Eight cars named after dogs | Axon’s Automotive Anorak

By way of celebrating this different and exciting new Goodwood event, this week I thought I’d try to find a common lead (groan!) between dogs and cars, as the latter often take their naming inspiration from nature and animals. Sure, there is an abundance of cars named after birds, marine life, equine, cats, insects, and even various members of the deer family, but finding a car/canine connection is not as obvious as I first thought.

Following a long paws for thought (with the help of Rufus, above, a GR&R office regular), beyond the dog cart style of coachwork popular in the early pioneering days of motoring, plus of course the miniature Corgi scale model toy cars such as the famous 007 Aston Martin DB5 with the missing ‘baddie’ under the sofa from the ejector seats, my leads revealed surprisingly few dog-related motor cars. There was the Pup, an obscure rear-engined sub-200cc microcar, built in 1947 in the USA, of all places! But Hey Ho. So, here’s a handful of canine-related historical tails to go fetch…

AC Greyhound

More familiar as the dog-inspired name of the celebrated North American coast-to-coast coach service, the swift Greyhound has also inspired the nomenclature for an obscure 1950s American Ford sedan model trim level, plus a rather more appealing so-named English 2+2 GT sports coupe.

First revealed by Thames Ditton-based AC Cars at the infamous 1959 London Motor Show at Earls Court (where the Mini, Z-back Ford Anglia, Triumph Herald, Jaguar Mark 2, Citroën Bijou, plus numerous other now legendary cars made their British debuts) AC’s Greyhound was launched as a larger, more practical 2+2 sibling of the marque’s glorious Aceca twin-seater hatch, a stylish hardtop coupe derivative of the open-roof Ace that ultimately spawned the legendary AC/Shelby Cobra V8.

Powered almost exclusively by the wondrous Bristol 2.0-Litre straight-six 105PS (77kW) motor (unlike the Aceca which was also available with its own aged in-house AC engine, plus Ford Zephyr 2.6-litre motors), the AC Greyhound shared its rigid tubular steel chassis underpinnings with the Ace family, employing aluminium for the majority of its coachwork, with fibreglass used for the Greyhound’s bulkhead, rear seating pan and rear wheel-arches.

More expensive when new than its prettier Aceca sibling, the Greyhound attracted just 80 buyers over its short three-year lifespan, this capable but underrated AC undeservedly proving to be something of a sleeper in the collectors’ car field until quite recently, with values today still considerably more affordable (at c.£88,000 for a scarce concours example) than an equivalent Aceca-Bristol, valued well in excess of £200,000 in similar condition.

As an amusing twist in the tail (or should that be wag?!), when Réseau Chardonnet, the French AC importer, presented the new Greyhound model on its stand at the 1960 Paris Salon, the 2+2 GT was re-branded as ‘Levier’ (French for greyhound), as if to reinforce our Continental cousins’ loathing of using English words in the French language, such as le weekend, le sandwich, and so on…!

Hillman Husky

First seen in 1955 as an estate car version of the Commer Cob panel van, the friendly Husky was a more versatile three-door derivative of Hillman’s long-lived (1932-1970) Minx four-door saloon, the best-selling mainstay of the sizeable Rootes stable of Hillman, Humber, Singer and Sunbeam branded cars. Sensible, reliable and loyal, like the husky dog that inspired its name, this functional and honest small Hillman estate measured just 12-foot (3.66 metres) in overall length, based on a truncated wheelbase of the original Raymond Loewy-styled Minx Phase III of 1949, but with a more austere specification.

The Husky remained an affordable and useful long-lived workhorse version of the Minx, proving particularly popular with farmers, dog breeders and small business users in its day. With gradual improvements and mild cosmetic changes made in parallel with its Minx master, in 1967 the Husky name was transferred across to an estate version of the Rootes Group’s talented but troubled Scottish-built rear-engined Imp, when the Loewy Minx was finally replaced by a more-modern William Towns-designed ‘Arrow/Hunter’ square-cut model range.

The Imp Husky was short-lived, failing to enjoy the same popularity as the earlier Minx-derived estates, this model being dropped by Chrysler (Rootes’ new owners) by 1970. With 36.5PS (27kW) on tap, the lightweight 1967-70 Husky gave a more lively performance than its arch-rival Mini van range, but with hairier handling. Its rear-mounted Coventry-Climax-based 875cc OHC engine was cleverly slanted to create additional cargo space over the ‘regular’ Imp saloon, making the final Husky a surprisingly spacious estate car for its boxy compact external dimensions.

