Doug Clark: New Buick looks slick, but its name’s a clunker in the Inland Northwest

The automotive industry has come up with a lot of clunker car names over the years.

The Studebaker Dictator, for example, may arguably be parked atop the Loser List. Especially since the company regrettably sold the vehicles about the same era that a certain German paperhanger named Adolf was coming to power.

The Ford Probe?

Only a proctologist would’ve wanted to be seen in that one.

The Daihatsu Scat?

Should have come with an electric litter box.

I’m guessing the Mazda Laputa raised plenty of eyebrows since “la puta” translates in Spanish to “the whore.”

There are so many other head-scratchers.

The Subaru Brat. The Hyundai Equus. The Ford Aspire. The Chevy Luv truck?

How stupid can you get?

Well, the folks at Buick have come up with a car name that will be a tough sell here in the Inland Northwest.

Ladies and gentlemen, get ready for the Buick Avista.

Holy horsepower! Have the General Motorheads slipped their gears?

Tagging an innocent automobile with the same name as our power company is an insult to the horseless carriage.

While I have nothing but respect for all the loyal and hardworking Avista employees, I saw red when the avaricious corporation put its moniker on our beloved Spokane Indians baseball field.

I’ll probably go Matt Shea road-raging bonkers if I start seeing the darn brand in our parking lots.

Buick revealed its Avista concept the other day as a prelude to the North American International Auto Show.

GM plans to use the auto-show circuit to “find out if enough people might buy such a sporty Buick,” reported Bloomberg Business news.

I’m afraid consumers just might. The short two-seater has 400 horsepower and looks really, really cool.

Designed to compete against the sporty Camaro, the jazzy two-door Avista is low-slung and seductively stylish.

Definitely not your father’s Buick.

“The Avista embodies the dynamic soul of Buick,” said Duncan Aldred, vice president of Global Buick Sales, Service and Marketing, in a news release.

“It is a modern expression of the brand’s heritage of sophisticated performance, communicated with beautiful elegance.”

Maybe so.

But anybody driving an Avista around here would be in a constant state of dread wondering if – like our ever-ascending gas and electric bills – the car would cost more with every other fill-up.

Will the Avista car’s headlights be like the new streetlights and blind every oncoming driver on the road?

Will the car lights also be filled with poison gas, like those hideous curlicue eco-bulbs Avista tried to pawn off on us a few years ago?

Will the Buick Avista fade to black in a bad windstorm?

Hey, I’m just saying.

My biggest worry is what happens if Buick greenlights production and the public actually gets to buy these twin turbo-charged coupes.

Will a condescending report card arrive in the mail every few months, scolding the owner for not driving his Avista as safely as other Avista drivers in his neighborhood?

And what besides “grossly overpaid CEO” does Avista even mean?

I searched the Internet for a definition and found that Avista is the: “Association Villard de Honnecourt for the Interdisciplinary Study of Medieval Technology, Science and Art.”

Well, I’m not surprised. I always figured there was something medieval going on inside the Avista power castle.

Buick needs to rethink this before I run out of mileage.

History contains a galaxy of totally rad car names like the Corvette, the Viper, the Thunderbird, the Charger, the Barracuda, the Mustang, the Jaguar XKE.

No, I’m not counting the Gremlin.

But I loved my ’52 Buick Super. After I sold it I bought a ’68 Buick GS, which stands for “Gran Sport.” The first muscle car I ever owned.

That’s right. I’m a Buick man and proud to admit it. I even once owned the late-former House Speaker Tom Foley’s ’65 Buick Riviera.

But a Buick Avista?

Sorry, but that’s another Edsel to this ratepayer.

Doug Clark is a columnist for The Spokesman-Review. He can be reached at (509) 459-5432 or by email at dougc@spokesman.com.