Car Stuff: It's all in the name...

 It's all in the name...

I live in Sydney and work in the city, the two days where I drive or ride my motorbike I’m always stuck in a traffic jam on the way home because Australia’s infrastructure experts forgot that as the country grows the population grows which in turn means you will have more cars on the road. They didn't bother with building more roads, nah stuff that.

My rant here isn't about infrastructure and city planning shortcomings, or about the absurdly poor quality of roads or even road tolls that we are still paying...No, its about something much much more important. Appalling Car Names!...its a damn plague! seriously whats been happening these days? I find myself constantly stuck behind some absurdly named car called the “Majentis”, i then briskly move over into the left lane to make some progress forward and boom I’m cut in by someone whose cars is entirely made up of acronyms, something along the lines of “STI TUBRO TRD VII” is it just me or is there a little clash of company collaboration there?

What happened to the days when companies would put so much thought into naming a car just to make it sell better. To me the car is an extension of your own personality, my personality doesn't want to be associated to to names like “Probe” or “Swinger” or something called the “Koup”, for the girls there was a car called the “Princess” and trust me once you see it you will not want to be it’s princess.

Something has gone wrong over time, to tell you the truth its always been like this, throughout history we have had major hiccups like these but now a days its just so much more common! I miss the days when you had cars with names like “Raptor” or “Charger” the more common one you will recognise as “Mustang”.

What has happened is that over time cars have become JUST a means of transport, people now don't care what the car sounds like, the don't really care what kinda shape it is or how it handles, the more prominent factors now a days is the fuel mileage and something called the “eco-factor” the want a car which is cheap to insure, something which require very little maintenance, something they can forget, they want something which is mainstream something so reliable its boring...that's the main flaw here, car companies recognise this as such a large market so they pump out boring models which all look the same and are designed to meet all of the above needs of the frugal customer.

This presents a little problem for people like me, if we continue to make such cars, they turn into machines which have no soul, it sounds weird that a car would have soul, but it does, the soul comes from the design, the construction process and all the love, passion and handwork that went into pulling off an extra-ordinary car which dares to be different from the rest....this, is a car which deserves a name with vigor.

There is a solution to this, lets stop making boring cars, lets make something a little different. Being different doesn't have to mean that its expensive, can you imagine how cool the small car segment would be if the companies stepped out of their comfort zones and went out and built something totally insane, the competition would be fierce and the consumers would actually be interested in cars again, we will have models come out and create media frenzies, it will be like the crazy 70’s all over again, just minus all the drugs, combi vans and crazy dyed t-shirts.

Actually I'm very pleased to see this is actually happening today, companies, like Kia are coming out with the new mid-sized car called the “Optima” and my gosh that thing is a surprise, it easily trounces anything else in its class in terms of design and from the build finish I have witnessed it up there with the big money rollers. In the small car/coupe segment Hyundai released the “Velostar” its great! not only does it have a name that would be comfortable in star wars the car even looks like something to come out of that movie, both these cars jolted the car market with their radical designs and very competitive build quality, this is what I’m talking about.

Bring back the competition, and once you have a car which is worthy of a great name, gather a bunch of men and throw in a couple women to keep the feminists happy, lock the bunch in a room full of crazy rock music, beer and more testosterone and then wait....you just might get a name to rival the best name given to a car ever....Interceptor.