These cars are women

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French and Italian automakers are probably easier to do than we German-speakers: in their language, the car is basically female. That’s why it’s called “La Ferrari 308” south of Gotthard or “La Renault Floride” west of Röstigraben. On the other hand, German usage requires that we always give cars male names unless they have female model names.

We tracked the feminine models among our cars. Motorcycles are always referred to as women. That’s the name of Kawasaki, Ducati and Honda. If I drive a BMW car then I sit in it One BMW – but I drive when I’m in BMW’s motorized two-wheelers One BMW.

Probably the most famous example of a women’s car the But Alfa Romeo Giulia the giulietta To be recognized by the spelling of brand names here, cars are masculine in German. Legend has it that in the early 1950s, the people in charge of the Alfa Romeo brand were mocked for saying, “You have eight Romeos but no Giulietta.” It was talking about the Verdi opera “Romeo and Juliet” – but you quickly realized that Juliet’s tiny Italian form would fit in a car.

Chevrolet’s Corvette is named after a small, maneuverable warship called the Corvette. Since ships were often called female—Titanic, MS Helvetia, and Queen Elizabeth—this was also true of cars: General Motors was desperately looking for a name for a new Chevrolet sports car in the 1950s—and a worker found the ship. Names in a dictionary.

The Citroën DS got its name by accident: the D-series was internally referred to as “D’s” in the plural – which is pronounced “De-Es”. Over time, Citroën probably noticed the linguistic similarity with the French word “la déesse” meaning “goddess”. This pun was later adopted as the model name for the D-series from 1955 to 1975. Today DS Automobiles is a separate French car brand of the Stellantis concern.

The inspiration for the Viper’s design was 1962’s Shelby Cobra – again female, by the way. Conceived 30 years later by a Fiat Chrysler Automobiles subsidiary, then-chief designer Tom Gale (79) was looking for a snake-like name to align his new model with the Cobra. Gale met the famous Italian automobile designer Giorgio Giugiaro (84) one day and asked him for an Italian snake name. Giugiaro replied: “Vipera” – voilà, the Dodge Viper was born.

The iconic 1955 kiss has many nicknames – but the name Isetta is just as well known. After the Second World War, BMW was in a crisis. In 1953, when the Iso Isetta was introduced by Italian mobile phone manufacturer Iso Rivolta at the Turin Motor Show, BMW purchased the license to manufacture the mini mobile phone in hopes of increasing sales and revenue. They called it the BMW Isetta, which was a minor form of the Iso and was therefore always given a female title.

The Elise was introduced at the International Motor Show (IAA) in Frankfurt (Germany) in 1995 by Romano Artioli (90), then owner of Lotus and Bugatti. Artioli named the two-seater roadster after her granddaughter Elisa, who was then two years old. Last year, the final Elise Sport 240 of the “Final Edition” in Championship Gold went to Elisa Artioli (30).

Founded in 1955 by Jean Rédélé (1922-2007), the French sports car brand Alpine is named after Rédélé’s victory in the 1954 Alpine Rally in Austria. Alpine models are female due to their French origins. The models, which were taken over after the cuts made by the Renault group in 1978, started to be produced again under the Alpine name as of 2017.

Japanese coupes produced from 1970 to 2015 have their name originating from the Romance root of the language. “Caelica” means “heavenly” in Neo-Latin – this is probably where the feminine article comes from. It’s not a very common word in Spanish – “célica” translates there as celestial, and Toyota has adopted Spanish roots as its official pedigree.

Source: Blick