Haunting Halloween motors | Car Talk - Car News Oct 2016

16:58 Monday 31 Oct 2016

It’s impossible to miss that today is Halloween, so it’s fitting that we take a look at some aptly named vehicles to mark the occasion.

The mere mention of haunting car names immediately brings Rolls-Royce to mind, starting with their legendary Silver Ghost model. Dubbed by Autocar as ‘the best car in the world’ shortly after its launch in 1906, a total of 7,874 Silver Ghosts were produced by Rolls-Royce over a 20-year lifespan. An original Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost would carry a price tag to match that proud boast – a 1907 example commissioned as a demonstrator by managing director Claude Johnson was insured in 2005 with a value of US$35million. The Silver Ghost began a tradition of supernatural names for the company’s products, and the Ghost name was resurrected by Rolls Royce for their current range of luxury saloons. Unveiled at the 2009 Frankfurt Motor Show, the current Ghost now forms part of a spookily-named Rolls-Royce line up which also includes the Phantom and the Wraith.

Staying in the UK, speciality car manufacturer Spectre Supersport are responsible for the Spectre mid-engined, rear-wheel drive, two-seater sportscar. The lightweight 4.6-litre Ford V8 powered Spectre can go from 0-60mph in just 4.5 seconds.

At the other end of the market entirely is the Hillman Imp, a small car named after the tiny but malevolent mythical creature and produced from 1963-1976 at the Linwood plant in Scotland. The first mass-produced car to have a cast aluminium engine block and cylinder head, the car was designed to rival BMC’s Mini, but although it featured a host of innovative features reliability gremlins hurt its reputation.....

.......and speaking of Gremlins, how about the AMC Gremlin? The two-door hatch was a popular choice amongst American small car buyers in the 1970s, and was then superceded by another aptly-named model the AMC Spirit. Meanwhile, Dodge produced a variant of their popular Dart compact saloon badged as the Dodge Demon.

Staying across the Atlantic, Pontiac used the name Banshee for a succession of concept cars from the 1960s to the 1990s. Their Banshee IV model, unveiled in 1988, influenced the design of future Pontiac Firebird and Chevrolet Camaro models, and even appeared in the films Back to the Future II and Knight Rider 2000.

The Lamborghini Diablo was king of the supercar market in the 1990s, with ‘Diablo’ the Spanish for ‘devil’. The models devilish 200mph-plus performance came courtesy of a 485bhp V12 engine. When the time came for the model to be replaced in 2001, Lamborghini went for a vampire-theme with its successor the Murcielago, which is the Spanish word for bat.

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