Cars are Cars

You got a fast car
I want a ticket to anywhere
Maybe we make a deal
Maybe together we can get somewhere
-- Tracy Chapman

But cars are cars
All over the world
Cars are cars
-- Paul Simon

Now that I’m a driving versus subwaying commuter I spend a lot of time looking at the other boats on my slow river home. First off, gotta say there are a LOT of really dull x 12 cars on the road. For every Lamborghini, for every Bugati, for every Jaguar there’s a boring ass SUV or 50, along with a whole slew of chubby, featureless smaller boxes. It’s like being in the auto equivalent of a Botero painting only with less color and humor.

And the NAMES so many these poor bastards have are just embarrassing as all get out.

What’s a Passat for god’s sake? Did they, in a too many hours long, scotch fueled, late night marketing session, call it The Piss Ant? Then, when everyone sobered up the next morning, they just went all Boggle on the name -- be a shame for that meeting to have been a total waste.

The Ford Focus -- is Ford trying to, subliminally, get drivers to pay better attention?

The Mazda Protege? Really? A car named for an overeager, underpaid, bleached blonde assistant? Why not just call it the Mazda Trophy Wife and be done with it?

Toyota had a car named the Starlet. Ford had the Escort. The Dodge Swinger? Christ, why not quit beating around the **ahem** bush and just name it the Chrysler Harlot?

I’m just wondering but where are the cars that are geared toward women. I DON’T mean minivans and station wagons either. Where’s the studly Honda Hung? The sleek, muscled Buick Baryshnikov?

The Volvo Vulva -- fast car but you need to have the AC on at speeds in excess of 60 mph. Gets kinda steamy in there, doncha know. C’mon, women’s sex drives can be exploited too ya know!

I did see one good car name on the way home today -- the Avalon.

Now, apart from the luscious Bryan Ferry tune and the ethereal, mysterious, romantic hospice of Arthurian legend, this is a word, a name that just fills me with calm, with serenity. Totally not the fast, zoom, zoom nature of a lot of car names.

Makes me curious -- would the roads be safer if there were more cars out there with names like VW Valium, the Dodge Diazepam, the Kia Kava Root?