A name's value is more than sentimental

DAVID COOPER/THE TORONTO STAR

Mini's Beachcomber evokes the 1960s when the brand was an icon and its beach buggy a favourite in sunny places.

Philip Marchand

SPECIAL TO THE STAR

At the Canadian International AutoShow, names are everywhere – on banners, in lights and, of course, on the gleaming cars.

In primitive societies, names are powerful medicine. A name holds the essence of something. Rational people scoff at such notions. But who ever said car buyers were rational?

Perhaps the most famous attempt by a carmaker to conjure up a whacking good name occurred in 1955, when Ford's manager of marketing research asked the great American poet, Marianne Moore, to come up with a name for the company's new "E car."

As the Ford manager quite reasonably put it, "Who better to understand the nature of words than a poet?" Moore suggested Silver Sword, Thundercrest, Pastelogram, Adante con Moto, Intelligent Whale, Varsity Stroke, Resilient Bullit, Mongoose Civique and Utopian Turtletop.

My own choice would be Mongoose Civique, but Ford, alas, rejected all these suggestions and dubbed the car Edsel, after Henry Ford's son and the company's one-time president. The name, like Ford's disastrous Pinto and Hyundai's Pony, will never, ever, be revived.

If Moore's ghost were to haunt this year's Ford exhibit at the auto show, she might be disappointed by "Fusion," for example. It seems so technical, so rational.

But all poets secretly love alliteration, and Moore would have perked up at the list of Ford models beginning with "f" – Fiesta, Focus, Fusion, Flex.

A management trainee at the show told me about a simulation involving a fictional car manufacturer named Atomic Motors. Atomic Motors had three models. The trainee team named them Aleck, Alpha, Ace. Nobody said, let's do alliteration. It just felt right.

The best names roll on forever. I noticed a middle-aged man sitting quietly behind the wheel of a 2011 Ford Mustang. When he finally climbed out, I asked him if he had owned a Mustang in his youth. The answer was yes.

"Now I'm more likely to seriously consider an SUV," he admitted. "If you're financially in a position to have more than one car – then that would be a different story."

His wistful tone suggested memories of summer night drives with a girlfriend.

"They gave it the right name and they were consistent with it, they continued to produce it all along, they didn't move away from it – the public wouldn't let it go away," he said.

The Mustang mystique will persist as long as Ford does, and perhaps longer.

In the same way, Corvette, Chevrolet's flagship car, is that company's oldest model name, having survived such venerable marques as Pontiac and Oldsmobile, and it will not be replaced either.

At the auto show, Chevrolet displays its Cruze and Malibu and Equinox and Traverse and Spark and Volt – the latter being Chevrolet's "extended range electric vehicle." These cars may or may not work magic in the marketplace, but they will likely never be flagship cars like the Corvette and the Mustang, and their names will come and go.

If any company needs a jolt of magic, it's Chrysler. Next year, should all go well for the company, Chrysler dealers will have Fiats on their lots.

The magicians of MOPAR marketing are reaching back to residual memories of the Fiat 500, a sprite of a car driven by the incandescent Simone Signoret in the 1959 British movie Room at the Top. Drivers of the new 500 crawling along the Don Valley Parkway in a haze of ozone will imagine themselves flying along the road to Rome – or so the marketers hope.

The term "Fiat" itself has its own deceptive magic, a layered meaning that Moore would have enjoyed.

In 1899, when some moneyed individuals led by Giovanni Agnelli decided to build an Italian automobile, they referred to their enterprise as Fabbrica Italiana Automobile Torino – or FIAT, for short. One of the group objected to the term, however, because it was too "biblical." He was thinking of the Latin phrase fiat voluntas tuas – "thy will be done" – in the prayer taught by Jesus in the Gospels According to Saint Matthew and Saint Luke. His objection was overcome.

That leaves at least two car model names displayed at the auto show that are, in fact, sentences in a foreign language. "Fiat" can be construed in Latin as "Let it be." (Chrysler, which was bought by the Italian automaker last year, no doubt, hopes it will mean "Let it sell.") The second one I saw was Suzuki's 2011 Kizashi. The name, I was informed by a Suzuki sales representative, means "Something great is coming."

The most interesting time I had with names was at the Mini exhibit.

Back in the '60s, these speedy little charmers were the favourite ride of English celebrities from Twiggy to Paul McCartney. The early cars had all the faults of the dying British car industry. The exhaust pipe would snap at the manifold, the electrical system worked on whim, the bodywork was biodegradable.

But the Mini name retains its magic. The first model I investigated was The Clubman – a name that for Americans probably suggests not so much aristocratic exclusivity as the sobriquet of a mob enforcer.

Moving on, I'm startled to see a comely young woman in a two-piece bathing suit, striking poses by a buff young man also dressed for the beach. They're drawing attention to the Beachcomber, a concept car evoking the ghost of the Mini Moke, a beach buggy once popular in places like the Caribbean.

Finally, company representative Roy Milley showed me two 50th-anniversary editions of the Mini. The first was called Mayfair, the second Camden.

"Mayfair is a more conservative area of London, so it's a more conservative car," Milley said. "The interior is like a lounge, with hot chocolate-coloured leather. Camden, on the other hand, is much less conservative, so you have an edgy-looking car, with black headlamps and a brighter, black and silver white interior."

He was right. James Bond wouldn't look out of place piloting this racy car.

Handsome automobiles they are, but I particularly like those names. Understanding what they mean is like having someone explain to you the title of an abstract painting.

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