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When you want your car to sound fast, sleek, powerful, and maybe cute as well, you name it after an animal.
Animals Named After Cars
When I first pitched the idea for this article I was told, to my surprise, that animals were not, in fact, named after cars, and it was instead the other way around. Imagine my embarrassment! In fairness, who has ever heard of a Tiguan before the Volkswagen Tiguan, anyway?
Carmakers have four basic choices when naming a new vehicle. First, they can try a celestial name like Comet, Nova, or Taurus. This connotes progress and a brighter future, with just a sprinkle of sci-fi dystopia mixed in. Next, carmakers can use geographical locations in the American southwest like Santa Fe, Tucson, or Telluride. I, for one, can’t wait for the upcoming Hyundai Truth or Consequences.
Another option is alphanumeric names like the 300 SL, 911 RS, or GV70. Some of these reference engine displacement or the car’s intended purpose or derivation. However, Infiniti model names are clearly the result of a panicked marketing team who misplaced their thumb drive moments before the big presentation and decided to just wing it. Also, points to Elon Musk for sticking with Tesla’s immature acrostic of model names: Y, 3, S, and Cybertruck.
Of course, the best thing to name your car after is an animal. People love animals: so long as they are cute and slowwitted like panda bears or fearsome and live very far away, like Kodiak bears. Animal names imbue a vehicle with the qualities of said animal. You want tough? Try Wildcat. You want fun? Try Lark. You want a fire-breathing mythic bestial hodgepodge? (Sure, you do!) Try Chimera. British carmaker TVR did, and it was awesome!
Just to prove that animal names are the best names for cars, we’ve scoured automotive history for the greatest cars named after animals. Here they are.
Cars Named After Birds
Bird names lend themselves perfectly to cars, they conjure grace, lightness, and speed. The Pontiac Firebird and Ford Thunderbird are mythological/folkloric creatures, adding an air of the supernatural. The Studebaker Lark and Datsun Bluebird are friendly, carefree titles. Some carmakers leaned on the names of predatory birds to make their cars sound aggressive, even when they weren’t. The AMC Eagle and Ford Falcon as two such examples.
The Stutz Blackhawk backed up its cool name with exclusivity and real gold trim, even if it didn’t look as elegant as an actual hawk. The Plymouth Road Runner gets double points since it wasn’t just named after a bird, it was named after a cartoon bird, as evidenced by its Warner Brothers-approved decals. As for the Ford F-150 Raptor, that name references the dromaeosaurid dinosaur velociraptor, not the family of predatory birds that includes owls, eagles, falcons, and hawks. We must assume RAM meant Tyrannosaurus Rex when they named their Raptor equivalent the TRX. Because calling it the T-Rex would have sounded immature.
Cars Named After Farm Animals
Ford sure liked naming their cars after horses. The Bronco and Mustang evoke unbridled power and a spirit to roam free. The Ford Pinto was named after a horse that was named after a bean. Mitsubishi has their own equine interests with their long-running Colt nameplate. Porsche’s recent experiments with giving their cars actual names rather than numbers resulted in the inscrutable Taycan, a portmanteau of two Turkic words that combine to create “the spirit of a young horse.” We forgive you Porsche, you’re new at this.
As much as Ford was obsessed with horses, Ferruccio Lamborghini was more obsessed with bulls. He named a lot of his cars after famous Spanish fighting bulls or breeds of bulls including the Islero, Urraco, and Urus. Today, the RAM brand doesn’t emphasize its connection to daddy sheep all that much but look back at the ol’ Ramcharger and you’ll find one of the greatest hood ornaments of all time. Though you won’t often find one in a barnyard, I filed the Citroën Méhari in this section because Méhari is a breed of racing camel, hence a domesticated animal, with a name perfectly befitting the rugged SUV.
Cars Named After Wild Animals
Wild animal names have been especially popular with carmakers thanks to their flexibility. Need a spirit animal to give your new vehicle just the right character? Wild animals have you covered. The Impala sounds like a lithe, fleet of foot lowrider bouncing on hydraulics. The Rabbit is adorable, amorous, and quick. The Volkswagen Fox, sold in South America, was as clever and attractive as a subcompact can be. The Triumph Stag was regal (even if it’s terrible V8 was anything but). The Chevy Bison is a truck every bit as heavy duty as it sounds, likewise the Chevy Kodiak.
Big cat names have been among the most popular. British carmaker Jaguar named their company after the very un-British jungle predator (admittedly, Vole wouldn’t have worked as well). Ford liked the Mercury Cougar name so much they called another car the Puma. Then there was the Chevrolet concept car, the Cheeta, the Porsche Macan whose name is Indonesian for tiger, and the Sunbeam Tiger itself.
Like the Brits with the Jaguar, Fiat chose the very un-Italian name Panda for one of their cars. Rounding things out is the Mercury Sable. The Sable is a north Asian mustelid relative of the wolverine and badger. Though less recognizable, it was probably better than calling it the Mercury Weasel.
Cars Named After Fish
Not all fish names work as car names. That is why the Buick Mackerel never saw a second generation (it never saw a first generation, but I digress). Better was the Plymouth Barracuda, a sleek reef predator of incredible speed. Even faster than the Barracuda is the Marlin, the fish, not the car. The Marlin car was a short-lived coupe from Rambler/AMC.
Hyundai named their compact coupe the Tiburon, Spanish for shark, which was probably the coolest thing about that car. Opel used the Manta name for their 1970s coupe, which they’ve brought back for a new EV concept car. GM already had a fondness for rays with the best fish car name of all, the Corvette Stingray.
Cars Named After Bugs
Typically, ants, bees, hornets, and other creepy crawlies are associated with old barn finds, not new cars. However counterintuitively, bug names have done very well for some cars. The Volkswagen Beetle, one of the best-selling cars of all time, is a visual onomatopoeia of its name. The Hudson Hornet doesn’t in any way resemble an actual hornet, but points for the alliteration. Bees are both cute and can sting, but the Dodge Super Bee muscle car got its name from its B-body platform before it got its cartoon bee logo. Even sweeter was the Datsun Honey Bee.
Not to leave out the arachnids, somehow the Spider/Spyder name became synonymous with convertible tops and has been applied to all sorts of European sports cars from Audi, Porsche, Ferrari, and Fiat. And while the Fiat 500 Abarth is named after the automotive designer Carlo Abarth, the car’s logo features a scorpion.
Cars Named After Reptiles
Reptile names have clearly been underutilized by carmakers. The Shelby Cobra combined a superbad car with a fittingly superbad snake. And when Dodge wanted to build a car that harkened back to the Cobra, the Viper name was a natural fit. Porsche, again still (somewhat) new at this, chose the Cayman name for the coupe version of the 718. Yep, that’s an intentional misspelling of caiman, a South American relative of the alligator. With the clear success of these names, I’d like to see carmakers try out other reptile names starting with Basilisk, Taipan, and Loggerhead Turtle (okay, maybe not that last one).
Cars Named After Imaginary Animals
So potent and powerful are animal names that carmakers have expanded to using imaginary animal names as well. Dodge keeps it infernal with the Demon and Hellcat, perfect for cars that might take you to the other side. The AMC Gremlin was a cheeky name referencing small monsters known for causing mechanical problems, buyer beware. The Geely China Dragon and TVR Chimera go mythological while the Volkswagen Tiguan goes full Island of Dr Moreau and creates an iguana/tiger hybrid. And while those all sound cool/terrifying, it’s the Bronco Raptor that sounds like the most blood-curdling, bone-chilling beast of them all.
