vanster

Stupid question, while 40% of car owners have a name for their cars, why to so many refer to their 928's as "her"?

SeanR

Only a woman can give such pleasure while being such a picky and finicky bitch at the same time.

martinss

I'm sure this will spark a few comments. It could be physical - have you looked at the rear? Or it could be financial/physical - like having a mistre$$.

Of course most of the people on this board are male. I wonder what gender female 928 owners ascribe to their cars? I know my wife thinks of E-types as male....

the flyin' scotsman

its the love/hate thing

Mike B

Perfect description!

Jadz928

Similar to boats... cars and women, we give our hearts to them. And they reward us with pleasure.

RKD in OKC

She for cars comes from boats and ships. In european languages items have grammatical gender like he or she instead of it. The word "ship" is feminine. At one time all ships were christened dedicating them to a goddess for protection and given a female name. This gender association has carried over to cars. The word "car" is feminine in French.

Mongo

I consider a monstrous V8 an 'it'. Monsters cannot be sexed, but feared.

rlich8

Many men do this. I don't. I don't think there's anything particularly wrong with it but I certainly don't understand it. I think for many guys a car is likened to a woman.

For me it's just a beautiful harmonious machine to be used with great care and precision, and in turn I'm rewarded with some of the greatest benefits of the laws of physics.

Avar928

Anthropomorphism, or the attribution of human qualities upon non-human entities, is typical of an emotional investment in that particular object, set of objects or craft. Gender specification is likely gender influenced, as in males referring to the entity as a "she" while females may conversely refer to the object as a "he". This also may be routed in sexual parallels between the sleek aerodynamic curves of a car's exterior to the sensual lines of a healthy woman at her reproductive peak. This is more evident when considering that the car body and or frame as an entity is generally referred to as "she" irregardless of whether an engine is present or not (e.g. "She doesn't have an engine", "She's just a shell", "She's a work in progress", etc...). As an aside, psychologists have traced that the preference of the color red in general is also due to signs of reproductive health. Freud may, however, note latent undertones of the Porsche 928's manual shifter and boot which itself is largely phallic in depiction.

hacker-pschorr

Women too, my wife names all the cars and so far they all have female names.

One exception would probably be if we ever get a Volvo. Even the new ones conjure up images of a college professor with a long beard, smoking a wood pipe with suede patches on the elbows of his sport coat.

Imo000

+1. Naming cars is an American thing. Canadian culture is very close to the American so this got coppied too.

vanster

When your 928 brakes down on the road, would you say
"She has failed to proceed" or would you say "the car would no longer proceed" ?

Also I am starting to get the image of a 928 in red 5inch heels

Avar928

"She broke down on the side of the road" is pretty common. Most people probably say it, when asked in that situation, without evening thinking about it.

BRB-83-911SC

I have been told that the reason my car has been challenging me is because it was nameless - that I needed to find an appropriate name and talk nicely to it. It has since been named Christine. That didn't work as it (she) is still refusing to be nice to me...even though I have given her more attention lately than I have my wife.