What's the name of your car?

[Giampy]

http://hem.com.np/2008/05/04/badly-chosen-car-names

[TaoPhoenix]

I've seen some of those lists before.

I have a generic minivan, but I went the other way and last started calling it the Haunted Van, after taking it to several car shops with a problem, they do stuff, and then the problem is still there.

[tomos]

I have a generic minivan, but I went the other way and last started calling it the Haunted Van, after taking it to several car shops with a problem, they do stuff, and then the problem is still there.

maybe it's the car shops that are haunted

[skwire]

I have a generic minivan, but I went the other way and last started calling it the Haunted Van, after taking it to several car shops with a problem, they do stuff, and then the problem is still there.

maybe it's the car shops that are haunted

I was actually thinking, in TaoPhoenix's case, more along the lines of, "Like computer, like car..."      I keed!!  I keed!!

[TaoPhoenix]

I have a generic minivan, but I went the other way and last started calling it the Haunted Van, after taking it to several car shops with a problem, they do stuff, and then the problem is still there.

maybe it's the car shops that are haunted

Heh no, the car shops are incompetent. It's become a scripted comedy skit by this point.
Customer-Me goes in, says at start of visit: "Look Mr. Manager, all you have to do is fix the clunking sound when you make turns. But I warn you, other shops have tried and failed against the dreaded Haunted Van."
Sales-Happy Manager: "Oh, WE'LL get it. We're _____ Shop. We'll fix the toe joints blah blah..."
(7 hours later)
Customer-Me: "See, Mr. Manager? THIS is how it happens. EVERY SINGLE TIME! Now I am an Angry Customer. Pray you do not anger me further."
Manager: "Ulp!"

[Renegade]

The one thing that gets missed a lot is that cars have different names in different markets.

[SeraphimLabs]

I miss my 1988 Chevy Nova.

For a no-go, it certainly WENT.

Only 90 horsepower, but that 1.6 liter carbureted engine could reach the all-important 88 MPH on a long stretch of highway, and pulled just short of 40 MPG the whole way.

Also so that's what a Gremlin looked like. My mom has told me stories about hers.

[Edvard]

I had a friend named Brad whose name was famous in our circle because inevitably when the conversation turned to cars, the phrase "Brad's Nova" would be invoked and initiate a round of knowing nods, low chuckling and quiet tsk-ing.  Brad's Nova was also affectionately known as The-car-that-would-not-die-even-when-we-finally-decided-to-kill-it.  Long story.  Great car.

[Fred Nerd]

My first ute (pickup) was called Entropy. "Without constant input, entropy will always break down" Newton's third law of Thermodynamics

[TaoPhoenix]

New angle: anyone actually name their cars something like "Joey" in that anthropomorphic sense we like to do to machines? Or is that a thing of the past?

"Joey" could be something like that poor ol' 1988 Ford Escort you had as a college kid. It didn't get much love from the Ford factory, it came third hand with 388,000 miles from a buddy for $50, but by golly it made it between your dorm and First Period class 4 miles each day. (It couldn't handle the 500 mile trip home, that was too much for poor Joey, but then that's what Parents are for.) So you put your band stickers on the back corner window, you put a new floor mat where your buddy had three too many drinks at a frat party, and you kept a stash of stray supplies in the glove compartment for when you were supposed to bring something like a protractor to Set Theory class for drawing Venn Diagrams.  Or something.

[Edvard]

Jerry.  A blue mid-80's Ford Escort hatchback that eventually blew a water pump.  Got me and my girlfriend (now wife) from art school and back to our respective homes for almost a year.

[Curt]

The original story is dreadful. Errors all over.  

1) Laputa... The Spanish word puta means little girl. Yes, it is also being used as slang for whore, but that doesn't change the innocent original, except for the dirty-minded.

2) Pajero: "Penis"? No, it does not mean penis   in any language!

3) Lacrosse is a game and nothing else.

4) Nova. Nova means new and has never meant no go!

5) Ascona. Ascona in Switzerland is located on the shore of Lake Maggiore. The town is a popular tourist destination, and holds a yearly jazz festival, the Ascona Jazz Festival.
Google Spanish-English Translator has nothing to say about ascona.

