Classic British Motors 1970s Classic Cars - Where do the Car Manufacturers get car names?

Consul: the Consul had delusions of grandeur, which made it the car to aspire to in the early 60s. Consul evokes the Empire On Which The Sun Never Set as much as the Roman one. In the sixties, the British Consul in a foreign land was the gentleman's Grand Tour rep. Roman consuls came in twos.

Senator: Member of Senate. Most members of the upper class would be eligible to attend the senate, as entry was automatic for all ex-officials.

Prefect: Ford Prefect - Prefects (Praefecti) were senior officials in the Roman Empire - but like a Ford car, they were regarded as socially inferior, as recruited mainly from the equestrian class. A Praefectus was in charge of the corn-supply (Annonae), the Emperor's Bodyguard (Praetorio) and the fire brigade (Vigilum).

Audi: 2nd person singular present imperative active of audio, I hear, listen. The car company traces its origins back to 1899 and August Horch. In 1910, Horch was forced out of the company he had founded. He founded a new company and continued using the Horch brand. His former partners sued him for trademark infringement and the German court stated that the Horch brand belonged to his former company. August Horch was obliged to refrain from using his family name in connection with cars. As the word "horch!" is old German for "listen!" (= English "hark!") , August Horch used the Latin equivalent of his name, "audi!" for his next effort. Both Horch and Audi, along with DKW and Wanderer merged in 1932 to form the Auto Union, hence the four rings which are now the badge of Audi (possibly influenced by the Olympic Rings which were first seen at the Los Angeles games in the sme year).

Volvo: I roll, I turn, I run on wheels. Proud boast of a haughty car. Actually originally the name for the ball-bearings made by Volvo's parent company in Sweden, SKF.

Transit: back to Ford - he/she/it crosses. A long-lost part of a family that includes Introit (hymn) and Exit (all from Latin eo,ire,ii,itum, go). Sic transit gloria mundi [Gloria was unwell in the van after a weekend of over-indulgence]

Vito: I avoid. A Mercedes van - probably meant to suggest French vite (quick), or Latin vita (life). But it suggests Vito Corleone to me. I avoid.

Fiat: Let it be (as in fiat lux: let there be light)? Actually it's a mere acronym from Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino. Let it be anyway.

Cortina:Successor to the Consul. A weird one this - the Latin for kettle. I know it was a tin can on wheels, but… Actually, probably named for the once-fashionable Italian ski resort at the foot of Mont Blanc, Cortina d'Ampezzo (so named as it's in a cauldron-shaped valley in the Alps?)

Corona and Corolla: Names for early Toyotas - the Crown and the Coronet. The car for the king of the road. Corona (also name of a fizzy drink) also means the group of people who surround a speaker or celebrity - one's fans. So quite a good one.

Viva - Latin "alive" - name for a nasty small Vauxhall. Simply to be driving one was considered sufficient reason for the police in my local town to stop a friend. "Why did you stop me , officer?" "You was driving a Vauxhall Viva, sir."

Nova - successor to the Viva - "new". Unfortunately, in Italian, it means ""won't go" (no va) - and export sales were disappointing.

Previa (Toyota): Unfortunate associations with placenta (Latin="cake") for anyone who's had a baby. Praevia means "ahead on the road" - good name for a car, nasty as a cake.

Agila - another Vauxhall. Not-quite-latin, which would be agilis. "Active", "busy" - certainly an improvement on previous efforts!

Amica - Hyundai were probably told it means "friendly". No. It means "concubine, mistress, courtesan" (Lewis & Short:try a Google image search for "amica"!). But would you want your mistress to be seen driving one?

Matrix - another Hyundai - probably named to cash in on the Keanu Reeves films. But they didn't check in the dictionary: it's a breeding animal originally (a cow for instance). Can also mean "womb", or "mother" in the sense of "the original". The mother of all boring cars?

