Car/bike Names what are the best? worst?

[NewcastleFalcon]

....not forgetting the HRD Rapide, which at half the capacity of the Black Shadow wasn'it quite...

one of my Spots from the other day had a nice chat with the owner.



Regards Neil

[harryp]

Nice pic Neil
Oh dear, what crap I come out with some times . Sorry, carried away; the pie doesn't taste any better and gets tougher!
The Rapide was of course pretty quick for its day; I was thinking of the Comet which was 500cc and used to frequently see an example on our way home from work on dry sunny days; frequently? maybe not .Believe it superseded the Meteor?
Would have loved one apart from the job of keeping it clean and shiny. Far too many intricate shiny bits for all weather daily use. used to joke,one days ride, two days cleaning.
Anyway, two "star" names to add.
I depart with a red face

[NewcastleFalcon]

That's fine Harry, I knew the Rapide had a meaty 998cc V-Twin, but no idea how rapid it was

I had to ask the owner what the model was, and indeed what the HRD stood for as the tank bore HRD as the logo.

Howard Raymond Davies this bloke. In January 1928, his company HRD Motors went into voluntary liquidation and the name was purchased by Phil Vincent, who then established a new venture as Vincent-HRD.



REgards Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

dup

[NewcastleFalcon]

I wouldn't say the name is one of the best, or indeed one of the worst, but I think it does suit the bike. From a rising US Off Road Electric Vehicle company, with others called the Beast, the Stag and the Runt.

The well named Volcon Grunt,

https://www.volcon.com/grunt-explore

REgards Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

Today as if it ever needed further evidence spotted the alliterative Triumph Thunderbird yet another bike name in the Falcon best classification. Modern car naming convention by contrast is about as uninteresting as it could possibly get.

Bring me a modern car with a decent name. Most manufacturers tend to just go for no words, just letters and numbers.

Falcon Original
Triumph Thunderbird 1958

Falcon Original
Triumph Thunderbird

Neil

[mickthemaverick]

I have to agree there Neil but for me there is one manufacturer still using some decent model names, Valkyrie, Valhalla and of course the Vantage!!

[Rp0thejester]

Let's all be honest Adam, Vauxhall Adam, what a stupid name

[NewcastleFalcon]

Having photographed a C1, C2, and C3 I elevated the montage to Picture(s) of the Day (POTD) and made my usual comment, I was reminded of this largely dormant thread which you may wish to add to.

I did spot a Citroen C-zero the other day and photographed it for "Electric Vehicles what have you spotted", so the full single-digit set from 0 to 9 could be collected with a bit of poetic licence on the DS contributions. Personally, I prefer proper names for cars, rather then the decidedly unimaginative number and letter codes which are for the most part de rigueur for the modern auto industry.

The thread is an interesting browse, my own personal favourites largely come from the British Motorcycle Industry, and Michel put up a whole list of quirky Japanese named vehicles which used to be a speciality of theirs ( viewtopic.php?p=563931#p563931). Today I think Toyota have probably reached the pinnacle of the worst side of names for me...

It's here...The Toyota "lowercase b, Uppercase Z, 4, Uppercase X" aka bZ4X

Official Toyota bZ4X Brochure...July 2023 (well done Toyota for still producing one!)

https://www.toyota.co.uk/content/dam/to ... y-2023.pdf

Toyota bZ4X Brochure

See what you can come up with to add to the thread with some examples of your own best/worst names.

Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

See what you can come up with to add to the thread with some examples of your own best/worst names.

If you want something doing do it yourself

Its a long way from the Thunderbird a few posts back, and in general of little appeal to yours truly, but undoubtedly eye-catching and festooned with chrome and shiny paint.

At least it has a decent evocative name and its not called something like the Triumph XL5 2300.

No its a "Rocket"

Falcon Original

As ever the invitation is there. See what you can come up with to add to the thread with some examples with pictures hopefully for added interest of the Best/worst names.

Neil

[myglaren]

"Rosalie" is kind of hard to beat.

[NewcastleFalcon]

I'm shoving an old favorite of mine, the brown spitfire, in this thread to remind members and viewers new and old that the thread exists and is open for new contributions.

Spitfire is in my estimation the last decent name of a car which has emerged from a UK factory since the last one rolled off the production line and into the British Motor Museum at Gaydon in 1980.

Here's the brown one (Falcon Original 15.10.2023)

and here's the last one off the production line in Inca Yellow


1980 Triumph Spitfire 1500 Heritage Motor Centre, Gaydon
Mark Brown from Hampton, New Brunswick, Canada, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

Spotted a couple of Retro Style modern Triumph Motorcycles, accompanying another Retro style bike from the land of the rising sun featuring in Lights Interesting and Awful.

I'm afraid Triumph have strayed into this thread with the naming of this...and onto the awful side of the awful-interesting continuum.

The Bonneville Bobber...

falcon original

The marketing here from the horses mouth

https://www.triumphmotorcycles.co.uk/mo ... lle-bobber

"Nothing thrills like a Bobber – from its muscular look, to its award winning easy ride, now beautifully evolved. Price From £12,995.00"

Neil

[Sloppysod]

.........At least it has a decent evocative name and its not called something like the Triumph XL5 2300
Neil

Thought thise letters and numberd rung a bell...

https://youtube.com/shorts/02XBGS4ACdQ?feature=shared

[NewcastleFalcon]

I have to give Peugeot some points for actually coming up with a name, rather than a string of alpha numeric code, but this is smack in the falcon not very good, could do better category, but then again it did get a shutter click.

Nicely out of focus

Neil