BlackLOG - The naming of cars

A new car brings with it many decisions, not least of which is do you give it a name? Our recent record in this field has not been great. Our red Mini was almost called Little Red Rooster, after the Rolling Stones song, which morphed into Rooster Booster, after the racehorse. Sadly, shortly after selecting the name, the racehorse dropped dead, the name rather died with it and the Mini went back to being known as just the Mini. (If I thought this would work again I would call the car 'FIA Committee').

I remember that during my childhood we had some cracking names for cars. The first car that I really remember was a wonderful black VW Beetle, called Bessie. Bessie Beetle, as a name it worked and really suited the car. Sadly, for some unexplained reason my father had Bessie sprayed bright orange. Bessie became a shadow of her former self, never really recovered from the appalling paint job and had to go.
Poor Bessie never got over her orange paint job and went into a sad decline

The replacement was a beautiful bronze coloured Cortina Mk III, which we named Boadicea, after the Iceni warrior queen and pronounced, properly in my opinion as:

Bow – der – see – er

Not this new fangled abomination of spelling and pronunciation, Boudica

Boo – Dic – car

The next car was a white Austin Maxi. Again my father made a mystifying choice here which probably eclipses even the choice of the orange paint job. (aside 1) Right up until the last minute we were getting an Audi. Even as a young boy I realised just how bad a choice my Dad had made. My Dad was a devout West Ham fan and the monstrosity of a motor was named Bubbles after the Hammers’ theme tune. It turned out to be more like Bubbles from Ab Fab. We lost the appetite for car-naming after this.

My sister took up the naming mantel and had a couple of successful car names. The first being a beautiful dark blue BMW 3 series convertible called Ralph. Not sure why but it just suited the car down the ground. Then came “Sooty” a little (i.e original style) black Mini. Sooty was a real character and managed to get my sister into a number of scrapes. Like the time Sooty was rear-ended by a car driven by a gentleman of, let’s say “foreign” persuasion. As the police arrived my sister exclaimed “Look what they’ve done to Sooty” it took her a while to talk herself out of that statement I can tell you….. The next run in with the police, fortunately a different officer, was for speeding. As the policeman took down my sister’s details he made the mistake of asking “Is this a company car madam?” “I don’t bl**dy think so” shot back my incensed sister “I’d be doing pretty badly if it was.” If memory serves me, the policeman let my sister and Sooty off with a warning, while my sister let him off with his life….

The only successful naming of a car that I have managed belonged to Mrs B’s Mum. It was a bright green Austin Allegro,which Mrs B had the dubious “privilege” of driving. As soon as I saw it, I christened it “The lime green, snot machine”. The name instantly became the best thing about the car. While I was given a lot of grief at the time, the name has stuck and the car is fondly remembered as such (not something, which would have ever happened without the name). I fear that is the high point of my car-naming career and I suspect I will never match it.

In summary, car naming should be a natural process. If a name arrives out of the stratosphere and fits, so be it, but there is no point in trying to force it. A forced name for a car just won’t stick and it should be remembered that many cars go through their entire lives without a name and seem to survive the experience. With this last bit of worldly wisdom still ringing around in my ears, I have narrowed the choices for our BMW’s name down to either:

BM - which can stand for either the Black mobile or Bat mobile (aside 2) or;

DK – in keeping with the Batman theme standing for Dark Knight. I suspect DK sounds better without its Batman association.

Don’t worry, I have ruled out “Sexy Black Beast” as a name. For one, most people already have a bad enough opinion of BMW drivers (I have experienced this first hand and can tell you it is a lot harder to get a full blown BMW into traffic than a Mini). The main reason is that I just could not face the police if I was involved in a similar accident as my sister and Sooty. Trying to explain the statement “Look they’ve rear ended the Sexy Black Beast” to the nice police officer might prove a bit of a challenge, even for me ….

I’d love to know what car names some of you have had over the years, so go on let those dark secrets out, you know you want to. Besides it can prove very therapeutic and might save some of you an expensive trip to a shrink in later life…….

"DK", "The Black Mobile" or any none rude alternative that one of you comes up with. Your votes could decide the destiny of the cars name. Please be rest assured any emails you send will raise absolutely nothing for any money grabbing charities, especially and I want to make this very clear, any worthwhile ones like the make Mr and Mrs B richer or the Mr & Mrs B deserve an expensive holiday fund



----Dr BlackLOG and Nurse B have left the building. Feel free to vote for our new car name or send us your own car names for diagnostics and possible ridicule, if they prove to be particularly “interesting” by emailing me at Niel.Black@ntlworld.com or using the comment button at the bottom of the page.----------


Breaking news
Please note the car naming lines have now closed, the votes have been cast and the results verified. Any entries made from now on will not count but you may be charged. (Oh god, I’m sorry, Strictly,is back and as Mrs B is going to be glued to the goggle box for the next few months I have to start getting into character, in order to survive the onslaught). The new car name is………..

Big drum roll….
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Dancing girls…..
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Big trumpet Fanfare….
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Zzzzzzzzzz, Oh sorry I must have drifted off in all the excitement....
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Dancing bears ……
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Hang on in there it is coming, even if I am over-egging it a bit…..
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The name is.......“ElleGee”

(“Woo hoo……” said Mrs B, clearly with little real enthusiasm)

The name is taken from LG, the first two letters of the number plate which has been taken to one side, mugged and given a good working over with a special BlackLOG style spelling. It also stands for “Lazy Git”. Since ElleGee is only a 1.8L (look, I was really pushing the upper reaches of my Company Car Scheme for my grade, the air was getting pretty thin up there I can tell you. There was certainly no room for more power, which is probably just as well for my driving licence’s sake), you really need to push ElleGee to get performance - whip and spurs optional - but when you do it is rewarding. Probably more importantly than the former part of this paragraph, using the first two letters of the number plate makes it hard even for me to forget the name. Now all I have to do is try and make it stick, despite Mrs Bs evident "enthusiasm"……






























(1) OK, my Dad was one of the few people in the country to go for a Betamax video recorder. It may have been technically better then VHS but since you could only hire about 5 movies that would play on it, it was a complete waste of time. There was also the incident where he returned home with a doorbell that played 32 of the naffest tunes known to man but that was such an horrific experience that the full story has been sealed behind the provisions of the BlackLOG Family Official Secrets Act for at least the next 150 years.
Like some Russian military equipment left over from the Cold War. The Sony C7 may have been built to with stand a nuclear strike but was certainly no 'From Russia with Love', sadly this is another example of one of the many films not available in the "extensive" 5 film Betamax library.(Return to text)






























(2) Yes, yes, how far behind the times are we, having only just got around to seeing the, not so new, Batman movie. The delay was because it has taken me this long to get reasonable seats at the IMAX theatre. It was worth the wait, however, as this was an incredible, almost mind-blowing experience. A giant bat dressed as a man and the size of a building swooping towards you - you really don’t want to get too close to that screen. I rightly judged that being any closer than the back row would have seen Mrs B hurling like an extra on E.R.
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