Try boast­ing about your new BMW X3 xDrive28i at a cock­tail party and then expect any­one to remem­ber what you’re talk­ing about, says the writer, ask­ing – Where have all the car names gone – as he viewed a Cadil­lac XTS, Scion FR-S and Jaguar XKR-S.

There’s magic in a good name. See what the writer suggests.

When Ford was at a loss for names in the 1950s, the com­pany asked Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Mar­i­anne Moore to cre­ate some names for a new brand of cars.

It elicited these sug­ges­tions, and more, from Moore:

• The Ford Sil­ver Sword
  The Impec­ca­ble
  Sym­mechro­matic
  Thun­derblender
  The Resilient Bul­let
  Intel­li­gent Bul­let
  The Intel­li­gent Whale
  Mon­goose Civique