Aston Martin Bulldog

What other name could be more fitting than Bulldog for a truly British supercar concept? Tough, purposeful with distinctive looks that only its mother could love (or father in this case, with its origami design penned by Aston Martin’s in-house stylist William Towns), the mid-engined Bulldog prototype was a highly-effective calling card to announce to the world that the often financially troubled and precarious Newport Pagnell prestige sportscar maker and its Tickford coachbuilding division were still alive and kicking (if not especially flush with cash at the time).

Originally code-named project ‘DPK901’ internally at the early stages of this ambitious programme in 1978, this mouthful quickly became shortened to ‘K9’ in-house, the abbreviation making its ultimate public-facing Bulldog name all the more inevitable and appropriate. Powered by Aston Martin’s own 5.3-litre V8 engine, mounted mid-ship for the very first time in the marque’s history, the dramatic gull-winged Bulldog prototype was a memorable follow-up concept to the equally arresting sharp-edged Lagonda prestige four-door saloon of 1976.

With the vision of creating the ultimate supercar, the Bulldog’s small development team were tasked with achieving a 200mph-plus maximum speed for its theoretical 862PS (634kW) mid-engined twin-turbo V8 ‘dream car’ to usurp the top performance exotica of the day, such as the Lamborghini Countach and Ferrari 512BB, neither of which could better 186mph despite their Italian manufacturers extravagant claims to the contrary.

Following its jaw-dropping public reveal in 1980, Aston Martin planned to set and break and some new performance records with its one-off Bulldog prototype. In May 1981 the Newport Pagnell team set up camp at the MIRA motor industry test facility in Nuneaton to go record-breaking. This prototype soon settled into an effortless (and impressive for the period) 176mph, on its way to its near-200mph goal. Sadly this was never achieved due to various factors, chief of which was yet another change in Aston Martin’s management (a frequent occurrence back then), which had its sights set on more immediate and realistic matters to help build and sell its actual production models! 

By way of extreme contrast, in the early 1980s the Bulldog name was also used for a very traditional British pre-war-style Morgan-esque Roadster. Successfully offered by Yorkshire/Sussex kit car maker Pilgrim for around a decade, the self-build Bulldog Roadster utilised a choice of Morris Marina and later Ford Cortina running gear to power its simple ladder frame chassis and GRP bodywork.

Colani Whippet

Fast, lithe and efficient, a whippet should be the perfect inspiration for a compact, lightweight and uncomplicated sportscar designation, yet surprisingly to date this agile hound’s name hasn’t been widely used within the automotive sector.

Conceptually, the closest and possibly most appropriate car to be named Whippet first appeared in 1962. Created by the then-35-year-old avant-garde industrial stylist and visionary, Luigi Colani, this low-slung tear-drop-profiled Colani Whippet open sportscar (initially known as the Colani GT Spyder) was based on a standard Volkswagen Beetle platform, employing either a rear-mounted Volkswagen or Porsche 356 engine. By 1964 Colani had added a Perspex roof with gull wing doors to his GT, renaming the model Whippet to mark these worthwhile modifications, the model evolving into the Colani RS by 1970.

Rolling the clock back almost 50 years earlier, from the mid-1920s onwards for a few decades, independent American mid-size vehicle maker Willys-Overland adopted the Whippet name for its four- and six-cylinder engines and some sedan models, using a running whippet dog in full ‘flight’ as a fetching mascot mounted atop the rounded grille of its late-1920s sedans. The robust side-valve Overland Whippet engine proved to be so dependable that it was fitted into the original WWII Willys Jeeps, with Whippet motor production continuing into peace time in some civilian Jeep models well into the 1960s.

Ferrari Berlinetta Boxer

Okay, I might be cheating a little here as the full nomenclature of this exciting and exotic 1970s mid-engined Ferrari was the BB (Berlinetta Boxer, initially tagged fully as the 365GT4BB on its 1973 debut, growing into the 512BB from 1976), the ‘Boxer’ element of the name inspired by the model’s unusual flat-twelve horizontally-opposed ‘boxer’ engine, rather than a boxer dog!

As a late-comer to the mid-engined exotic supercar game (discounting the handful of road-going 1960s 250LMs built for competition homologation purposes), Ferrari’s first mid-ships supercar was unusual in dropping its legendary jewel-like V12 engine in favour of a more compact horizontally-opposed flat-12, as found in the BB. This innovative Boxer engine went-on to also deliver loyal service in the BB’s extravagant 1980s Ferrari Testarossa successor.

A few other vehicles have also used the Boxer name, possibly after the sub-nosed dog, rather than exotic hi-tech flat Boxer engines. In the early-1990s a promising little Mini-based Boxer mid-engined barchetta kit car showed real potential, which unfortunately never came good, and more recently, the more familiar Peugeot Boxer van has made the pug-nosed dogs’ name more commonplace!

