Taxonomy
Production cars
18 entries
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Book I
Shelby Cobra
The word that arrived before the car did
A Texan with a bad heart put an American engine into an English roadster and then, according to the only witness, dreamt its name at three in the…
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Book II
Dodge Viper
Ten cylinders, no apology, side pipes that burned the calf of every passenger
In 1989 Chrysler showed a red concept roadster with a V10 out of a truck. In 1992 it sold that car, essentially unaltered, to the public — without…
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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
Ford Mustang SVT Cobra
A horse wearing a snake, which nobody has ever satisfactorily explained
For eleven years Ford sold a car whose bonnet said Mustang and whose flanks said Cobra, an act of zoological confusion so complete that it has…
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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 II
Dodge Ram SRT-10
A snake that can tow
Someone at Dodge asked what would happen if you put the Viper V10 into a full-size pickup. Nobody in the room said no, and for three model years the…
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Book II
Ford Torino Cobra
A large flat car with a snake on it and no intention of turning
Ford applied the Cobra name to its mid-size Torino, fitted the 428 Cobra Jet as standard, and sold the result to people who wanted the snake but…
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Book II
Ford Mustang Cobra II
A snake made almost entirely of stickers
In the depths of the American malaise era, Ford sold a Mustang with racing stripes, a bonnet scoop that led nowhere, a rear spoiler, a cobra badge…
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Book II
Ford Fairlane 500 Cobra
The cheapest way to buy a snake in 1969
Ford took its plainest mid-size body, installed the 428 Cobra Jet, deleted almost every comfort, and undercut everyone. Rubber floor mats. Bench…
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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 V
De Tomaso Mangusta
The mongoose. Named, allegedly, as an insult, and shaped like an apology for it.
Mangusta is Italian for mongoose: the small, fast, faintly rabid carnivore famous for one thing, which is killing cobras. Alejandro de Tomaso built…
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Book V
Plymouth Road Runner
Named after a cartoon, which was named after a bird, which genuinely does kill rattlesnakes
Chrysler paid Warner Bros. fifty thousand dollars for the name and ten thousand more for a horn that said beep beep. The actual bird runs down…
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Book VI
Chevrolet Corvette Stingray
A cartilaginous fish with a venomous barb. Venomous — but not a snake, and not even close.
The most commonly misfiled car in this entire subject. It is venomous, which fools people. It is a fish, which settles it.
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Book VI
De Tomaso Pantera
The mongoose gave up and became a cat
Having named one car after the cobra’s natural predator, Alejandro de Tomaso named the next one after a big cat and sold it through Lincoln-Mercury…
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Book VI
Plymouth Barracuda
Beat the Mustang to market by two weeks and has been losing the argument ever since
Launched in April 1964, sixteen days before the Ford Mustang, and comprehensively out-sold by it for a decade. A fast, toothy, ambush-oriented fish…
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Book VI
Hudson Hornet
Venomous, arthropod, and the best-handling American car of its decade
Hudson dropped its floor pan below the frame rails, called the result step-down construction, produced the lowest centre of gravity in America, and…
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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 VI
Opel Manta
A ray that does not even have the venom
The manta ray is a filter feeder with no sting, no venom and no interest in you. Opel named a coupé after it in 1970 and Germany turned that coupé…