Rolfe
Moderator
- Joined
- Apr 10, 2023
- Messages
- 10,601
- Reaction score
- 12,213
- Points
- 3,638
- Location
- West Linton, Scotland
- Driving
- MG4 SE SR
When I was a kid, my dad had a black Ford Anglia, FVA155, called Stanley. I don't remember him referring to the car as Stanley much, but that's what he told pre-school me when I asked what the car's name was. When the exceedingly elderly Stanley went (astonishingly, not to the great car breaker yard in the sky, as we found ourselves following him some time later on a trip to Millport, somewhere around Lochwinnoch, and my Dad laughed and said the rear end was still unbalanced as it had always been), we had two more modern Anglias, then an Escort (which I learned to drive on and whose clutch kept failing - no these two facts were not related) and a couple of Datsun 100As, which were most noteworthy for developing terminal rust within about three years. When Dad died, Mum traded the second Datsun in for a Polo, which she kept until her failing eyesight caused the DVLA to take her driving licence away.
None of these cars had names, except for the late lamented Stanley. I don't remember any impulse to name them.
Then I got my own first car, a Fiesta 1.1L. That was not the first car I had driven up the M6/M74 to Scotland, I'd had a couple of company cars that had done it (one of which nearly failed to make it up the Shap) and Dad's second Datsun, which he had loaned me a couple of times. The Fiesta beat them all into pulp. I was doing things I should not have been doing with the speed limit round about Draffan, coming up for midnight, when the name came to me. Miranda. "She who is worthy to be admired."
When Miranda ran into MOT trouble aged about eight and with close to 100K on the clock, she was succeded by my first boy racer, an XR2, to celebrate becoming a partner in the business. He was a boy, obviously, and simply had to be Ferdinand, to match Miranda. Ferdinand was traded in about the age of five because my business partner wanted a new car and if he had one I had to have one too, by the terms of the partnership agreement. Maybe just as well because I was sick of being stopped by cops for no reason other than that they seemed to want to tell me off for driving a boy racer. The fact that I was a 30-something woman didn't seem to come into it.
I went for a Peugeot 306 GTi6, which was even faster than Ferdinand, but because it looked like any other Peugeot 306, didn't attract the attention of cops. Sticking with the "Tempest" theme, he became Ariel. Ariel became mine completely when my business partner retired and the business was restructured. I later left and took a new job back home in Scotland where my elderly mother could come and live with me. Ariel went into the scrappage scheme in 2009 at the age of 11 and with 120,000 miles on the clock. When choosing a new car, I said somewhat sadly to my mother, I think the Peugeot is the best car I'll ever have. She said, let's get a better one then, and that's when the Golf GTi Mk 6 was acquired. He had to be Prospero, I mean, obviously.
As Prospero aged I remarked a few times that the only notable name left was Caliban, and it was looking as if my fifth car was going to cop that as a name. I was feeling a bit giddy when I took delivery of the MG4, only days after having decided to take the insurance offer on Prospero and move on to an EV, and when the dealer was binding my phone to the car and asked what I wanted to call it, I laughed and said "Caliban".
The thing is, none of the other cars were referred to by name very often. I didn't really think of them as personalities most of the time. I did occasionally talk to them, but not very often. I do remember giving Prospero a pat on the front wing when Copart came to collect him, and telling him he'd been a great car, but that's about it. Caliban, though, is taking on a personality. I don't know if this is because he's an EV whereas all the others were ICE cars, or whether (and I think this is plausible) all the little bugs and foibles are giving him a personality. The relationship seems different. I'm more inclined to refer to him as "he" rather than "it". I say silly things about getting him a fast-food meal if I take him to the rapid charger. I whimsically envisage him grazing on electrons on the granny charger, like a horse, or supping them up on a type 2.
