Thinking About Speedsters

When car makers discovered that they could put prices up by taking stuff off their offerings, the speedster was born. Sometimes they even added a dollop of horsepower.

Does the name make the car or the car make the name? I refer not to brands—though those are important—but rather to model names, which either fall flat or grow to have great reputations of their own. Examples of the latter are 911, Mustang, Corvette and Corolla. Examples of the former are the model names used by Lincoln and Cadillac, which bounce back a…