I had nicknamed my black Camaro 'Darth,' because when I first saw the picture on the dealer's website, it reminded me of Darth Vader - an all-black car in a white room. I was washing the new one a few days ago, wondering if I would have a nickname for it, when Loony Tunes suddenly popped into my head ...

"Roadrunner," after the cartoon bird.

Why? Well, because it is a very striking blue, it's FAST, with more HP than the 6.2 V8 in the SS Camaro (RWHP 376 /RW Torque 319), and also because in the cartoon, the coyote could never catch the roadrunner.

That led me to an inside joke because of the name Ford gave the engine in the Mustang GT - "Coyote." I started laughing at the image, thinking the "Coyote" would have a hard time catching THIS "Roadrunner," and it kind of stuck with me. I'm even considering getting a stuffed roadrunner (like the one in the cartoon) and sitting it on the supercharger at car shows.

I mentioned it on a few of my other auto forums, and no surprise, many auto purists had a fit. "Naming A Chevy after a Mopar?" and "That's stealing a trademark" etc.

The naysayers did trouble me at first, but then I thought: "It's MY car, I'm not trying to pass it off as anything, I just think that RR might be an appropriate nickname due to it's performance."