Encyclopedia Hoonatica: Arthropod Vehicle Names

By Peter Tanshanomi Feb 22, 2016

EH-arthropods
Humans generally do not look kindly on invertebrates. Creepy-crawlers with a surplus of appendages are, for the most part, unattractive and undesirable to have around. But there are exceptions. Insects and spiders bite, sting, can carry disease, carry venom. And, as we all know, any creature that is badass enough to inflict pain and potentially kill you is marketing gold.
Since most people are a bit fuzzy on the differences between insects, arachnids, and crustaceans — and don’t realize that a centipede is none of the above, I’ll open up this discussion to all Arthropods, which is basically any animal with a hard exoskeleton and six or more jointed legs.
The Caveats (there are always caveats):

  • Manufacturers’ marques, model names and trim lines are all fair game. Slang, nicknames, and marketing imagery are not.
  • The names of concept cars, race cars, one-offs and stillborn prototypes are only allowable if it was an officially-bestowed name by a recognized automotive manufacturer, kit car builder, or styling house.
  • Cars, light and heavy trucks, motorcycles are all fair game. No boats or airplanes, please.

Difficulty: As easy as getting bit my a mosquito on a summer’s night at dusk.
How This Works: Read the comments first and don’t post duplicates! Bonus points for adding photos.

By Peter Tanshanomi

Tanshanomi is Japanese [単車のみ] for "motorcycle(s) only." Though primarily tasked with creating two-wheel oriented content for Hooniverse, Pete is a lover of all sorts of motorized vehicles.

104 thoughts on “Encyclopedia Hoonatica: Arthropod Vehicle Names”
  1. The Mantis was a kit car made by Marcos of the UK. Both the 1970’s Mantis and the 2000’s mantis had a fiberglass body and tube chassis, the the newer Mantis was equipped with a supercharged 4.6, and the old a rover 3.5 v8. Mantis is definitely a fitting name for the first generation car…

    1. I know I’m true to myself when I wonder wether the blueprint got wet just before tooling was ordered, every single time I see that original Mantis.

  2. Can we talk about the Spiders and Spyders on this page?
    The convertible car known as a spider isn’t really a call-out to the arthropod. Instead, it comes from the horseless carriage age, when a small and light roofless carriage was known as a “speeder”. If you spell that phonetically in most other European languages who didn’t suffer the same Great Vowel Shift that English went through from the time of Chaucer onwards, it becomes “spider” or “spyder”.
    /someone is wrong on the Internets…

    1. I included the Monza Spyder because Chevrolet plastered an eight-legged decal on the hood. That qualifies the car despite the spelling/term origin.

      1. Sure, but it’s a mashup. Kind of like how Pontiac also confused a roast chicken with a majestic beast of mythology…on two different cars.

  3. View post on imgur.com


    Kind of a distant cousin to a motorcycle, the Garelli Mosquito was one of the many auxiliary engine used to turn bicycles into cyclemotors during the 50s.
    Fun fact : before becoming a bike manufacturer, Ducati also made a similar engine, called Cucciolo (puppy), and even before that they built radios !

    View post on imgur.com

      1. It should be obvious that that thing does NOT have a Hemi… Although in your picture it seems to have thrown a rod through the block.

        1. No matter whether it’s taken as evocative of the lifespan of an airborne adult or simply broken down to its component syllables, naming an aircraft “mayfly” is just asking for trouble.

    1. My grandpa used to call the family farm’s skid-steer loader a doodlebug, for reasons that have never been entirely clear to me.

  4. Pontiac Firefly, also fits the category “American badged vehicles which were differently American badged solely for the Canadian market”.

      1. Geo didn’t make sense as a domestic brand either. In most of the rest of the world Metros simply were Suzukis and Subarus (even with 4WD), don’t know why they had to invent Geo just for the American market.

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