Bedford Beagle

Bedford was General Motors’ British commercial vehicle arm of its large Vauxhall passenger car division, extant for around 70 years from 1925, building a number of Vauxhall-based light commercial panel vans for business use, as well as heavy trucks.

Such was the case with the Bedford Beagle, a stripped-out, no-frills ’passenger’ estate car version of the very long-lived Bedford HA , a light panel van derivative of the slab-sided 1963-66 Vauxhall Viva HA saloon. Friendly and inoffensive, like a beagle dog, the Bedford Beagle was officially the only passenger car model ever to be sold under the Bedford banner.

Launched in 1964, and defunct by 1973, the boxy HA van-based Beagle was built/converted by GM/Vauxhall’s favoured coachbuilder, Folkestone-based Martin Walker (which also made a number of ‘regular’ estate car conversions for standard Vauxhall models such as the range-topping Cresta).

Honest and unpretentious, the fully-trimmed Bedford Beagle’s van roots were all too apparent on the road with a hard ride and oversteer-prone skittish handling, with performance proving to be predictably lethargic and lazy, but loveable, just like a beagle dog.

Terrier 1172 Formula

Terrier dogs are tough and tenacious, the ideal qualities required for a successful competition car. Perhaps this was the inspiration for Len Terry of Thornwood in Essex, when he created his first racing car in 1959, the Terrier. Debuting as a 1172 Formula racer with a spaceframe chassis and aluminium bodywork, the first Terrier competition car was successfully raced by Brian Hart in the formative 1172 Formula. Further Terrier racing cars followed, including a competitive Formula Junior single seater and F1200 racer. Although now scarce and largely forgotten, a modified Terrier racer is still a common participant in current 750 Motor Club competition.

A more commonplace four-wheeled Terrier was the Leyland Terrier truck, a British HGV (plus an Australian-produced V8 HGV derivative of the 1970s British Leyland lorry). Using a locally-adapted 4.4-litre version of the celebrated Rover V8 engine Down Under, originally modified by Leyland Australia for use in its promising (but tragically short-lived) Leyland P76 sedan and Force 7 coupe range, the Sydney-built Terrier truck used a 133PS (98kW) derivate of the V8, distinguished by red rocker covers. This modified Leyland Australia Terrier engine would go on to be adapted to Land Rover applications, ultimately leading to British Leyland officially fitting the Rover V8 motor into pre-Defender Land Rover 110 V8 4x4 models in the UK in the early 1980s. 

Rover

Surely no quick summary of cars inspired by canine names would be complete without a Rover! Traditionally Rover has been one of the most commonplace names given to a pet dog in the UK, and I’m sure we’ll see quite a few ears pick up with attentive dogs coming running when ‘Rover’ is casually shouted out at by at least one of the attendees at Goodwoof in May!

The genesis of Rover was as a very successful and influential maker of pedal cycles in Coventry in the late 19^th Century. Rover inevitably progressed into motorised vehicle production, building its first passenger car in 1904. From then on, until this once great and respected British car marque’s eventual and sorry demise 101 years later in 2005, Rover created and built some of the UK’s most admirable, dependable and innovative motor cars, concluding with its final model, the refined, understated and underrated Rover 75 of 1999.

Decades before this, pre-war, Rover rapidly built an enviable reputation of producing reliable and robust cars for the respectable British upper-middle classes, such as doctors, accountants and bank managers, with the occasional out-of-character distraction, such as the experimental rear-engined Scout entry model of 1920s.

Post-war, Rover emphasised its steady if initially slightly staid image by launching successful long-lived models such as the dignified and robust P4 (1949) and stylish P5 (1958), with its inspired (and Company-saving) Land Rover 4x4 first appearing in 1948, this latter followed by Rover’s game-changing Range Rover in 1970. Ahead of this, Rover astonished the world with its technically advanced P6 2000-3500 in 1963, and introduced its famed ex-GM V8 engine in 1967, the year it lost its independence by being absorbed by Leyland to form the sub-Jaguar prestige marque part of the broader British Leyland (BL) group the following year.

The BL era was sadly when the rot set in, with Rovers becoming ‘ruff’, increasingly starved of investment, quality, pride and regular suitable new products; it’s once proud reputation painfully and unfairly allowed to deteriorate over time. This was amplified by new models such as the SD1 of 1976, a model which held huge promise on paper, but failed to deliver in reality with constant poor quality issues. The later Rover 800 (jointly developed as Project XX with Honda) was an improvement quality wise, but the car lacked the appeal of the SD1, and subsequent genuinely good Rovers, such as the 600 and 75, offered too little, too late, although they could certainly not be considered to be dogs!

So, rev, rev and woof woof, see you at Goodwoof in May…

Ferrari image courtesy of Bonhams, Rufus image by Alex Benwell.