6) Fitta. There never even was a Honda Fitta!!

The Honda Fit or Honda Jazz is a five-door hatchback subcompact manufactured by Honda, first introduced in June 2001 and now in its second generation. The name "Jazz" is used in Europe, Oceania, the Middle East, and Africa and some parts of Asia, —while the name "Fit" is used in Japan, China, and the Americas.

Maybe the article was funny to some, but it is really not worth reading.

[cranioscopical]

The original story is dreadful. Errors all over.
Maybe the article was funny to some, but it is really not worth reading.

I think we're in accord. Perhaps it was the prelude to something better.

[Curt]

-oh, Honda is no stranger to you, I see. Sadly I don't know a relevant pun.

[MilesAhead]

I've owned many different makes and models. Both foreign and domestic. But in English they were all named "shitbox."

[jgpaiva]

Not disagreeing with you on how the article is filled with misinformations, but here's some clarifications:

1) Laputa... The Spanish word puta means little girl. Yes, it is also being used as slang for whore, but that doesn't change the innocent original, except for the dirty-minded.

I'm portuguese and no specialist in spanish, but in portuguese puta hasn't meant little girl for at least decades, it only has the curse word meaning. I believe the same is true for spanish.

2) Pajero: "Penis"? No, it does not mean penis   in any language!

Nope, but it does mean homosexual (in an offensive way) in spanish, and it's also close to the portuguese "paneleiro" (which means the same). AFAIK, the Pajero does have a different name in spain: Montero.

5) Ascona. Ascona in Switzerland is located on the shore of Lake Maggiore. The town is a popular tourist destination, and holds a yearly jazz festival, the Ascona Jazz Festival.
Google Spanish-English Translator has nothing to say about ascona.

Actually, in Portugal this car was sold as the Opel 1604, since "Ascona" has some resemblence with the portuguese curse word meaning vagina, "cona". According to wikipedia, it was sold as the Ascona in Spain, so I assume that curse word doesn't exist in spainish.

[SeraphimLabs]

I still miss my old Nova. 40 MPG after 230,000 miles, and it kept right on going all the way until the front end just about came apart and two of the 5 gears on the stick would no longer drive.

[40hz]

Ours is called "the car."

We're very original and creative about things like that at my house.

----------

Back in my college days I owned an English-built Ford with all manner of erratic and bizarre electrical and mechanical problems. Funny thing was, for some odd reason, I actually liked that car despite it sometimes driving me to the brink of madness. My college best chum Anne christened that car Mistress Wanda von Dunajew for obvious reasons.

[TaoPhoenix]

http://www.wandamadrid.com/en/studio/presentacion/

[crabby3]

I've seen some of those lists before.

I have a generic minivan, but I went the other way and last started calling it the Haunted Van, after taking it to several car shops with a problem, they do stuff, and then the problem is still there.

Auto-repair is not easy especially if mechanics only have a description of the problem from a non auto-savy customer.
Similar to a novice computer user describing an issue to an IT-geek.  Both have knowledge barriers to somehow overcome.

I guess Unpredictable would have to be my full-size vans name.  The last two times it broke down with no warning signs at all. 

[Shades]

Depends on the amount of fuel in it and the distance to the next gas station...

[x16wda]

New angle: anyone actually name their cars something like "Joey" in that anthropomorphic sense we like to do to machines? Or is that a thing of the past?

Please don't anthropomorphise the machines!  They hate that!!

[app103]

Every car my husband has ever owned, from Shitty-shitty-bang-bang to Betsy to the Ford FIREnza that went up in flames, was featured in an Adam Sandler song (NSFW).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-34Fdtg1dI

[Stoic Joker]

I always have, and always will maintain that motorcycles have souls. You must treat them how they want to be treated...or they will kill you.

After much thought my recently acquired 2010 Harley Davidson FLTRX has been named Trixie. While the name is a bit uncreatively a play on the model designation, she's also a bit flashy (more chrome than I'm generally comfortable with), and she loves to play (as long as I don't push too hard).