I named The "Merc" Connie for the simple fact that it is a true California Car, its long & lean and it's endangered like the California Condor , she has wings on her back and can cruise effortless for hours ....
Some of you hounding this thread should comment on this one: http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/11-weeks-the-bass-32-roadster-version-1-0.980108/
My Merc is named Lucille , first I like the Chuck Berry song , me and my wife like the old episodes of comedy series Lucille and when I got bugged about what kind of Lincoln I had by inept people I got tired and cut out the Lincoln script in my back bumper , Lucille number of letters just happened to fit , you might think its the other way around but that's not what happened , I called her Lucille before I figured that it fitted the back bumper ! Sorry for the blurry blowup !
I greatly simplified it out in my garage. The blue car, the red car, the black car, the roadster and the Cadillac. I didn't waste a lot of thought over it.
We called her Shelly as she's a bit of a Frankenstein's monster with all the different cars that have gone into building her
The old maid next door calls my truck "Dickhead", even hollers it when I fire it up. She must be referring to the truck, because I'm "A-hole".
I named mine "Red bowling ball Ruth". It rides about how I imagine a bowling ball to ride. My wife just calls her Ruth.
My dad had a van named Elmer after the creepy old dude he bought it from. "I never had a woman refuse me in this van." We looked but we couldn't find his handcuff anchors. It had the curtains and sound deadening. My nice Impala is sometimes referred to as "The Pretty One". It's not a name, per say, just a description. My '35 Ford project is called "Coupe Rhymes with Poop" in my head. Its a pile....
Never put much thought into naming the cars but a few did get names by Family members. Back in the 80's after selling one of my 37 Chevy's the wife and kids pushed the unfinished 37 Chopped Sedan out of the barn and wrote "Lynn's Dream" not for sale on it. I still have this car today and the Grandsons now call it "Pops Cool Car". The Grandsons also named a 58 Chevy I had "The Noisy Car". They got all excited riding through the Airport tunnel and underpasses when I would get the mufflers to rappel. They also named my old 37 Chevy Kingcab truck, what else but "Mater the Kingcab" probably because of the primer color. The littlest one loves the 56 ElCamino and calls it "Pops Elmeano".
My O/T 65 Corvair is known as " The Spousal Avoidance Unit ".........wife hates the name the build thread is out there for all to see
I think naming cars is more of custom thing and I would never actually put one on my car, but I was having conversation with some friends about my dad being a co pilot on a B-17 during WW2. He flew 35 missions on several different ones but he flew the most on a B 17 called "Hell's Messenger. The fact that he was flying missions over Europe during the time that my 40 was running around over here in the states is cool, so if I were to name it, I might use that one.............NAH, maybe not.
Way back in high school I had a 70 Plymouth Fury aptly named The Tunaboat. I still have my personalize plates TUNABOT. My current project is my father in laws 30 Chevy. It's not "officially" named but I nicknamed it The BA Coupe because everything we've done on this thing has been Bass Ackwards. We've had to take opportunities as they came so, for instance we had the body painted before the frame was finished. Nothing like painting a car and THEN mocking things up.
I get pretty Technical with mine. The 65 Pace Car is called the White Car. My Black 65 Sport Fury Hardtop is called The Black Car. The White Car:
LOL @Saxman I think that most of my vehicles usually name themselves. We called The Pusher that because it was originally planned to be a push truck. it was originally called "The Pusher maaaaan" a play on an old song by The Wolf. Guess youda hada been dere. The '55 Ford Victoria that the wife and I raced when we were kids everyone just called "The Vic" I think that tower guy started that one. Anyway like I started to say before I embarked on all this foolishness I believe that most cars will eventually name themselves if you let 'em. The name is not always politically correct unfortunately.
I named my skid steer Case1816 "Pogo", My 72 Comet has Merc72 for a plate so I guess that's its name and although it says Comet GT on the side stripes people say nice maverick..My Crosley is Crosley because thats what the plate says but hardly anyone knows what a Crosley is so they ask if its foreign...My shoebox is Speedo cause thats what the plate is; a few people have asked if my real name is Mr Earl..
Seb Way better to call your car speedo then to get caught wearing one. My old bike gets called Night Creature Too, my first Harley got dubbed The Night Creature because I was working second shift and it got ridden more at night then in the day time. Most of the time its just the old scoot and occasionally it is called things that are not suitable for a family forum.
Most of the high school cars in my town in 1962 had names painted on them.. I moved to another town 120 miles away with my parents in '63 and none of the high school cars had names! Weird.