Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Gentlemen, this is the EM-50 Urban Assault Vehicle

Car names can tell us about ourselves. They're a sort of fun-house mirror for our culture. Ford's got the Explorer, Excursion, and Escape, so you can pretend you're driving across the savanna on your way to buy milk and oreos. Cadillac appropriately named its entry in the escalating land yacht arms race the Escalade. But Nissan, oh Nissan, their names say much. Remember when they were Datsun, pumping out little econoboxes? Not any more. A couple days ago, I looked over at the behemoth parking next to me and it was a Nissan Titan. Then, just today, a Nissan Armada muscled past. (I guess you need an Armada for those times a lone land yacht just won't do?) Leave it to a company from another culture to cut to the chase: forget the fake "take a trip" names, and just name them after big things.

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