Octavia (with a model called - ungrammatically - "Ambiente" - ambiens signified going round bribing the voters: an ideal car for a Blair Babe seeking reelection?). But which Octavia are we to conjure up when we see this Skoda? The dull sister of Octavian (not yet Augustus) whom Mark Antony abandoned to go off with Cleopatra? Or Nero's wife - daughter of the emperor Claudius - whom he kicked to death while expecting his baby? Neither really seems to evoke class.

Fabia: another Skoda. Cicero's sister-in-law was a Vestal Virgin called Fabia. Or there was the Fabia who murdered her husband Fabius Fabricianus, to get off with a young man she fancied. Her son grew up to murder his mother and her lover. Virtue or vice. Take your pick. The Skoda marketing team need some Roman history.

Clio: the miniature Renault named after the Muse of History - which is what the car now is.

Orion: Ford wins again. The giant Orion was originally called Urion, to celebrate his origin: he was born from the urine of Zeus, Poseidon and Hermes, who, travelling around Greece in disguise (as gods tended to), promised an old childless widower who'd shown them exceptional hospitality that he could have a son without the bore of getting married again. He was told to produce the skin of the ox he'd so generously sacrificed. The three gods urinated on it, and the old man buried it in the ground. Nine months later, a huge, but beautiful child emerged. He grew up to become a favorite of Artemis, and became famous as the mighty slayer of beasts. He died from the bite of a scorpion - a creature the Earth produced specifically to destroy the man who'd boasted he could conquer the entire animal kingdom. Other authorities say Artemis killed him for the attempted rape of one of her nymphs.

Scorpio: Keep well away from one of these if you are driving an Orion - see above.

Mercury: Roman form of Hermes, the communication god and god of the streets. As such he was patron of thieves and luck, and, in Athens and elsewhere in ancient Greece there were symbolic statues of him on every street corner [above] - which Athenian men would touch in passing to ensure they "had a nice day".

Cressida (Toyota) Told by Jim I'd missed this one: however, she does not appear in Classical myth. Troilus does - a blameless son of Priam caught by Achilles while off to fetch a pail of water. But the faithless Cressida gets her first mention in Chaucer, and then more extensively in Shakespeare. For Pistol, groping for insults to besmirch Bardolph in Henry V, she is an archetype of the disease-ridden whore:

No; to the spital go,
And from the powdering tub of infamy
Fetch forth the lazar kite of Cressid's kind,
Doll Tearsheet she by name, and her espouse:

As Jim writes: "Not exactly the image a manufacturer would wish to project, I think!!!".
Cressida was procured for Troilus by Pandarus, "the first pander". But the Fiat Panda has zoological connections, of course.

The Austin/Morris/BMC/Leyland/Rover gave us the Mini (from Latin minimus, smallest) more or less contemporary with the miniskirt in the sixties. (Although I remember playing with toy cars called Minic in the fifties). Then, as hemlines fell we got the Maxi. Japan gave us the Nissan Micra (from the Greek - but feminine of course, as all cars tend to be.

Avensis : suggests Latin avena, oats, becoming the word for any stalk, then a shepherd's pipe (Pan Pipes) made of reeds. It even has the -ensis ending which is commonly used to make a noun into an adjective. Brings to mind a simple sunny world of shepherds abiding in the fields.

Tigra (Vauxhall): female tiger? Actually this was tigris, but still the ideal car for the thrusting female executive.

Felicia: suggests felix, felicitas etc - happiness and good luck, the birthright of every Skoda driver.

Vectra (Vauxhall): suggests a connection with vecta, "having been conveyed, riding" from L veho (from which vehicle also derives)

Mondeo (Ford): sounds like a 2nd conjugation verb (moneo - I warn: "Warning! Get out of my way, you drivers who are not important executives like me driving my top-of-the-range company car".) Also suggests French monde, from Latin mundus - the world. Mondeo drivers are men-of-the-world bent on world domination. Keep well clear.

Corsa (Vauxhall): suggests cursus, race-course, or career; a fashionable high-street in every Italian town (corso); corsage and maybe even corset! (It was advertised by Supermodels when it was launched, remember). Also a touch of "corsair" - a free-booting devil-may-care pirate. To me, alas, it has always recalled the rhyme about the two early Saxon invaders of Britain: