Flights of fancy?
In seeking inspiration for car names, manufacturers sometimes look skywards to see what’s fluttering around up there.
Sometimes this can work well – often enough, in fact, that we’re able to present you with an alphabetical list of 21 cars named after birds.
There are other possibilities, but with self-control verging on the austere, we’ve applied strict rules.
We’re only including cars built in the 20th century (so no Aston Martin Cygnet), official model names (so no Austin Seven Swallow) and real, not mythological, creatures (so no Pontiac Firebird).
Enjoy!
1. AMC Eagle
Introduced in the 1980 model year, the Eagle was essentially the same thing as the contemporary AMC Concord, but with greater ride height and four-wheel drive.
This was an unusual concept at the time, but it previewed much later cars like the Audi allroad, Volvo Cross Country and Volkswagen Passat Alltrack.
In 1987, American Motors Corporation was taken over by Chrysler, which turned Eagle from a model name into a brand name.
There are several estimates of how many species of eagle exist in the natural world, but most authorities agree that the figure is at least 60.
2. Brasinca Uirapuru
The Uirapuru was a limited-production Brazilian sports car powered by a 4.3-litre Chevrolet straight-six engine.
Its shape, and particularly its wraparound rear window, are strongly reminiscent of the Jensen Interceptor, but the Jensen was introduced in 1966, the same year the Brasinca was discontinued.
Brasinca was based near São Paulo, where there are several places (including a country club) called Uirapuru, though this is also the name of a municipality about 800 miles inland.
However, a uirapuru is also a South American bird otherwise known as the musician wren. David Marques, who published an excellent study on Brasinca in 2014, states that this is what it was named after.
3. Buick Skylark
Buick first used the Skylark name in 1953 for one of three expensive and flashy halo convertibles produced at the same time by General Motors brands, the others being the Oldsmobile 98 Fiesta and the Cadillac Series 62 Eldorado.
The name reappeared in the 1961 model year, and was used almost continuously from then until 1998 (though with a three-year gap in the early 1970s).
There are a great many birds called lark, but only two called skylark, and they’re both in the Alauda genus.
These are the Eurasian skylark and the slightly smaller Oriental skylark, which generally lives further to the east and south, though there is an enormous overlap of habitats. The non-skylarks in the genus are the white-winged lark and the Raso lark.
4. Ford Bantam
Two generations of Bantam were produced by Ford for South Africa in the 20th century, the first based on the Escort and the next on the Mazda 323.
Like the later, Fiesta-derived version, they were small pick-ups, intended for customers who did not want or need a larger truck.
Their size is reflected in their name. In a non-motoring context, a bantam is a breed of fowl (mostly chicken but sometimes duck) smaller than another breed to which it is closely related.
This is not a universal definition, though. Some bantams are small breeds in their own right, rather than miniature versions of others.
5. Ford Falcon
The North American Ford Falcon was introduced in the 1960 model year, and built both on that continent and in Australia.
After US production came to an end a decade and three generations later, Ford Australia used the name for its own versions, which lasted until 2016.
In Argentina, the original Falcon was updated many times, and was still being built as late as 1991.
In zoology, the term covers many birds of prey, not all of which are known individually as falcons. Peregrine falcons have been recorded flying at speeds of 200mph or more – well above the top speed of any Ford with a similar name.
6. Ford Thunderbird
The Thunderbird started out as a two-seat convertible, but became substantially more popular when Ford began fitting four seats from the second generation onwards in 1958.
All Thunderbirds from then until 1997 were four-seaters. Ford returned to the original layout with the final, and not very successful, model produced from 2002 to 2005.
There’s good reason to believe that the cars were named after a type of mythological bird described by several indigenous North American communities.
Interesting though this is, it doesn’t in itself qualify the car for inclusion here. However, we’re allowing it because some extinct species of Australian flightless bird are known informally as thunder birds.
7. Humber Hawk
Although there was a great number of Mark and Series names, the Hawk was actually produced in just three generations from 1945 to 1967.
The first was a reworking of the pre-war Hillman 14. Headlights and front wings which stood proud of that car’s structure were incorporated into a new body in 1948, and a completely different version was produced from 1957 to 1967.
