My wife calls it "your silver extension".

 

Look
over
there
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My wife named her Lola. Figured she would rather name my misterest than have to guess her name.

 

Mine is black match box, the name came from my grandson, when I first got her he came in the garage holding a match box car and he said papa that looks like mine, so the name.

 

My girlfriend has a similar thought pattern - it has to do with thinking with your dick and all guys do it

 

My friend who helped me pull the trans called my Z06 "Betty" once, my plate says Mongoose... I just refer to it as "the Corvette" or "the Z"

 

She is named "Silvie" by a client (and C-7 owner) but I usually just call her "the Vette"

 

I'm lucky enough to own two Corvettes. My 2004 Coupe is the "Blue Beauty," and my 2003 Z06 is the "Yellow Peril" - or "Bee" - my wife likes that name!

 

"Roxy":





"Kayla":

 

Why do people name their cars?













Driving Miss Daisy, or Jimmy, or Foo Foo



While many of us might confess to calling our car names when it won't start or breaks down, some people give their cars pet names, even petting them like the family dog and talking to them as if they were listening.


It's called anthropomorphism, the practice of suggesting human characteristics for animals (dogs playing poker, perhaps) or other inanimate objects - like your car for instance. Cars may technically be inanimate, but we don't necessarily think of them that way.


Why is it that you might name your car, but you would never give a name to your TV set, refrigerator or your sofa?


The experts have some theories: Cars move, making them animate objects. People think cars are alive. We personalize our cars with our stuff. Cars are a thing of pride.


“Cars are certainly more personal objects than refrigerators are, and a source of more personal pride,” said Cleveland Kent Evans, associate professor of psychology, Bellevue University. “Vehicles of any kind are probably also more likely to be named simply because they move in the course of their normal use, and so are more easily to think of like they were animate objects instead of inanimate ones.”


True. But lawnmowers and vacuum cleaners move, and it's not generally acceptable to say, “I need to vacuum, will you get `Sucky' out of the closet for me?”


“People name their cars because they're `alive',” said Ray Browne, professor of popular culture, emeritus, Bowling Green State University. “People used to name their wagons and buggies, as well as their horses, cows, dogs and cats. Some even name their houses now as well as their estates and other artifacts of culture close to them. They carry this intimacy closer in their pet names.”


And even though cars are mass-produced, we personalize our cars with familiar smells, sounds and stuff like the picture of the kids taped to the dashboard or the tassel from graduation that hangs from the rear view mirror.


“I think that many of us spend a lot of time with our cars, not just driving/riding in them, but keeping them running, and counting on them to get us places,” said Ed Liebow, senior research scientist and associate director at Battelle's Center for Public Health Research in Seattle. “Many important things happen to some of us in cars -- relationships begin, grow stronger, end -- we listen to the radio or sound system and associate what we hear with powerful emotions. In short, our cars are not just utilitarian appliances. They occupy meaningful places in our lives. And despite being mass produced, they are individualized.”


Story courtesy Ford Motor Company eNews, posted Oct. 5, 2006

Considering naming a car intimates human characteristics I don't know of anyone that would allow me to sit in their lap, pick my nose and fart without some objection.

 

norcalace,
I can see where you are coming from with that information. it does make some sense as well, except for one small detail. I can get pretty personal with my refrigerator depending on what is inside of it. I have a refrigerator in my shop and I am very personal with it because that is were the beer is. As a matter of fact I am going to completely change the way I deal with it, no longer will it be a just nameless appliance, from now on it will have a name just as soon as I can think of one.
RS

 

How about Miss Budweiser?

 

I've never had a name for any sort of mechanical device. It just seems stupid.

 

My cars to me are more than just a mechanical device! It is a piece of art in the making and a big part of me. That's just me ...

IMHO if you bought a Corvette and consider it just another mechanical device, you missed the whole point of buying a (corvette) sports car!

 

If this is referring to TB1300's post I don't think it was made in a derogatory manner or a brush off of these cars as "just another mechanical device".
All cars are mechanical devices. Depending on how one perceives or reacts to a particular "device" can, in their mind, make it a piece of art.

The dictionary defines art as; "beautiful objects: beautiful or thought-provoking works produced through creative activity" Seems to fit the Corvette quite nicely to me and as we know, beauty is in the mind of the beholder. If one considers their car a piece of art then naming it isn't out of the norm. Unless one considers the Mona Lisa just another picture or the Thinker just another statue.

 

Grey Worm

 

I've never understood calling a car "her" and "she" or "he" or any other genderized pet name for that matter. My wife only calls my Corvette "your silver extension" when we are deciding which car to take. If I want to take the Vette I will usually respond by saying "bend over, I'll drive". All of this started when one of her friends said the side profile of the Vette was "somewhat phallic".

We have 4 cars these days and we call them the "Mustang", the "Vette", the "Altima". Our Ford Explorer is the only one with a special name. My 4 year old calls it the "Exploder" for reasons we have yet to determine but the name has stuck.