Last week, I sold my BMW 328iS. Selling a car is not exactly a major event, but this one felt different. I’ve only said goodbye to four cars in my more than 20 years of car ownership, but this time something wasn’t right. For the first time, I didn’t care. I didn’t feel bad about it. I still think about the cars that came before it, but not this one. What was the difference?
This was the first of my cars that didn’t have a name.
Each of my other cars has had a name, starting with Betsy the Celebrity and ending with Barry the Honda Civic. Why Barry? Because it’s blue, of course.
If you’ve given your car or truck a name, you’re in good company. A recent survey from Carfax found that 42 per cent of Canadians have named their vehicle. Nearly half think their car has a personality, 60 per cent say their car is more than just another appliance, and two-thirds have special memories involving the family car. I have to assume the rest didn’t have a family car.
My life is full of special car memories from childhood. A blown radiator hose on a trip through Fundy National Park. More than one 360-degree spin on an icy highway (including one on an emergency trip to the hospital). With trunks of memories still to come, to borrow a line from songwriter and famed car namer Neil Young.
None of those family cars had names. My parents seem to have stopped naming their cars right around the time I (and then my siblings) were born. Is that a coincidence or were they just too busy with three terrors running rampant in the back seat of said cars? I’m afraid to ask.
An informal poll showed that my friends have some wonderful names for their cars. See Marvin the Marvelous Toyota Matrix and a Dodge Caravan named The Macho Van Vandy Savage. Some names come from the car’s features, like an old big-headlight Volvo called Dolly. Others, just like any terror, see their full names dragged out when they’re in trouble. Jojo the Jetta becomes Josephine when the check engine light is on.
Why do we name our vehicles? A survey from AutoNation some years back said that if you give something a name it’s because that something means something to you. A name signifies importance as well as your closeness to the vehicle. That study was done for National Name Your Car Day (Oct. 2 if you are marking your calendar), which is a great day if you’re on the fence about an automotive appellation.
We’ve named horses for centuries, ships for as long as they’ve been afloat, and it’s only natural we do the same for our cars. Even if sometimes those names are Cary McCarface, Elantra the Third, or, for a troublesome car, words that can’t be printed in a publication such as this one. It brings us closer to them.
That closeness is why some people refuse to name their cars. One friend told me they feel guilty enough letting cars go as is. They couldn’t imagine the feeling of selling or sending one to the junkyard if it had a name to go with it. It’s not a faithful dog, but it’s not that far away from that either. A sled dog that drinks 87 octane gas instead of kibble.
I asked my wife her thoughts on why cars got names because she has been the one who gave all of my cars theirs. She said it’s better than just “the car.”
“It makes your car feel like a friend instead of a tool,” she said. Which would normally make me feel even more upset about selling a vehicle, but somehow not this time.
Why didn’t this last car get a name? I bought the near-classic BMW 10 years ago, after all, and it was the first car I ever drove around a racetrack.
“Cause he ain’t my friend,” my wife said, cutting to the heart of it.
What’s in a name? Nothing and everything. I’ll defer, once again, to my wife: “You can’t name the car right away,” she said. “You have to get a feel for it. At least one nice drive.” My first ever drive was in my first car, the second put me in the hospital on day one (don’t drive around in New Brunswick in February with the windows down), the third was the one we used to explore Nova Scotia.
My not so dearly departed BMW 328iS? The first drive started badly and got worse; our relationship never recovered. No matter how much of my blood, sweat and tears went into making it work.
It was a relationship that was bad for both of us, and while I won’t miss you, unnamed car, I do wish you well. I hope you find a name.
Rocking names
As he wrote in his 2014 book “Special Deluxe: A Memoir of Life & Cars,” Canadian-born musician Neil Young has named quite a few of his vehicles. Among them were a 1948 Buick Roadmaster hearse named Mort Hearseberg, an electric 1959 Lincoln Continental named Lincvolt, a 1948 Continental christened Abraham and a 1964 Mini Cooper S called Norge.
SANTA MONICA, CA. – NOVEMBER 3, 2014: 1959 Lincoln Continental “Lincvolt” during the opening of a show of Neil Young’s art, watercolors and prints of iconic automobiles at the Robert Berman Gallery, Bergamont Station Arts Center in Santa Monica on November 3, 2014. (Photo by Anne Cusack/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
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