Motor cars scarred for life by their ugly names

Scanning lists of ca makes, I am surprised at some of the names used, which would not encourage me to buy cars carrying them, although I suppose in some cases these are innocent enough in the countries of origin. But cars called Crawley, Noname, Nance, Van, Spitz, Shatswell, etc, (and Astor or Churchill depending on political preference) somehow would not have appealed to me. Nor would Scat or Scar, but SCAR got away with it by using their manufacturers’ initials, from the Societe de Construction Automobile.

The 80-bore 2.8-litre 15.9hp model must have been a good proposition as these were entered frequently for Brooklands’ races in the 1910-13 period, and the BARC permitted them a Sweepstake of its own in 1911. Eventually the fastest SCAR was D Pollack’s ‘Mud 11’ (its colour, perhaps?), one of the 17.9hp 3.1-litre types, also with the Renault-style scuttle radiator and bonnet, which lapped the Surrey Track at over 80mph.

It may have been this performance which caused Carzons, of Waltham Green, London, to put one of its four-seater bodies on one of these chassis, sporting a Beatonson ‘one-man’ hood, an external hand-brake lever and a bulbous tail, none of which justified its type name of ‘Prince Henry’, normally associated with pre-war Austro-Daimler, Vauxhall and other successful Alpine Trials cars.

Unfortunately, the SCAR factory was in the wrong place at the wrong time and it was destroyed during the war. That was the end of that. Any SCAR-red memories?