Specifications for Funny Cars hardly sound funny. Machines in the Funny Cars class of the National Hot Rod Association, which promotes organised drag racing in the United States and Canada, are allowed V8 engines, a displacement of around eight litres and an output of around 8,000 hp. Pretty much delivering a hurricane, Funny Cars may evoke wonder. Probably envy in someone driving a midget car with a three-cylinder engine — that’s me. But they are not made to raise a laugh.
These machines, which put on fake bodies carefully crafted to capture the look of any of the popular marques of their times, began to be called ‘funny cars’ in the 1960s because they were the automobile equivalent of any animal with longer hind legs. Placed a bit up the chassis, the rear wheels of a Funny Car contrasted with those of a stock car. And the rear tyres of a Funny Car were bigger. Performance, not humour, was the objective of these measures.
Stepping back from such specifics and taking in the overall picture, these cars don’t strike you as funny. Some of the machines in the Sudha Cars Museum in Hyderabad are more deserving of the ‘funny cars’ tag. With functional cars and bikes resembling vegetables, sports equipment (including a football and a cricket ball), stationery items and a caboodle of other everyday things, they are whacky, a term aptly given to them by the man behind the museum, K. Sudhakar, who designs vehicles of this nature as a hobby.
The museum, which has been written about widely, is just a digression and this column is about the naming game. About cars that have not lived up to their names or tags. About cars that have, unfortunately. And about cars that have been curiously named.
Among examples readily springing to mind is Endurance, which rolled out of Coventry. This car, hailed as an improvement on the Benz around the time it was going to see the light, lasted just two years, from 1899 to 1901.
There is another car brand that was snuffed out in its infancy; but, this time, it was the case of a car living up to its name. Dewcar proved to be as transient as dew, having a run (1913 to 1914) even shorter than Endurance’s.
This unfortunately-named car belonged to a class called ‘cycle cars’, which were lightweight, economical vehicles that lay somewhere between a motorcycle and a car in terms of design, comfort and pricing. Their main attraction was the price. Cycle cars were blown out of the market when the big car manufacturers began to offer models that were easier on the wallet.
Talking about cycle cars, there was one that justified its name. Economic, in production between 1919 and 1922, was an object lesson in frugality. In the eagerness to cut costs, it was denied a windscreen, a factor that made the Economic look very different from most other cars of its times.
Moving on to the subject of cars with striking names, my amazement at how the Goliath brand of cars and three-wheeler trucks got their name, is boundless. I wonder how the name was chosen especially because it is common knowledge how a gentleman by that name fared in a single combat. But, in my opinion, Goliath, a German brand, had a decent run, doing well as long as it lasted.
Probably the best in the class of funnily named cars, is one that was named ‘One Of The Best’. It would have been more palatable if the car manufacturer had arrogantly named the machine ‘The Best’ and spared us such a long-winding modest name. Just imagine calling a car showroom with “Can I test drive One-Of-The-Best this Sunday?” There are indications that ‘One Of The Best’ lasted less than a year. The man behind this British car is reported to have been in the business of making jacks before being taken captive by the desire to produce ‘one of the best’ machines in automobile history.
The automobile field is overrun with machines whose names were thought up in a hurry, but I will stop with just one more. Esculapeus. Anyone with a taste for Chaucerian poetry will have encountered Esculapeus, a physician, on the pages of The Canterbury Tales. It was a small car made only for doctors, a fact advertised by a space in the car designed specially for their bags. Are you surprised Esculapeus the car died a premature death, lasting just one summer?
