Ah - the Renault Gordini/Alpine naming complexities. I had the R5 Gordini, non turbo with a funny inclined pushrod arrangement to squeeze 93 bhp out of an 8v crossflow head. Sort of mini XR3 competitor. Called an Alpine in France, but over here that name belonged to Sunbeam, by then owned by the PSA group. Timing kept going out even though it was bought from new then the front brake discs developed hairline cracks just out of warranty. Fun on a good day though. Then got a BX, early diesel with the lego brick minor controls. Most excellent, couldn't out accelerate anything off the line but long journey times were quicker than the Gordini on account of a range over 180 miles! After 115k miles swapped it for a BX DTR, very quick in the mid range.
Anyway, back to names. Citroen had a weird mix - letters like BX, GSA, XM, then all of a sudden names like Saxo Xantia and Visa (Visa, the only small car accepted at olympic venues .....). I've got a Synergie, which is called an Evasion in France being a sort of trip out, unlike a nasty tax fraud over here. Now its all a letter/numbers thing, in size order. They have sadly just dropped the C-Crosser, which sounded like a grumpy Citroen version of the Mitsubishi Outlander. C-Crosser, the car for angry mororists.
So, to other things.
Lancia Y10 - makes me think of chicken. (White hen)
That little Fiat, the one you would point at and say "That's a Fiat, you know"
The Talbot Samba, just invites people to sit on the roof bashing it with a drumstick and blowing a whistle.
And I have am imaginary vision of the Japanese marketing director of Colt yelling down the phone at his European PR man "I said STARION, you fool, rike the horse, not Starion"
And if Audi must use paper sizes, why is it that the more you spend the smaller the piece of paper is? Had Rover followed suit, we could have had the Rover Foolscap (no "r" in that please) or its little brother the Rover Letter. Perhaps Rover Estates named after envelope sizes?
But the ultimate naming triumph must rest with good old British Leyland: they replaced the 1800 land crab and launched the "Austin Morris 18-22 Series". You could go into your dealer and ask for an "Austin 18-22 Series 1800 please ...." if you could remember all that. I think it lasted a few weeks then even BL marketing gave up and called it the Austin Princess. My Dad had one of those - not at all bad.
And another thing now that summer is here, why do I keep getting stuck behind caravans that say "Swift" on the back - they are anything but. Do you think Trading Standards would intervene and insist on renaming them "Sloth" or "Trundle"?
