There are a lot of animal-named cars. Some immediately come to mind (Volkswagen Beetle and Rabbit, Dodge Viper, and Chevy Impala spring to mind first for me) while others may be deep cuts, to varying degrees. Surely you recall the Pontiac Firebird, but you are forgiven if you do not recall the Singer Gazelle. I didn’t recall it myself, it popped up on this “cars with animal names” list that came up in my Google search. (Not that you asked: I skipped the AI Overview).
I’m a big fan of all the animal names, especially when the name really suits the car (or motorcycle, or snowmobile, or steamroller, whatever). The names aren’t always great matches (I again give you the Singer Gazelle), but sometimes they’re just perfect. Is there any greater example than the VW Beetle? It looks like a Beetle. It’s right there in the top graphic. You could put four wheels on the beetle and six legs on the Beetle and it would be fine.
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Sometimes an animal name can suit a car on levels beyond appearance. Consider the first-gen Dodge Viper; it is indeed quite snake-faced, but it this was also a car that would happily bite you in the ass, metaphorically speaking, which a viper would happily do literally.
Your turn:
What Animal-Name Cars Best Match Their Names?
Top graphic images: stock.adobe.com; DepositPhotos.com
Only a nickname for a prototype that was never mass-produced but it’s pretty fitting: the Citroën Coccinelle (Prototype C10) from the 1950s where ‘coccinelle’ is French for a ladybug:
https://www.citroenet.org.uk/prototypes/c8-c10/images/cocinel2.jpg
Oddly enough, “Coccinelle” is also how a Volkswagen “Beetle” is called in the francophone world.
Animal names? Not quite. I named one of my Italians, after an actual (Italian) woman I was dating, Fiona. She was my car in the flesh. Short tempered, feisty, adventurous, soulful. And those were just the personality traits. She had great lines too, like the car, and some ‘high performance’ attributes, like the car.
IIRC, the espresso machine company Rancilio named its products after notable ladies, such as the Audrey (Hepburn), Lucy (Ball), Nancy (Reagan(!)), and recently the Silvia (a family member).
I think it would have been more interesting to see cars named after people, especially ex-GFs. Better stories too…
The Beetle, and we’re pretty much done.
No car ever came close to resembling a Manta, a Mustang, a Bronco. The Viper has a small bit of snaky looking spread-hoodedness but that’s really for the Cobra to wear, which fails at it. The Falcon more closely resembled a Brick; the AMC Eagle resembled neither birds nor, unfortunately for its forebears, hymenoptera of any kind.
The Plymouth Superbird, with its long nose, more closely resembles an overexcited vacuum cleaner. It even has the tall handle.
When Mitsuoka came out with the Orochi I looked up the name, hoping that the naming conventions would yield some puckered-up goldfish that the car so clearly resembled: nope. Some eight-headed dragon. Ah well.
It’s not like animals are the only things misrepresented. Toyota’s biggest truck doesn’t even faintly resemble a vast, cold windswept grassy plain; Chevy’s medium-sized one isn’t quite square enough to recall The Square State and the Grand Cherokee doesn’t look even remotely Native American.
So. Beetle.
Except Volkswagen didn’t call it that.
I cringe to write this because I dislike them for many reasons, but Dodge Ram does suit the vehicle I think.
Did you see the one in the Progressive commercial?
The one driven by a Ram into a tree?
They do like to run headfirst into things, like the namesake animal
Gallagher comedy bit from my childhood:
“‘Dodge’ is the perfect name to put on the front of a van comin’ atcha. But they put ‘Ram’ on the side – they’re after your ass.”
What’s funny is VW never officially called the Beetle by that name. It was the Type 1. Although I have seen some references to the Beetle name in their old ads, it was never officially marketed as such.
Yes, but…
The New Beetle and its successor were both named by the company, so they qualify.
Similar to the Viper, of course, but the Cobra.
Ford Thunderbird. The original absolutely came across like a mystical animal – a tiny two seater that wasn’t a sports car but also wasn’t a cruiser, powerful but still refined.
Bigfoot. Harder to find than it used to be, some people don’t believe it (still) exists. I mean, fine, Graves always need a Digger but that increasingly elusive Ford still has my imagination…
(Also, damn, Beetle is a good one…)
Kuga
Based on seeing quite a few middle-aged women driving them (and middle aged men), that it’s roughly 50% driven by the proverbial “Cougar”.
