I ventured across the Italian motorcycling
landscape and visited places like Ducati, MV
Agusta, Moto Guzzi, Cagiva and even dear old
Laverda... and discovered they all ended in a
vowel.
However... and there’s always a however when
one can’t sleep... in the USA the two big guns,
Harley-Davidson and Indian both end with a
consonant. As do European identities like KTM
and BMW, and the British chaps like Triumph
and Norton, although BSA bucked the trend. I
wonder if that was why they folded?
It could be argued that this is simply the foibles
of the languages in such places, because the
car shops tend to also follow that path. Ferrari,
Maserati, Lamborghini in Italy and Honda,
Toyota, Suzuki and Mitsubishi in Japan...
while in Germany it’s consonants with Benz
and Volkswagen, and across the USA it’s all
consonants with the likes of Ford and Chevrolet.
But hang on... there’s Dodge with a vowel for
starters, and in Japan there’s Nissan, and Italy’s
got Fiat in the consonant game.
The rise of the consonants? Maybe the
management couldn’t sleep and looked for
something outside the usual fare.
So, with vowels and consonants and theories
bouncing around in my head I discovered
that all the big Japanese and Italian marques
started with a consonant, and the only ones
starting with a vowel I could come up with was
American... the Indian... and a couple of Italians,
the Italjet and Aermacchi.
Aermacchi huh? Starts with a vowel and
ends with a vowel. So I lay there and started
searching for another one, and any starting with
a consonant and ending with a consonant.
And voila... the inevitable happened... as I
suspected it eventually would. Yep, I couldn’t get
to sleep so I got up and went and made some
toast and watched some ridiculous all-night
sales and marketing crap where one of the
products on offer was a “herbal tea” designed to
help you sleep.
Good scheduling, I have to say, and I got some.
Tried it, but put it this way, I still get to see the
ad quite regularly.