When Sir Jez Spinks returned from HSV’s big event last week with news of the performance company’s latest offering, I cringed. Not at its over-the-top design, and not even at the absence of any additional power. But… that name.
SportsCat. Not just HSV SportsCat, either. As though acknowledging that it’s not the full-bottle offering we all expect from Holden Special Vehicles, the car was instead branded as the Holden Colorado SportsCat By HSV.
But, then, I woke up this morning thinking of all the whacky names and badges and stickers we’ve seen on muscle cars in decades past. You know what I mean.
Sure, SportsCat is a bonkers name and frankly it doesn’t inspire any passion in me, but think about the Road Runner. The Superbird. The Super Bee. (Maybe AMC had already trademarked Hornet by then.)
And, look, I know the Barracuda is a damn fearsome fish, but I reckon that’s a pretty weird name for a car. It’s an ugly fish, too.
(Incidentally, I can Wiki with the best of them, and apparently the Barracuda almost wound up with the name ‘Panda’. Cripes.)
The Mustang Cobra! Genuinely iconic stuff, but a horse snake? I just searched for “horse with snake head” in Google Images… enjoy the below.
Then there’s the Mustang Cobra Jet. Part horse, part snake, and a jet sticking out its behind.
Speaking of things coming out the back end, let’s not even start with Dodge’s Scat Pack.
Ignore what all of those cars represent in automotive history. Ignore that they all have a place in the hearts of true enthusiasts, that they’re all heroes of a golden age… and just take the names on face value.
Don’t get me wrong: the Holden Colorado SportsCat By HSV isn’t a muscle car – and it is absolutely not destined to be remembered by enthusiasts as fondly as those legends of a bygone era – but as a name… it’s not the whackiest I’ve heard, even if it’s up there.
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