Do You Name Your Cars?
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That monstrosity — the car, not the girl — is what I drove during my senior year of high school. The girl, of course, is me, circa 1990. We called it, “The Boat,” for obvious reasons.
While I no longer am suffered to drive that particular set of wheels, my vehicles still have names. When I was a kid, they were The Red Car, the Gold Car, The Blue Van, etc. During marriage, we’ve had The Hatchback, The Camry, The Truck, The Van, and The Scourge.
Naming our cars creatively, ie The Scourge, is a new phenomena, but one that seems to be sticking. What do YOU do?
Was that a Buick Electra? We had a horrible mustard yellow one with a peeling vinyl roof and bad muffler at one time which we also called The Boat or The Queen Mary.
I do like to name cars… my first was Bessie.
My dad had several Ford Capri’s when I was young so they became “The Brown One”, “The Blue One”, “The Yellow One” and “The Red One”. I realized I’d turned into my dad (scary as I’m a girl!). I love Ford Escorts and I’ve just got my 4th and as yet it is unnamed…
My 3rd somehow got named “Little Bip”.
My mom named her cars too. She had a Chevette and the first 3 letters of the license plate were DAC, so the car got called “Daisy”. Her Sierra Sapphire was “Sapphy” and her Fiesta somehow got called “Silas”…
I drive a red 1997 Honda CRV, which is known as the “Kitty Car” or “The rollerskate.” My husband gave it both names…the first name because he at times calls me Cat. The 2nd name because after driving his big truck, he feels like he in in a rollerskate. The cutest thing is my 4yr son saying ‘Kitty Car’, because he puts alot of ephasis on the T’s.
So glad to see so many folks do this! 🙂
When I was young my mom had a very dignified burgundy & wood paneled station wagon named William Charles. She has a Ford F-250 that is named Tiny….because it’s such a “petite” rig. 😉
The family habit continued with my rides, of course. My very first car wasn’t really named, but my first paid-for-by-me car was…. he was a little red Dodge Colt that had only one side mirror so we took to calling him Vinnie – a la Vincent van Gogh. (Also worked out well because both the car and I had Napoleon complexes…. my step-dad’s Italian family thought “Vinnie” suited our attitudes quite well. LOL)
After a slew of vehicles picked out and frequently traded in by my first husband (that didn’t really have time to settle into names as they were gone within a year haha) I got a divorce and a big black F-150 that was simply The Truck. My mom tried to call her Vinnie II but it didn’t fit. When I remarried and we needed more than a bench seat for a growing family, we traded her in on an Expedition; my husband kept his Ford Ranger. They were both just The Expedition and The Ranger, but still had a name/personality implied within their models…. hence the Caps. lol
When we moved to Okinawa gas prices were skyrocketing and we had been *falsely* told that we could bring one Japanese-made car to Japan and that they didn’t allow American cars… so we traded our rigs in on a sweet Subaru Forrester (now known as The ‘Ru, or Roo….depending on how much my husband misses her, without admitting he’s now calling a car by a name hahaha).
Here on Oki we had a horrible little blue station wagon that I disliked with a passion and when it died the first time, I took to refering to it as That Blue Beast. *sheepish grin* But not in its presence of course…still needed a ride. Until it died on my hubby at work and was put out to pasture. We invested in an adorable Honda HR-V that I love so much I’ve even suggested spending the cash to bring him back to the States when we get orders again. My mom keeps calling him Harvey (HR-V = Harvey) but he’s not a Harvey…. He’s Hondo (a la John Wayne) to me.
My hubby researched the prices and it would be insane to try to import and maintain Hondo so unfortunately he’ll be sold when we do move. But there’s an F-250 in our future – I do wonder what his/her name will be!
Cars have family friendly names for as long as I can remember…
76 Lincoln Mark IV – Big Red
80 Rabbit – Scooter
87 Prelude – Little Red
99 malibu – big blue
2006 Aveo – Ruby
2005 Aveo – Blackjack
2006 Cobalt – Blanca (white in spanish)
Love your blog! Keep up the great cooking for the book – praying for ya!
We have a blue Suburban that we call the blue beast. I have actually thought about getting the tag personallized with her name. 🙂
I have always named my vehicles, I think this started because I constantly am commuting and feel like I live in them most of the time. Some are extremely clever others well…the name suited them! My white honda civic with dark tinted windows was named Betty, my Ford Explorer was named Lewis (he was more of a Lewis then a Clark!) and my Durango was originally called Doc but as he gets older and tired his name has become the Durr!
My Town and Country minivan is “Sydney, Australia.” We call her Sidney for short… get it?
We name our cars. “BB..short for Black Beauty”.. and “Peggy” because the man on the phone sounded like the man in the “this is Peggy” commercials.
We also named our computer, my laptop, and the GPS.
It wasn’t my idea, but I do enjoy thinking up the names.
We have named all our cars since we have been married. Right now, we have Lola the corolla and the big white whale (a yukon xl).
I love giving our cars names. It makes the part of the family.