There was a time when car names rolled off the tongue as naturally as the cars themselves rolled off the line. Golf. Mustang. Polo. Enzo. One word, and you instantly knew what kind of car it was and what it stood for. These weren’t just badges to me, they were components of a language innate to us all, one that carried character, memory and intent for the machine in your hands; they became shorthand for concepts like freedom, practicality and, most of all, fun.
Today that language seems as near extinction as Esperanto. Most badges now read like WiFi passwords or serial numbers: BMW iX3, Volvo EX30, or Lexus UX 250h. Even cars that still have names tend to bury them beneath a paragraph of trim titles – I give you Land Rover’s Range Rover Evoque 2.0 TD4 E-Capability 4×4 HSE Dynamic, a masterclass in the art of sounding self-important while being meaningless.
As a young driver, I grew up knowing Golf and Polo as the sort of names that built empires. They were simple, human and impossible to forget; now every brand seems to speak in marketing code. Those combinations of letters and numbers never stick with you. What you remember is how hard they are to recall. Somewhere along the way the art of naming got lost in translation, between global marketing teams, trademark lawyers and the urge to sound futuristic.