It strikes me this is more comparable to a relationship with a pet. When you get a pet, you don't quite know what you're letting yourself in for. The pet's personality, and how their relationship with you will work out. They're all different. If your pet has a character flaw you can try to train it out of them (good luck with that, with a cat), but usually you come to some sort of mutual modus vivendi where you make allowances and if you scold the animal, you make it up again later. I think I'm starting to regard Caliban's bugs and annoyances rather as I regard my cat's occasional penchant for chewing my ankles. I'll smack him and make him stop, but then I'll give him a cuddle and we kiss and make up.
This is probably completely nuts, but it's something I was musing about, and since I can't go out riding as I was intending to do because of an injured shoulder, I thought I'd just give you all the benefit of my stream of consciousness.
None of these cars had names, except for the late lamented Stanley. I don't remember any impulse to name them.
Then I got my own first car, a Fiesta 1.1L. That was not the first car I had driven up the M6/M74 to Scotland, I'd had a couple of company cars that had done it (one of which nearly failed to make it up the Shap) and Dad's second Datsun, which he had loaned me a couple of times. The Fiesta beat them all into pulp. I was doing things I should not have been doing with the speed limit round about Draffan, coming up for midnight, when the name came to me. Miranda. "She who is worthy to be admired."
When Miranda ran into MOT trouble aged about eight and with close to 100K on the clock, she was succeded by my first boy racer, an XR2, to celebrate becoming a partner in the business. He was a boy, obviously, and simply had to be Ferdinand, to match Miranda. Ferdinand was traded in about the age of five because my business partner wanted a new car and if he had one I had to have one too, by the terms of the partnership agreement. Maybe just as well because I was sick of being stopped by cops for no reason other than that they seemed to want to tell me off for driving a boy racer. The fact that I was a 30-something woman didn't seem to come into it.
I went for a Peugeot 306 GTi6, which was even faster than Ferdinand, but because it looked like any other Peugeot 306, didn't attract the attention of cops. Sticking with the "Tempest" theme, he became Ariel. Ariel became mine completely when my business partner retired and the business was restructured. I later left and took a new job back home in Scotland where my elderly mother could come and live with me. Ariel went into the scrappage scheme in 2009 at the age of 11 and with 120,000 miles on the clock. When choosing a new car, I said somewhat sadly to my mother, I think the Peugeot is the best car I'll ever have. She said, let's get a better one then, and that's when the Golf GTi Mk 6 was acquired. He had to be Prospero, I mean, obviously.
As Prospero aged I remarked a few times that the only notable name left was Caliban, and it was looking as if my fifth car was going to cop that as a name. I was feeling a bit giddy when I took delivery of the MG4, only days after having decided to take the insurance offer on Prospero and move on to an EV, and when the dealer was binding my phone to the car and asked what I wanted to call it, I laughed and said "Caliban".
The thing is, none of the other cars were referred to by name very often. I didn't really think of them as personalities most of the time. I did occasionally talk to them, but not very often. I do remember giving Prospero a pat on the front wing when Copart came to collect him, and telling him he'd been a great car, but that's about it. Caliban, though, is taking on a personality. I don't know if this is because he's an EV whereas all the others were ICE cars, or whether (and I think this is plausible) all the little bugs and foibles are giving him a personality. The relationship seems different. I'm more inclined to refer to him as "he" rather than "it". I say silly things about getting him a fast-food meal if I take him to the rapid charger. I whimsically envisage him grazing on electrons on the granny charger, like a horse, or supping them up on a type 2.
It strikes me this is more comparable to a relationship with a pet. When you get a pet, you don't quite know what you're letting yourself in for. The pet's personality, and how their relationship with you will work out. They're all different. If your pet has a character flaw you can try to train it out of them (good luck with that, with a cat), but usually you come to some sort of mutual modus vivendi where you make allowances and if you scold the animal, you make it up again later. I think I'm starting to regard Caliban's bugs and annoyances rather as I regard my cat's occasional penchant for chewing my ankles. I'll smack him and make him stop, but then I'll give him a cuddle and we kiss and make up.
This is probably completely nuts, but it's something I was musing about, and since I can't go out riding as I was intending to do because of an injured shoulder, I thought I'd just give you all the benefit of my stream of consciousness.
