Cars are important, one way or another, to most Americans. Around the world, I imagine everyone who’s turned on a television is already dreaming of owning their own automobile. Even New Yorkers have to take a cab once in a while.
According to Clotaire Rapaille, we form our impressions of branded objects like cars, based on our formative experiences with them. If we have fond memories of riding to the Dairy Queen in a Chevy, we’ll retain a positive image of Chevys, based on that experience. If our first contact with a Ford Crown Victoria was from sitting in cuffed in the back seat after being arrested, we’ll feel a guilty twinge every time we see one, even if a geriatric grandma is driving.
This creates a problem for me when I write about my fictional car company, Univers Industries. No one has any memories to conjure while reading my stories. I can’t get past that. What I’ve done instead is create some silly brands and some that carry vague historical references to the French nobility.
Silly is easy. What car company would name a brand Seine? Are you in Seine? My other major brand is Somme. Imagine the quality ratings of Somme Rouen. If you saw Somme Brest, would you stare or blush? Another model is called Somme de Tour. You see my point.
For those of you who are geographically challenged, Somme and Seine are French rivers. Univers (French for Universe) Industries is obsessed with all things French. This is because the founders, the dela Mothes, see the car business as their ticket into the American aristocracy. Never mind that there is no American aristocracy. Never mind that the French aristocracy mostly met Mme. La Guillotine in the 1790s.
Antoine dela Mothe Cadillac is widely regarded as the founder of Detroit. In my story, the family was granted a vast tract of land in what is now Macomb County, MI. While no direct descendants bear his name, such a tract on Mount Desert Island in Maine did belong to his descendants.
The notion of an American aristocracy has not been far from the surface in our history. Slavery was an attempt to recreate the feudal society that was disappearing in Europe while America was being founded. Or look at the Biltmore estate in North Carolina. Delusions of grandeur run rampant.
Noble name recognition underlies much of branding. Henry Ford immortalized himself with that blue oval, and his descendants still cling to their patrimony. Walter Chrysler and the Dodge brothers tried to, also, but none of them left any descendants to pick up the banner.
Luxury brands have frequently tried to use noble terminology to pump up their prestige. Think Imperial and Le Baron. I use Anjou and Dauphin. The Duc d’Anjou, the Dauphin, was the successor to the French throne, while there still was a French throne. Like the Duke of Wales in England. At least he still has a job.
In my third book, Grand Designs (not published yet, sorry), an outrageous luxury car is called the Louis 16. Louis XVI was famously the husband of Marie Antoinette. They also lost their heads during the French Revolution. If a company had ever market tested the name, it wouldn’t have made the cut.
One of my favorite names graces a sports car like the Ford Mustang. It is the Cheval Piste F1. Go ahead, say it out loud as if you were Inspector Clouseau.
There are real car brands in the story, too. Frank Healy is obsessively attached to his Porsche 356 roadster because Lucy Firenze gave it to him just before she disappeared. It’s like his blankie. Even after she comes back, he follows some subliminal drive to replace the Porsche with another one after the old one dies.
And of course, the FBI lurks nearby in their unmarked Crown Victorias. Some things never change.
I use car names with a humorous twist (I hope) to make them memorable. In the end, it probably doesn’t matter, but readers have enough to worry about, trying to keep my characters straight.
Maybe I should have set the story inside GM. Then I wouldn’t have the problem.
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