What’s Next? The Ford Fricative? Saab Sibilant?

I happened to be stopped in traffic the other day and I got behind a Range Rover Velar and I was thinking who in the world names cars after linguistic terms like Velar. I was so puzzled.

I came back home and I looked it up.

And actually, those Range Rovers, I’m sure everybody knows this but me, those Range Rovers are called Valars, V-E-L-A-R.

And it’s derived from the Italian word Valare, which means to veil or cover.

Because when they created the prototype for this particular type of Range Rover, it was very, very, very secret.

Aren’t all new cars secret, though?

They camouflage them in weird ways as they drive them on public streets.

Right. Don’t they call those ghost cars or something like that?

Yeah, but I don’t know why this one was more secret than others.

I don’t either.

And, you know, I had this nice drive home where I was thinking of what other linguistic terms could we use to name cars?

The Ford uvular.

A nasal instead of a nasal.

A nasal.

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