The Detroit motor show has seen some truly inventive car names revealed, but who will complain about F-Pace and Bentayga in the long run?Whenever someone chooses an unusual name for a car, something that has happened several times with new models at this year's Detroit show, the critics go wild.
In particular, Twitter was instantly afire with derisive comments over both the Jaguar F-Pace and Bentley Bentayga (both SUVs, though different in size) when their names were revealed.
No one seems to realise that all of the conventional names (cities, animals, mythical animals, astronomical references, weather phases) were used up long ago, or are associated with defunct marques - Plymouth Fury and Hillman Hunter, to name two examples.
So, your car maker is reduced to dredging up something you've used before (Bentley Arnage), making something up (Suzuki Vitara) or going for something truly crass (Nissan Cedric, Toyota Tiara). Or for choosing some letters and numbers that have a chance of becoming iconic (Ford GT40, Datsun 240Z).
Under such difficult circumstances, Jaguar did somewhat better than Bentley yesterday. The F-Pace makes a happy and correct link with the Jag F-type, emphasises the model's on-road capability and picks up a word that resonates from Jaguar's glorious past, when the cars were all said to have 'Grace, Pace and Space'.
Bentley has given itself a steeper slope to climb with Bentayga. Oblique references to a great European forest and a huge geological feature in the Canaries hardly help. And it's a shade unfortunate that a vehicle that started out controversially (with its styling) should continue in the same vein with its name now that the styling is being fixed.
Yet we all know we'll get over it - which is why it strikes me that so must of the criticism is fatuous. The F-Pace name is already moving towards normality - who nowadays is bothered by 'RAV4'? - and the worst that will happen over the Bentayga is that when the new owner first drives it into the golf club, his friends will say: "It's a what?"
The truth is, acceptance is coming, and remarkably soon. Jibes are boring. Let's move on.
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via AGYA
