Dear Mister Jones

What’s in a name?

At one point in my high school experience, we happened upon an old 2-door, beat-up Datsun B210 that my dad was able to purchase from the owner for a whopping $50. I remember taking pride (oddly) in the fact that I had to pay more for insurance than we had paid for the car. As guys often do, my friends and I gave the vehicle a name - calling it the ‘Nuclear Tomato‘.

It had been red at one time, but by the time I was its proud owner, the finish had long since disappeared and the paint had faded to sort of a burnt orange color. It had a chalky texture to it, and if you rubbed up against it with a white shirt, you’d come away looking like you’d just been hit with a well aimed shot of Tang. It had 4 white mag hubcaps.

For anyone that was lucky enough to witness its passage, it screamed that we were at the upper echelons of lower class teenage children. Its greatest feature was the fact that it was missing 3rd gear, so we’d drive around town with the engine RPMs nearing redline all the time in second gear, and occasionally we’d quick-shift into fourth gear while passing girls so they wouldn’t be overpowered by the high whine of the engine. I don’t remember what eventually happened to the car, but it had a very short life. I think it eventually lost fourth gear as well, and I believe we ended up selling it and still making a profit on it.

When my son’s old enough to drive, I’m looking for something similar to the Nuclear Tomato. It didn’t do much for my dating life (the passenger door only opened from the inside, I just remembered that), but it increased my coolness factor with my buddies in the way that only things like broken bones, belly button lint, and never-been-washed T-Shirts can.

As far as names go, I’ve always thought that we had dibs on the coolest name ever given to a car. Saying that you were heading out to go somewhere in the ‘Nuclear Tomato’ always elicited fun responses.

Can you identify these 11 famous cars?

Here are some nicknames given to some famous movie and television cars. How many can you identify just by their name? See if you can recall where they appear before clicking to find out. FYI - 8 of these are from movies, and 3 are from T.V.

• Chitty-chitty-bang-bang
• Greased Lightning
• Christine
• General Lee
• Lightning McQueen
• Ocho
  
• Kitt
• Bluesmobile
• Ecto-1
• Eleanor
• Dragula

What other famous car’s are out there with well-known names? What are some of your better nicknames you’ve had for your own cars?