Man, this was hard. Cars are named for many things—animals, cities, letters, and numbers jammed together, stupid made-up focus-group non-words, emotions, planets—but one category of thing they’re almost never named after is food. Or beverages. But I prefer a challenge, so I attempted to search out every car named for something you’ll eat or drink. Here’s the menu.
Before I get to the list, some rules. First, I’m not counting any animals or fish. So while you’ll eat a Mustang or a Scarab or a Marlin, those don’t count as food/drink-cars. Also, I do know Sbarro is the name of a Pizza chain and maker of falconry vehicles, but I’m not counting them, either.
What I’m counting are names that come from food, beverages, fruits/vegetables, spices, that kind of thing. Stuff you routinely cram in your mouth, masticate or swallow, then develop into a mix of more you and a few wastes, which you expel. By the way, when the time that your car that is named related to the food you like gets in a pinch, contact towing Santa Clara for quick roadside assistance. Now, let’s get started.
1. MGA Developments Hot Dog
This odd but fun-looking little Ford Fiesta-based one-off is a variety of sort of a Speedster version of the Fiesta and appears pretty fun. It’s also the car that inspired me to start out this list because the name Hot Dog is so perfect and wrong all at the identical time.
It’s a three-seater! British, from the late ‘80s. If you had a laptop and this car, you’d just about need to use the Windows Hot Dog Stand theme.
2. Nissan Cherry
This is probably the foremost common of all cars named for food. Outside of Japan and some other markets, it had less delicious names like Pulsar or F10.
3. Porter
To your grandparents or geeky friends who love crappy old television, this might be the foremost famous beverage-named car: a 1928 Porter, which was the start of a deeply weird 1960s TV program that supported the concept that dead humans re-incarnate as just about anything, including cars. It’s generally accepted that the show was terrible.
But, for our purposes, a porter could be a beer, so mom the car counts.
4. Sage
A Parisian maker of cars from 1900-1906 was Paul Sage. They used two- or four-cylinder engines from a variety of manufacturers, and I like that round radiator. Also, sage may be a spice, and you’ll eat it.
ALSO READ: 8 Enjoyable Food Games for Kids
5. Suzuki Cappuccino
The Cappuccino is perhaps the second-most common food- or beverage-named car, after the Nissan Cherry. The Cappuccino is both a fun little Kei-class roadster and a sort of espresso coffee drink.
6. American Chocolate
Yep, that’s right: an organization named American Chocolate once made some cars. Later, the corporate changed their name to Walter, after the owner William Walter who may have—somehow—found that customers were confused by a car made by a corporation called American Chocolate. I know, right?
7. Toyota Crown Royal Series
Crown Royal is booze, right? So, I say this works.
8. Nissan S-Cargo
If you needed yet one more reason to like Nissan’s strange and wonderful Pike Factory line of cars, here you go. The famous snail-like small cargo hauler, the S-Cargo, is called punished for escargot, the French dish of cooked snails.
I can’t believe there are even nine of those. That’s far more than I would’ve guessed. Still, I’m probably missing some, so if you recognize any cars named for food or drink, stick them within the comments.