“SOME of these eco cars have got awful names, haven't they?”
That was what one our subeditors at The Champion asked me after reading a short piece in last week's edition on the Ford Focus Econetic, the greener, leaner version of the Blue Oval's new big hitter. To be honest, I couldn't agree more.
Check out the news pages of any car magazine these days and chances are you'll be washed away by a stream of BlueMotions, Ecoflexes and Econetics, and that's before you come to electric cars with wet, boring names like Leaf and Zoe.
I've said it before and I'll say it again; the names people come up with for eco-friendly cars - as worthy as the vehicles they end up on might be - are awful.
Don't get me wrong, I don't have it in for electric cars, but their slow sales so far show that most Brits have yet to be convinced, and part of the problem I reckon is the pub scenario of having to tell people what you drive. In the same way I couldn't ever see myself admitting to having a Wind - despite it being a great car, I'll let you make your own jokes up - the chances of me proudly proclaiming ownership of an electric car are slashed significantly if it comes with the wrong name.
So far I've only seen two that actually sound vaguely interesting, but despite having the same source of power in common are actually poles apart. The Chevy Volt sounds like something the star of a dystopian sci-fi film might drive, but my favourite by far is the new battery powered Rolls Royce. Whether you call it by its proper title - Rolls Royce Phantom Electric Experimental - or its 102EX codename, it seems to have a name nicked straight from the world of Cold War comic books and action hero fighter pilots. I couldn't care less what it runs on, because it sounds cool.
Yet it seems the idea of giving racy, evocative names to products more suited to the set of The Good Life isn't anything new, and something else in last week's Champion proves it. Flick back through the classified ads section and you'll see the brilliantly named Ace Rallyman and the Swift Corniche up for sale. Despite conjuring up connotations of power, performance and luxury they're not cars. Or motorbikes. Or speedboats. Nope, you're not even close.
They're caravans.
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