Laying wide awake thinking about every cringe thing I said and did in the previous eighteen-or-so hours is my standard sleep ritual, and at the top of today’s Greatest Hits will be my stunning display of ding-dongery in today’s Slack huddle with The Team, including David Tracy, Torch, and the formidable (but affable!) Matt Hardigree, who suggested today’s Autopian Asks query.
I knew it was a good topic as soon as he offered it, but like a dope, I asked if we were sure there would be enough place-named cars. The cringe. My pea-brain only served up like three car names that were obviously (to me) titled after places, and one of them was the Pontiac Parisienne only because Jason wrote about it not long ago (that’s the story above). Thankfully, the gang was gracious enough not to ask if I was a moron [Editor’s Note: You’re great, Pete. So far from a moron it’s absurd! -DT], and rattled off enough place-named-cars to fill a Santa’s-list scroll if one was feeling old-timey enough to write them all down. For example:
… as well as Chevys Colorado, Tahoe, and Monte Carlo; Hyundais Rio… and a bunch more that we know but don’t want to spoil. Which of these, or the countless others you can no doubt think of, is the least or most suitably-designed to bear the mantle of its place name? The Autopian Asks!
Images: top shot, GM and Etsy seller; Buick Lucerne via GM; Lucerne, France by Slav Yakounin/Wikimedia; Kia Telluride via Kia; Telluride, Colorado by John Fowler/Wikimedia
Mercury Turnpike Cruiser and Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser were fitting names. Moto Guzzi Flying Fortress sounds like it needs smaller bikes surrounding it.
Oops. I didn’t read the assignment correctly. Sorry, Professor. Feel silly.
Lucerne, (besides being in Switzerland as others have noted), has an absolutely fantastic Museum of Transportation.
It would remind you of a European version of the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn.
Fantastic collection of cars, trains, boats, and air craft, all in a very walkable space, right near the banks is Lake Lucerne.
Not unsurprisingly, it’s also one of the least likely places on the planet you’d ever see a Buick Lucerne.
The Swiss have much better automotive taste than we do.
Most would be the Ford Fairmont. Most average of all possible cars for the most average of all possible town names.
The Yamaha Ténéré is nothing like the south central Sahara. A stock one would bog down in the sand, too.
The Toyota Tacoma is indeed remarkably unremarkable, hard-working and could be said to be thrice all-American.
Scanned the comments to see if anyone had called out the Tacoma. Like the city: Hard working, reliable, unremarkable, has a funny smell when the tide goes out….
All I know is that when I owned a Monte Carlo I had a serious gambling addiction!
😉
My Chevy MONZA. Nothing Italian, or race car like, about it. It also has the ‘Spyder’ package, yet it’s not convertible. Confusingly, the badging features Arachnids, as does the factory applied, vinyl hood art…
Ferrari California, neither lives up to expectations.
The original does.
Ferrari California – overpriced, pretentious, with a questionable a*se-to-body ratio. Checks out thinking of *some* Californians (Kim, Kylie, Kholhhohohoe)
Tundra.
A Tundra would be a handy vehicle in the tundra.
Tacoma?
Can’t believe I forgot about the Subaru Outback.
I don’t think it’s as rough-and-tumble and brutal as its namesake.
But it does get hot.
I’ve never seen a Chrysler New Yorker cause the rent to go up.
The Ford Galaxie is pretty big. No arms, tho.
The Kia Rio does not make me think of Brazil.
Nor does it seem well suited to dancing on the sand.
CAR Magazine (UK) had a great headline for the first-gen model. “Her name is Rio, and she’s crap.”
While not named for a particularly specific location, the Chevy Suburban is definitely at home in the suburbs, even though it really shouldn’t be used for regular suburban driving. I don’t say this lightly: I live in the suburbs, and own an ’05 Suburban 2500 – but it was purchased for long trips and heavy towing, where its capabilities really shine.
‘Suburbs’ were a very different thing when that truck was named.
Triumph Dolomite?
I have driven a 70s era Triumph Dolomite through the Dolomites. I think they go together quite well.
Hyundai Tucson.
Nailed It!
