet Corvette Stingray. It is hard to leave this one out, because its sheer beauty really did suggestits marine model and because oceanic names are so few. The 1963-only “splitback” is one of the prizecollectibles ever. The Stingray was succeeded by a new body shape based on the Manta concept, butwithout that oceanic name. It was left for Hyundai’s Tiburon to return to the ocean with a shark name inthe 1990s.

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New york times rabbit exits, as do most animal names.4 3_09

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