As for the birds, hawks come in various sizes (though they are generally smaller than, for example, eagles) and can be found in most parts of the world.
The word ‘hawk’ is sometimes used to describe birds which are not hawks, including the fish hawk (osprey) and the duck hawk, which is neither a duck nor a hawk but our fast-moving little friend, the peregrine falcon.
8. Humber Snipe
The original Snipe was a four-door luxury saloon with a 3.5-litre straight-six engine.
Later Snipes, and Super Snipes (pictured), generally occupied the top of the Humber range until the brand became submerged within Chrysler Europe in the late 1960s.
There is no obvious connection between any of these cars and the ‘real’ snipe, which is a short-legged wading bird with a long bill ideal for capturing small invertebrates.
For completeness, we should add that a snipe hunt is an American game in which a victim is tricked into searching for a usually imaginary animal, but rarely, if ever, an actual snipe.
9. Hupmobile Skylark
Since we’ve already explained what a skylark is, we can concentrate here on the short-lived Hupmobile of that name.
It was derived from the fascinating 810/812 model produced by the Cord company, which went bankrupt near the end of 1937.
Hupmobile acquired the rights and developed its own version, removing such exciting features as retractable headlights and front-wheel drive on the grounds of cost.
The project failed, leading to the collapse of Hupmobile. The very similar Graham-Paige Hollywood was no more successful.
10. Kissel White Eagle
Wisconsin-based Kissel built cars from 1907 to 1930, when it was forced into bankruptcy by the fallout from the Great Depression.
One of its last models was the stylish White Eagle, which was powered by a 4-litre Lycoming straight-eight engine.
It was clearly named after a bird of prey, but which one? The less likely of the two possibilities is that it refers to the white-tailed eagle, though this is not found in the Americas.
The bald eagle, however, is. It’s not actually bald, but has a white head. In zoology, the word ‘bald’ is used to describe part of an animal with white hair, fur or feathers, and not necessarily one with bare skin.
11. Nissan Bluebird
Although there are suggestions that the name was used as early as 1957, Nissan says that the original Bluebird was a small saloon introduced in 1959.
Production of cars called Bluebird continued into the very early 21st century. The version sold from 1986 to 1990 (pictured) was the first model produced at Nissan Motor Manufacturing UK’s plant near Sunderland, Tyne and Wear.
Bluebirds are members of the thrush family. There are three species, called Mountain, Western and Eastern.
All are found only in North or Central America. If, as Vera Lynn sang in 1942, there really were ‘bluebirds over the white cliffs of Dover’, they must have been horribly lost.
12. Plymouth Road Runner
Road Runner was the name of a series of muscle cars produced by Plymouth from 1968 to 1980.
The most exciting version was the Superbird, one of the Aero Warriors which dominated NASCAR racing for a brief period before the regulations were changed to ensure they could no longer do so.
Roadrunners are members of the cuckoo family found in the southern United States, Mexico and Central America. Although they can fly, they are better known for being able to run very fast, but not (despite the impression conveyed by the Warner Brothers cartoons) as fast as coyotes.
Another name for the roadrunner is chaparral, which was used for several extremely innovative race cars developed, and often driven, by Jim Hall.
13. Pontiac Sunbird
The Sunbird was a compact car produced in three generations from the 1976 to 1994 model years, with a pause between the first and second in 1981, after which it was known briefly as the J2000.
Sunbirds were usually powered by relatively small four-cylinder engines, though there were occasional exceptions.
In nature, sunbirds live in Africa, Asia and parts of Australasia, and feed mostly on nectar. There is some doubt about how many species there are, but the figure is generally agreed to be more than 140.
As far as we know, there is no bird, or any other living creature, called J2000.
14. Reliant Robin
The Robin was a glassfibre-bodied three-wheeler produced in three generations from 1973 to 2002, though with a long gap in the 1980s.
It was absolutely, categorically, never, ever called Robin Reliant, except by people who like to talk backwards, and that is all we have to say on the matter.
In some parts of the world, the most famous robin is the one which often appears on Christmas cards, but there are many other varieties. Some, like the American robin, are actually thrushes, while Australasian robins are part of a separate family.
None of the above are to be confused with the sea robin, which is a fish.
