After revealing a rather challenging design for their new SUV, Bentley have found a name as unappealing: Bentayga.
There must be no poets among the senior staff at Bentley. The proposed name lacks any charm or musicality. How did they choose this name? Automotive News and others reported that the new SUV is to be named after a mountain on the Canary Islands.
“Bentley CEO Wolfgang Durheimer said the name has three sources of inspiration: the Taiga, “the world’s largest transcontinental snow forest;” Roque Bentayga, a mountain peak in the subtropical Canary Islands; and the name of the founder of Bentley Motors: W.O. Bentley,” writes Automotive News.
I feel the alliteration sounds cheesy. The repetition of the “Bent” part seems puzzling. Have Bentley run out names from race tracks to draw upon? I don’t suppose that many of the buyers will particularly care, which also means Bentley could have called this almost anything and it would still sell. The main point of this car is just that it costs a large amount of money. It ought to do quite well.
Presumably this will be added to the long list of car names used in future “top ten” list of not very good names. A Google search turned up the Chevrolet Citation, Chevrolet Cavalier, the Daihatsu Charade, Ford Probe and Studebaker Dictator. None of those seem to be quite as artless, do they?
Driven To Write 
Not forgetting the Packard Patrician. Bentayga is certainly a clunky name to anglophone ears, but maybe that’s not the point. Would any of our readers from more lucrative Bentley markets care to comment? I think a racetrack would be inappropriate but surely they could manage something that doesn’t seem tantalisingly like a crude pun or anagram just waiting for a smartarse like me.
Your main point here reminds me of the “M-x-x-x-x-O” series that became the obsession of BL/ ARG in the early ‘eighties’. Metro was good, Maestro pushing it, Montego just silly (I recall a story that they actually wanted it to me called Monaco, but then Princess Grace died in a car accident, and there was a rush to find a near-alternative …). On another point, I am not sure the repetition of “bent” is particularly clever, but maybe the nuance is harder to pick up if English is not your first language (just as it would be for me if I was dealing with French, even though I can use it quite well).
Probably because of long-term acquaintance, the negative connotation of BENTley never stands out to me, but as soon as I see BENTayga it does. I don’d find the car very stimulating so don’t really care what it’s called and, in return, I believe that BENTley don’t really care what I think. My main comment is that someone probably got paid a reasonable amount for sorting out this name and it doesn’t really work. Still, maybe it will make alliterative names fashionable and we can look forward to Mercedes Mercator, Ford Forceful, Subaru Sublime, Honda Honduras, Renault Renoir, and so on.
Actually, I think that Bentley Bastard would have worked rather well.
Bentley Bradford? Bentley Botswana? Bentley Ascona? Bentley Basel? Bentley Bentlee?
Bentley Bent-a-gay? Dearie me… nearly as bad as Jaguar’s F-Pace.
So that blows their chance of Mr Putin adding one to his fleet!
Yup… but I think he’d be too stupid to realise the connotations.
While on the subject of Mr Putin, perhaps Dr Durheimer’s thinking was that given the likelihood of Bentayga being on the frightful end of the ugly spectrum, an association with the mythical Baba Yaga was intentional to reassure their Russian customers.
Another (possibly unoriginal) thought: With this Bentayga, Bentley can once more lay claim to making the fastest Trucks in the World.
That’s ghastly – so I don’t think it matters. I don’t see anyone clamoring after it in 50 years time. To think that people criticised William Towns for his visions of the future. I’d rather have a Lagonda for sure.
I have to imagine it is no coincidence that a growing number of cars aimed at the newly-monied classes (this, the Cayman, the Panamera – I know it’s supposedly named after the Carrera, but let’s face it, it just sounds like Panama to most people) draw for naming inspiration upon places basically known exclusively as tax havens. The only question is why the manufacturers are keen to emphasise that link.
I look forward to the Mercedes Delaware and Aston Martin Jersey.