Axon's Automotive Anorak – Clarkson myth busting

Proof? Well, upon spotting a Kia Cee’d in a pub car park the other day, a friend of mine exclaimed ‘that’s the only car to use an apostrophe in its name’ as Clarkson has endlessly proclaimed.  He’d picked the wrong guy to mention this woefully incorrect ‘fact’ to!

Like much of the inaccurate motoring nonsense that has fallen from Clarkson’s lips over the years, the ‘Star in a Reasonably Priced Car’ Kia Cee’d follows a line of passenger car makes and models to have used an apostrophe in their name.

Consider the D’Yrsan, for example, a delightful French cycle car manufacturer, first seen in 1923, and who could forget the beautiful Touring-bodied Alfa Romeo 1900 Villa d’Este coupe of the early 1950s?!  Incidentally, obscure Italian coachbuilder Introzzi revived the Villa d’Este tag for its bespoke and expensive Fiat Ritmo/Strada and Lancia Delta-based models some years in honour of the glamorous Italian vehicle concours venue.

In 1962 early versions of the world’s first production mid-engined sports car – the Rene Bonnet D’jet – used an apostrophe, placed there to ‘force’ the local French buyers to pronounce its name as the exotic, high-tech sounding ‘jet’. The apostrophe was dropped for 1965 when Matra took over the production of this pioneering and sadly overlooked coupe (said with feeling, as I’ve owned one of these for over 20 years!), and as Djet exports grew, the model was finally re-named Jet from 1967 onwards to make more sense outside of its country of origin. Beach buggy pioneer Bruce Meyers also used an apostrophe to amusing effect on his late ‘60s Tow’d dune buggy.

In the 1970s the French KVS Gad’jet microcar unusually used an apostrophe mid-name, and in more recent times, a raft of passenger car boot lids have been graced with an apostrophe. These include the hilariously ridiculous SECMA Fun Tech Extr’m and Weez d’Eon French ‘voitures sans permis’ models, plus the Daewoo d’Arts (the Ital Design-styled city car, which ultimately became the first-generation Matiz), the Honda That’s (a Japan-only small MPV, supposedly named by Honda as ‘that’s the car I want!’), and the odd Mercedes-Benz-esque Filandi Ever’s sports car, later rebranded as Ever-S.

Oh, and before you ask, the name Cee’d is a strange Kia abbreviation of proceed and succeed, with the nomenclature of the sporting three-door ‘coupe’ derivative being the even more bizarre Pro_cee’d, with an underscore connecting the Pro and the cee’d elements of its name. And cars named using an underscore?  Now Mr. Clarkson please take note, as they are really are rare...!