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Stories about naming a variety of Mopar cars and trucks
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0:00
hi this is Dave again and now we're
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going to talk a little bit about how
0:03
Chrysler names its cars and it's a
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little weird how they do it sometimes
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the results aren't always great and
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there are some funny stories along the
0:12
way or at least stories I hope that
0:14
you'll find funny so let's Dive Right In
0:17
we'll start with a name that famously
0:18
they had to drop very quickly the Dodge
0:21
Demon which was named by the Dodge sales
0:23
department according to Bert bamp
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because they envisioned an ad that said
0:28
come in for a demon
0:31
demonstration religious groups objected
0:33
to that and so the name was dropped
0:35
there are a lot of stories about how the
0:37
Valiant was named including a contest
0:39
for customers Al Bosley who was in
0:42
charge of body engineering remembered
0:44
that the Plymouth Chief's secretary who
0:47
he later married submitted the Valiant
0:49
name in the National naming contest
0:51
which was open to everyone she wasn't
0:54
really planning to enter but she was
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reading the Sunday comics saw Prince
0:58
Valiant made a connection with what a
1:00
valiant person is thought it would be a
1:02
great name and turned it in the Chrysler
1:05
C300 on the other hand was named after
1:07
the 300 horsepower it had and the name
1:09
stuck for a bunch of letter cars like
1:12
the 300b D and E
1:14
afterwards I don't know how they named
1:16
the Barracuda but the joke was that if
1:18
it had come just a little earlier we
1:20
would have called Pony cars fish cars
1:23
instead of course it would have had to
1:25
be a bit more popular like the road
1:27
runner for example now the Road Runner
1:30
story you probably all know already Jack
1:33
Smith originally wanted to call the car
1:34
the CK for a Clark Kent hit the gas and
1:37
the mild maned reporter becomes
1:40
Superman however the Ad Agency wanted to
1:42
name it the lancha after the man of
1:45
lamancha a Broadway musical now uh Smith
1:49
then brought up a name originally
1:51
thought up by Gordon Cherry roadrunner
1:54
and he got the idea based on his kids
1:56
cartoons and there was silence at the
1:59
table and suddenly one man from the ad
2:01
agency's art Department started to
2:04
shake and everybody just stopped and
2:07
watched and suddenly he sat up and said
2:10
God I could really do a lot with that
2:12
and it was the Road Runner I don't think
2:15
it requires a great deal of thought to
2:17
figure out where the Charger Daytona got
2:19
its name but then of course you had the
2:21
Dodge Daytona just plain Dodge
2:24
Daytona which I suspect was named that
2:27
because of the similarity in the front's
2:30
appearance to the Charger
2:32
Daytona then we have the royalty Bend
2:35
and that starts with the 1933 chryler
2:38
Royal which is of course quite Royal and
2:41
then we move on we get the Imperial
2:43
Crown a lot of this heats up with the
2:46
1939 visit of the House of Windsor the
2:49
monarchs of England and that brings out
2:52
the Chrysler Windsor a name which sticks
2:54
around for quite a while uh Imperial of
2:58
course being quite Royal
3:00
goes on with the theme and then Dodge
3:02
starts in and they get very Royal indeed
3:06
from their uh logo to the Royal
3:09
Monaco and you have both Chrysler and
3:12
Dodge having little crowns all over
3:14
their cars which starts getting a little
3:16
bit silly and then you've got instead of
3:19
the Chrysler Royal you have the Dodge
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custom Royal the custom Royal Lancer
3:25
that is which is a Dodge and not a
3:27
Chrysler despite the name because has
3:30
always been a little careless with their
3:31
names next we have the hotel Series so
3:34
we've got the Plymouth seavoy to begin
3:37
uh the famous British hotel we get the
3:40
badier although the badier was probably
3:43
named for a golf course and not the
3:46
hotel you also get the plaza which
3:48
definitely was named after the hotel and
3:52
the Dodge St Regis which was probably
3:54
named after the hotel but might have
3:56
actually been named after the stud Baker
3:58
St reges
4:00
although that was a long time before so
4:04
right now we're just looking at a badier
4:06
and then a St
4:07
reges and then of course you have the
4:10
local areas so Cranbrook Cranbrook Drive
4:14
Concord Street and Cambridge Avenue were
4:16
all in the same suburban area and the
4:18
cranbook school in Bloomfield Hills was
4:21
a private school which hosted many
4:23
Executives children at school for girls
4:25
Kingswood got its own export model
4:28
later and finally we have Ram an entire
4:32
division of a company or at least an
4:34
entire brand of a company named after
4:37
its own hood ornament which was
4:40
sculptured by avar T Fairbanks during
4:44
the Depression and at the time there was
4:46
no Dodge Ram but that hood ornament
4:49
which was created in return for getting
4:51
a new Dodge ended up as the inspiration
4:55
for Dodge's ramt and then for the entire
4:58
Ram brand
5:00
which is pretty impressive although not
5:02
entirely unheard of since Mitsubishi is
5:05
a direct translation for three of those
5:08
little shapes that are the logo of
5:11
Mitsubishi and Subaru is sort of kind of
5:14
named for its logo as well anyway so
5:18
that's me that's a bunch of mopar names
5:21
if you have more please send them in or
5:23
send in comments and let me know
#Chrysler
#Dodge
#Ram Trucks
#Volkswagen
#Motor Vehicles (By Brand)