History How does a car get it's name?

I'm not so creative with car or truck names. Usually they get tagged with the model year. My current pickup is "The 49" and my coupe is "The 48", my wife's ride is "the PT". You won't find the name on any of them however, they are referenced that way at home to identify them. "We are going to take The 49 today." My wife and my kids all know which vehicle we will be seen in.

I did have truck my kids named. It was "Big Blue" because it was big, and it was blue.

 

20 somethin' years ago, I had a car in a Mopar paint they called 'cool vanilla'.
I named 'er "Poison Ivory".
Another car that I raced back in the 60's was named "Nell". Short for "Quicker'Nell".

 

How does a car get it's name?
Your friends or family. I named a friend's 1958 GMC NAPCO 'SKEETER FOGGER'.
Blows godawful smoke. He's got an Inline 302 to go in, SKEETER FOGGER will be the truck's name here on out!

 

When the original civilian owner (the 56 was originally a Sherriffs car all of 1956 and partially 1957) Ron bought the car mid 57 and started customizing in within a few months, his dad (who signed the paper at the dealership) got extremely mad and then inadvertently name md the car as he yelled at Ron.

The story I am told is when Ron was swapping the 150 trim out for the reworked bel air loop that car has today, his dad came storming out and yelling about how it was Taboo to be cutting up a practically brand new car. That was the moment Miss Taboo was born. With the miss being added by Ron for an exotic feminine flair.

Now all these years later the car kinda still lives up the original thoughts that named it, but now no longer being a new car, it’s just seen as taboo to most to cut up a tri five Chevy with radical custom work.

 

Had an O/T station wagon called 3TONFUN. It was awesome.

 

Go figure...

 

Here's a good one...

 

I always wanted to name an old bike "The Starship Enterthighs"...

 

if it does not turn around and look at you when you say its name it does not need a name.
.. just like cats.

 

My old Sedan Delivery.
My wife is responsible for naming it, but won't admit it.
It seems I was talking to a buddy who commented that, after I'd been driving it for over 5 years, it was still in primer.

He mistakenly asked "when are you going to paint it?"

My response was to make a loose fist in front of my zipper, making a jerking off motion, I replied "prime this".

Well, my wife saw all this and said "that's disgusting" and burst out laughing.

She said "I think you just named the car"

The rest is history.

 

Most of my vehicles have earned or been bestowed with a name. Much like every dog, cat or horse I have had. I just call the fish , Fish. For one the 1964 VW bug I purchased in college from a girlfriend then, she purchased it from a female geologist up in Santa Barbara. Darlene was an undergrad geology student as was I at the same time. She wanted something better ( car that was ) so I paid her $500 and drove it over to my place on the ranch. Darlene named it " Nellebell" after the jeep driven by Pat Brady in the Roy Rogers TV shows. Darlene also grew up on a ranch. We were both fans of the Roy Rogers shows. She used to jokingly say, Whoa Nellie because the VW bug need a brake job.

https://www.hagerty.com/media/buying-and-selling/roy-rogers-iconic-jeep-has-cowboy-street-cred/

When I was in HS one of the neighbor ranchers gave me his 1945 Ford PU. Frozen engine and easy fix. This truck was and is totally whipped as any ranch truck could be. We called it the ugliest thing we had ever seen. So it earned the name " Ugly". So it was know as Ugly. Still have Ugly but in instead of the flathead it is running a 56 Olds 324 and 4 speed hydro into a 55 truck rear end with 4.10 gears. Not very vast, but gets there quick.

 

I call my Roadster Honey Louise. Because that was crudely carved into the steering wheel...

 

I have an old Toyota sedan in the Philippines where I work or play or do nothing part time each year. The girl I bought it from named it Grace. So I now jokingly say, by the Grace of God we get to our destination in one piece.

Thank you Grace.

 

I never named any of my hot rods but my wife named her new GMC I bought her “Sharky” because of the fin on top of the roof that is the antenna/wifi something or another. So now my grand daughter points out all of the fellow Sharkys that we run across

 

I gotta admit I like it better with the lake pipes, AND I'm not much into them.

But I like the way they highlight the straight lines of the upper side molding.

The only car I really named was white with gray primer spots so it was aptly named "spot"!

...

 

I can tell you how they’re not named…

The most hilarious content on the entire internet are “help me name my car” threads from 10+ years ago right here on the HAMB. I only wish my Google-Fu was good enough to dig some up for old time sakes…

 

when I had this car pin striped I had THE DIRTY BLOND lettered on the glove box door sounded kind of sexy the cars kind of blonde and often dirty. thought about getting the DIRTY BIRD on my T Bird . Hope to have it restriped after a little paint work that was done over the winter. have trouble keeping them real clean

 

@oldsmobum https://jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/names-for-your-car-lets-hear-em.590822/

 

Friends name cars. It's like nick names, you don't choose them, your friends do. Choosing your own nick name is like abusing yourself in public.

 

Talking on a race car point I think they all need a name and it needs to be on it so it looks like a race car just thought.

leadfoot is the nickname my dad gave me when I was younger and in that ticket of the month club for speeding.
I played on my users name on this site from all the fun banter back in the meltdown drags threads. Not my car but the owner (he called it BA 409) told me to build a race car that I would build.

 

Think I'll call this one The Streak. Why? Because it's brown and black, and skid mark would be too obvious.

 

I think that a name comes as part of a kit - combined with some fuzzy rear view mirror dice, a tray of plastic drive in food, some dice valve stem covers, a chrome “Hot Rod” grille badge, and a bonus of half a dozen “ DO NOT TOUCH UNLESS YOU ARE NUDE” window stickers.

 

I cut the firewall off my 53 Chevy a good 3 1/2” to set the engine back. I’m talking the whole firewall. In walks the brother in-law, looks over the situation. Start busting my chops about all the rust holes in the floor. I got the whole front of the body can opened. W.T.F. Everyone would find some ridiculous thing wrong with the car, that don’t amount to shit, to me. Your not using that or your not going to do it that way, that’s not how I would do it, nobody does it that way. Your going to run that size tire, blah blah blah blah. They tell how to weld, they don’t weld or own a welder. On and on and on. So I named my car, “CORNFLAKES “. Everybody’s crapping in my cornflakes.

 

I call my 55 the shitbox as a play on shoebox. I feel it's appropriate.

 

Never named any of my hotrods. Never had the urge to name any either.

 

Mine is named "The Big Red One", after the 1st Infantry Division.
Because It's going to be "Big Red".
Because it's red.
Because I want it red.
Because.

Also, my Pinto was called "The Radical Rat" at Ft. Ord, because it was brown and the wheelie bars looked like a rat's tail.
I wish that I had a photo of it.

 

cadillac bob has accused me of naming my dogs after strippers, i don't name my cars

 

My kid named one Savannah when she was 5 (but I jokingly called it fatass...), and Germ named the other one El Slobo, making fun of the trend of calling everything Hispanic back in the early 2000s. I usually call them by color or year, but I'm not that creative.

 

Former owner of my 51 Merc Phil Sauers named it old Shasta. Here's a story from Car Craft 1983 why he named it Shasta.

 

Here's the name of my Caddy....put on there by my favorite Pinstriper, she said it was appropriate since my last name is Southern...