Taxonomy
Mythological serpents
10 entries
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Book II
Mitsuoka Orochi
Named for an eight-headed serpent that had to be made drunk before it could be killed
A small Japanese coachbuilder named its supercar after the eight-headed, eight-tailed serpent of the Kojiki — a creature so large that moss and…
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Book II
Vauxhall Wyvern
A two-legged winged serpent, sold to families in postwar Luton
Vauxhall’s badge is a griffin. Vauxhall named a car after a wyvern. For nine years the company sold one mythical beast while wearing another, to a…
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Book IV
TVR Chimaera
Lion at the front, goat in the middle, serpent at the back — which is the end you have to watch
Homer describes the Chimera as lion in front, goat in the middle and serpent behind. TVR built a Rover V8 roadster with no traction control, no…
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Book IV
SsangYong — Twin Dragons
The company was literally called two dragons and nobody in Europe ever noticed
쌍용 means “twin dragons”. For thirty-five years a company named after a pair of mythological serpents sold diesel estate cars in Britain, and the…
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Book IV
Dacia — the Draco
Named after a kingdom whose battle standard was a serpent that screamed in the wind
The Dacians carried into battle a wolf-headed windsock with a long fabric serpent’s body that howled as the cavalry advanced. Two thousand years…
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Book IV
Gilbern — the Welsh Dragon
The only cars ever series-produced in Wales, from a country whose flag is a dragon
Wales has produced exactly one series car manufacturer. Wales also has, uniquely among nations, a dragon on its flag. Gilbern built glass-fibre…
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Book V
Apollo Intensa Emozione
Named for the god who killed the Python and then took its oracle for himself
Apollo’s first recorded act on reaching Delphi was to kill the serpent that lived there. He then established his oracle on the spot and named its…
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Book VI
Iso Grifo
A griffin: eagle in front, lion behind. Both halves eat snakes.
Giugiaro drew it, Bizzarrini engineered it, Chevrolet supplied the V8, and the name is a mythological composite of the two animals most reliably…
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Book VII
Jörmungandr — unclaimed
A serpent long enough to encircle the world and bite its own tail
Thrown into the sea by Odin, it grew until it could reach all the way around the earth and take its own tail in its mouth. When it lets go, the…
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Book VII
Quetzalcóatl — unclaimed
The feathered serpent: a snake that solved the problem of the sky
Quetzal, the bird whose tail feathers were worth more than gold. Cóatl, serpent. Put together: the animal that stays on the ground and the animal…