I’ll nominate the Barracuda, but only in silver.
Oooh… Barracuda!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeMvMNpvB5M
The ocean will have us all…
https://youtu.be/w0Ip56ebjNo?si=3402yzDyDnzs1N6p
Always makes me think of one of the biggest whiffs in Hollywood car casting, in a movie that is otherwise pitch perfect:
In “Big Fish,” if the title character refers to himself as a fish, and makes fish and water related puns all the time, and is depicted driving a mid-60s fastback muscle car on the road as a traveling salesman and sleeping in the back, why was it not a Barracuda instead of a Charger? Especially now knowing, thanks to this very site, that the Barracuda had fold down rear seats that would turn the back hatch into a space you could sleep in?
Someone did Tim Burton a grave disservice by not pointing out this golden opportunity for even more fish content in the script. Why didn’t the guy drive a Barracuda instead, or hey – an AMC Marlin, one of the biggest fish around?
Although I’ve never owned one, I think the various generations of Corvette Stingray is a good match.
Honorable mention goes to the Plymouth Road Runner (“Meep-Meep!”).
Particularly the “Mako Shark” concept Corvettes that led to the design of the C3, which were originally inspired by a literal mako shark trophy fish Bill Mitchell caught, as once described by Torch over on Ye Olde German Lighting Site.
https://www.jalopnik.com/the-hopefully-true-story-about-the-1963-corvette-and-a-918664193/
The Homer.
Mustang. These have a habit of becoming one with telephone poles when leaving car shows or otherwise showing off. Four-legged mustangs (i.e. a wild horses) have a habit of bucking off idiots who attempt to ride them.
While I doubt Ford intentionally named its vehicle after an animal that is prone to causing bodily harm when ridden by someone not exercising extreme caution, it is a fortuitous coincidence.
Pantera. Awesome.
De Tomaso Pantera, especially in black.
Much more so than the Ford Panther platform.
Scene from this year’s Monterey car week, while cruising around in a Crown Vic with friends:
“Oh look, a Mongoose of Thomas!”
“Dang. I’ve seen a lot of Panteras, but not many of those.”
“Yeah, the Panthers of Thomas are much more common.”
I nominate Cougar – at least the earlier rear-drive ones. Mercury was trying to attract young men without a clue or the proper assets to do so, all while steadily putting on weight.
Are you sure you’re not confusing that with the Plymouth Prowler?
Well, unlike the Prowler, the Cougar actually reached middle age.
Compare the original 1968 model, based on the Mustang platform –
https://www.beverlyhillscarclub.com/galleria_images/16945/16945_main_l.jpg
– with the 1978 model, a platform mate with the by-then-enormous Thunderbird, and a similarly baroque example of malaise excess.
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTiua1r_mHr88_eoBWqHHFpyXDdmr2sI8E8Nl9-7f79yA&s=10
LOL! Well, you know. The hard life of those one hit wonders
Does the general classification of “pony car” count?
Renault Frégate (Frigatebird)
Excerpt from the French Wikipedia: “These birds cannot swim, walk rather poorly, and cannot take off from a flat surface.”
The last Impala I saw was hopping along gleefully while also dodging bullets.
Just like the real thing might do on the savannah!
The last one I saw fairly screamed “last car turned first car” even before I noticed the state university commuter parking sticker over the residue of the AARP Auto Club one.
It’s really a shame Ford passed on “Utopian Turtletop” for the Edsel. I think it could have been a contender.
As the former owner of a ’76, I can attest that “Bronco” completely fits the first gen.
Hammerhead Eagle i-Thrust.
Sounds like it was cobbled together in a shed by three doofuses, and it was!
At first, Cobra. So evocative, so good.
VW Rabbit !
Yes. Family got their first new car in ’77 – a diesel appropriately named after “Thumper” from Bambi.
I had a 1978 for a couple of years that was only a few cubic feet of cargo space away from being the absolute ideal vehicle, as decided over on The Old Site once: brown manual diesel wagon. It was brown, and it was manual, but it had a gas engine, so along with the hatchback, I would say that two and a half out of four ain’t bad.
Because of its color and unreliability – it sat for years, still the only “revival” I’ve ever done – I nicknamed it “The (Rabbit) Pellet.”
Dodge Charger Hellcat. It even purrs, growls, and meows.
Dodge Vipers too, since they like to bite their owners when the owners do stupid things with them!