.jpg)
Zoe is not the best name I've heard for a new car, even one as sparky as Renault's new battery electric contender.
Can you really see a company chairman converting to a new-age plug-in with the same name as his 18-year-old daughter? It's not exactly macho, is it? Zoe is not the worst name I've heard, with more to follow soon on that subject, but it's not exactly winning as I drive the car in a Carsguide preview in Portugal.
"No, I would not buy a car with this name," says the man responsible for recharging the cars at a coffee stop. "Do I like the name? Well, not really," admits a man on the Renault project team.
It's pretty easy to work out the way the name was created. Zoe is part of Renault's aggressive Zero Emission strategy, just like the battery-swap Fluence Z.E. that was originally planned for Australia before being canned - officially, it is 'indefinitely delayed' - when the Better Place organisation backtracked on its plan for a nation-wide web of battery-swap stations.
So, when you start with Z.E. and you want a name - well, it's easy to drop a vowel into the action. Zae, Zee, Zie and Zue are hardly standouts - although I personally prefer Zee because it's a bit like gee and whee - so you're left with Zoe.
Nobody at Renault in France seems to have considered the potential gender drawback of the name, particularly in Australia where fast nasty animals - Falcon and Mustang for a start - work well for badges and advertising.
So Zoe is coming to Australia and I'm already thinking about the ideal front-person for the car. Someone young and bright from Home and Away, perhaps? Renault says it has no intention of changing the name, in Australia or anywhere else, and that brings me to my worst-choice car name - Sassy.
Proton of Malaysia intended to tag a new baby car as the Sassy and company chief Tengku Mahaleel was a strong fan when research showed it was a hit with young women.
But Proton intended to sell half of its Sassys to men, and he quickly selected reverse gear when an impromptu lunchtime poll revealed 100 per cent of men were against the name. "I would never buy a car with that name," his son told him.
Sassy was binned the same day, right down to the badges and brochures, But the car survived. And its name? The car hit showrooms in Malaysia and then Australia as the Savvy.
This reporter is on Twitter: @paulwardgover