15. Riley Kestrel
The original Kestrel of 1933 was a four-seat saloon, one of many varieties of the Riley Nine which had first appeared four years earlier.
The name was then used for other cars in the 1930s (including the 12/4-based example pictured here), and brought back for a version of the extremely popular ADO16 saloon from 1965 to 1969.
Kestrels are birds of prey, and they are all types of falcon.
However, biological research in recent decades has led to the suggestion that the American kestrel, though definitely a falcon, might not actually be a kestrel, or at least not closely related to kestrels found in other parts of the world.
16. Simca Aronde
The Aronde was Simca’s first post-war design, and its first car not based on a Fiat.
The French word aronde is sometimes translated as ‘dove’, possibly because a dovetail joint is known as a queue d’aronde.
Against this, aronde is the Old French version of today’s hirondelle, which means ‘swallow’.
Further evidence in support of the swallow hypothesis comes in the form of Simca’s original logo, which included a stylised bird – from the tail alone, it’s clear that the design was inspired by a swallow, and definitely not by a dove.
17. Studebaker Hawk
Humber and Studebaker rarely appear in the same sentence, but they both named cars after birds, and were both inspired by the hawk.
Humber produced its original Hawk first, but Studebaker hit the ground running in the 1956 model year, when it launched the Flight Hawk, Golden Hawk (pictured), Power Hawk and Sky Hawk.
The Silver Hawk arrived later but lasted longer, and was latterly known simply as Hawk.
The last car in the series was the Gran Turismo Hawk, which was discontinued in 1964. The Packard Hawk of 1958 was also part of the family, though it did not have Studebaker badging.
18. Studebaker Lark
The Lark was a rather strange-looking car offered as a saloon, an estate, a coupé or a convertible.
US production lasted only from 1959 to 1963, but Larks were also built in other countries (including Australia, Canada, Israel and New Zealand), in some cases up to 1966.
There are many varieties of lark, and they are found in most parts of the world, though only rarely in North America or Australia.
As with other birds we’ve already mentioned, not everything called a lark is really a lark. The lark sparrow and lark bunting are both sparrows, and the magpie-lark is a monarch flycatcher.
19. Stutz Blackhawk
In 1928, Stutz Black Hawk could refer either to a briefly produced sporty roadgoing model, or a completely different record car of the same name partly funded by Stutz, and co-designed and driven by Frank Lockhart.
In the following two years, Stutz sold the modestly powered and fairly inexpensive Blackhawk (pictured) without applying its own name to it, though the identity of the manufacturer was made clear in contemporary advertising.
Perhaps the best-known Blackhawk was the personal luxury car designed by Virgil Exner and sold in small numbers from 1971 to 1987.
There are four black hawks in nature, known as the common, the great, the mangrove and the Cuban.
Classifying them has not been easy. The Cuban is now considered to be a species in its own right but was once thought of as being a sub-species of the mangrove, which in turn has come to be regarded as a sub-species of the common.
20. Suzuki Swift
The current Swift was introduced in 2017, but Suzuki has been using the name for four decades.
It was originally applied to export versions of the Cultus, a small hatchback which first appeared back in 1983.
There are more than 100 distinct species of swift, but all of them are noted for feeding on insects, which they catch in (often extremely rapid) flight.
Unless you’re a bird specialist, it can be difficult to tell if those things whizzing above your head are swifts or swallows, but in fact they are not connected even at the order level. Swifts are far more closely related to hummingbirds than they are to swallows.
21. Toyota Tercel
Along with the Corsa, which was basically the same car sold through a different dealer network in Japan, the original Tercel was Toyota’s first front-wheel-drive production car.
A tercel is the male of any species of falcon (or, according to a more tentative suggestion, any bird of prey). The name is unofficial, and appears to derive from the Latin tertius, meaning third.
It could have been chosen because only one in three falcons was believed to be male, or because males are about one-third smaller than females, but there doesn’t appear to be much conviction behind these arguments.
In a press release announcing the arrival of the Tercel in 1978, Toyota said the name was chosen “to conjure up images of such a bird soaring through the sky on strong wings”, though for a car with an 80bhp 1.5-litre engine, this was perhaps a little ambitious.
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