Pretty accurate. There are a lot of gravel roads and poor tarmac surfaces here that are driveable but uncomfortable in a regular car. It’s pretty much perfect in a soft-roader, especially when it rains and all the streets have half a foot of pooled water.
My only knowledge of Tucson is from Sons of Tucson and friends who have moved to Phoenix ripping on Tucson.
I lived in Tucson for several years. It’s a toilet. Phoenix likes to shit on Tucson, but they have no right. Phoenix is LA in the desert, with all the LA problems plus oppressive heat, but minus the Pacific Ocean to sometimes take your mind off how lousy it is. I guess that makes Tucson, like, Stockton in the desert. Neither can rightfully throw stones at the other.
I finally realized that I love the state of Arizona – truly one of my favorite places in the US – but I loathe many of its cities. I used to wish someone would start from scratch in an empty patch of desert and build just one decent city.
I like Tucson because it feels authentic, gritty and dirty. The desert pervades the city and you never feel like you escape it. On the other hand, Phoenix feels like some dystopian Truman Show-esque experiment where everyone lives in picture-perfect neighborhoods connected by six-lane roads and ignores everything going on outside which is fine, just not my style.
Can we talk about Ferrari LaFerrari? I think all romance languages have the same La/Le word for the, Am I wrong? SO does this car have the name The Ferrari?
You are not wrong. As I recall, the LaFerrari was named that way to imply it is the definitive example of what a Ferrari could be. As in, it is not just any Ferrari, it is the Ferrari. It is a dumb name, but it makes sense in context.
Smith the smith.
Just like Le Car 😎
It needed a name other than its’ project code, which was F150, for obvious reasons. Namely, the Top Gear guys would try to move a couch with it.
The Mercury Colony Park station wagon is completely unlike the small apartment building in outer SW Portland Oregon. OTOH the Colony Park was perfectly at home in Lake Oswego Oregon.
How about the VW California? The modern day camper you can’t buy in the US.
Nissan built several generations of Sunny California wagon, which were offered in the US but renamed – Datsun 210 for the first generation and Nissan Sentra for the 2nd and 3rd, with no special designation for the wagons.
As far as least, how about the Tahoe? I mean, it’s a freaking lake. Maybe if we were talking about naming a submarine
They sink. I’m sure We’ll find some in there the next time water levels drop.
Tahoe City is the town’s name.
Pick LITERALLY ANY mid-late ’00s Mercury (except the Sable). Montego (Full size sedan), Monterey (Windstar based minivan), Milan (Mazda 6 based Sedan). No wonder Jill Wagner couldn’t save the brand.
Montego and Monterrey were throwback names. they made them wayback when too, and even then it was questionable as to the location versus car.
I guess it’s still better than their feline name phase of the 70s and 80s. (Cougar, Bobcat, lynx, Sable)
At the sign of the cat!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUh9ytrlJYU
All Pontiacs should get a pass. Passing over the chief, i choose to attribute the name to the plant location. Therefore: Pontiac Parisienne? Perfectly suited to cruising down the Champs D’Elysee, provided that street is just Wide Track in drag (pun intentional). Pontiac Bonneville? Well, there probably is more salt on M-59 than on the flats…
Should there be some kind of rule about where you can drive cars named after places? Must drive them only in the place with the name? Can drive them anywhere except the place with the name? Must have a permit to drive elsewhere?
Anyway, for least I’d pick the Tacoma.
For least, I’d pick the 5th generation Monte Carlo. A slow 2 door variant of a Chevrolet Lumina has absolutely nothing in common with a place that has the most billionaires per capita of any place in the world and is famous for conspicuous consumption.
For most, I’d pick the Ferrari California. It is a very nice, flashy car that looks like it should be a lot of fun, but at the same time seems overly expensive, inauthentic, and unappealing.
The last gen Monte Carlo should have been called the Tallahassee. It’s exactly the kind of car Florida Man would drive with a glovebox full of meth and an unrestrained alligator on the back seat.
Would this scenario really be that much better if the gator was wearing a seatbelt?
If you’re piloting a Chevorlet under the influence of meth, it is best to thinkg about the safety of your alligator in the eventuality of a traffic incident
I didn’t even let my iguana ride in the car unrestrained, and he never tried to eat me.
Evidently your iguana wasn’t one that dropped out of trees in Miami.