Naming a car is probably one of the hardest things in the world to do for automakers. The perfect name should have at least one of these defining features. A.) National Characteristics, or anything that celebrates where the car is from, B.) Physical Characteristics, or anything that describes what the car is like in itself and how it behaves or C.) Something personal, such as a tribute to someone famous, such as The McLaren Senna. You'd think that ticking at least one of those boxes will be a piece of cake, and yet somehow, several automakers get it completely wrong. Now, I'm not talking about bad names in general, we've all heard about them. I'm talking mainly about cars that don't live up to their name, or in other words, cars that aren't as good as their name would have you believe. Sounds stupid, I know, but you will understand how I mean soon.
I guess we will start of with the cover car, a personal favourite of mine, the DeTomaso Mangusta. Now before you shout at me for saying it's a personal favourite, I never said any of the cars were bad. Except this one sort of is. It wasn't built very well and handled like a horse with no legs. I mean, it is old so that's expected so let me explain why it never lived up to the name Mangusta. The word is Italian for Mongoose, which is a cute ferret like animal. Straight away, that's not a good sign. But there is a reason behind their choice. A Mongoose, like a ferret is carnivorous. And one of it's favourite snacks, is a Cobra Snake. Yikes. DeTomaso's reasoning was to claim that their new supercar, was a Cobra Killer, as in the Shelby Cobra I covered last time. That's a very bold claim, considering that the Cobra was one of the fastest cars of the era. The Mangusta was fast, don't get me wrong, but it was nowhere near as fast as a Cobra, which means with all logic applied, it has the most stupid name in the world. Still absolutely gorgeous though.
Let's move on to another. When the last generation of this car was released in the mid 2000's even Top Gear made a job about it's name. It is of course The Suzuki Swift. The name is so ironic, because as you probably know, Swift is effectively another word for fast or quick, and as Richard Hammond said on TV, It just isn't. Even the Sport Version, it is not even close to the Fiesta ST or Polo GTi in terms of speed. It's not even a Warm hatch, it's barely room temperature. That doesn't mean it's a bad car though. It was incredibly light, which mean it cornered like a racing car. So any speed you lost in the straights you would make up in the bends. And it looked quite nice too. Suzuki have always had funky looks, especially nowadays with the new Swift and the Jimny, some would even say their looks are daring and maybe even risky. I like their style though. They're not afraid to go for it, and that shows confidence which I like
We probably have time for one more. Now this one is a crap car. It was built in the 1970's in the States right at the height of the American Oil Crisis. Therefore it has just 136 hp, from a 4.9 litre Engine. Ouch. The worst thing about it, is it's called the Cobra. It does not deserve that title. The Cobra Mustangs have been around since the 1960's as high performance special editions. This isn't high performance or special. It does 60 mph in a tad under 10 seconds, slower than a Brabus Smart Car. It was ugly too. It's a common opinion that the Mark 2 is the ugliest Mustang. And I completely agree. Just look at it. I feel like Jeff McAllister. "Mustang, You're Such A Disease." That was a stupid joke, I'm sorry. But it's true, it is a disease. It looks as though it came from a failed science experiment. The body kit and the Stripes don't help too, and if anything, they make it worse. The best thing I would have done in the oil crisis, is stop making the Mustang altogether, and bring it back when the crisis is over. It never deserved this treatment.