I was just reading an article that made passing reference to Cortina, a ski resort in Italy.
Cortina is by all accounts a classy, jet-set kind of a place. It hosted the 1956 Winter Olympics. The Bond chase scene in For Your Eyes Only was filmed there, as were parts of The Pink Panther. Audrey Hepburn hung out there, as did Ernest Hemingway.
But, to a British ear, the word Cortina immediately brings to mind the Ford Cortina, a car named to evoke an air of sophistication, aspiration and glamour but embodying precisely none of these things. Sorry, Italy, Cortina has been tainted forever.
Can anyone think of any other rather naff products that have tainted their namesakes in this way? Bologna sort-of counts, inasmuch as the sausage has become a synonym for nonsense, but it’s a bit of a cheat because bologna sausage does actually originate in Bologna, rather than having the name applied as some sort of marketing gimmick.
I used to own a Cortina (in America) and you couldn’t drag me to a vacation resort by that name. I could only picture broken down, barely functioning ski lifts, buildings with the gutters held up with duct tape and sad restaurants where the tables tilt and the chairs are mismatched. Ford and all of Britain owe the city of Cotina and me an apology.
My brother had a MK3 Cortina, green and white paint job, gold alley cat wheels with a green fabric quilted roof (with tassels…this is on the inside you understand.) Quite rightly he was dubbed “Huggy” for some time after.
What a car! by which I mean…what a fucking shed of a car. It was despicable in all imaginable aspects.
ETA: it was actually a MK4. that makes it far, far worse. In some guises the MK3 didn’t look so bad whereas the MK4 was hateful no matter what.
I wasn’t aware that the Cortina had been inflicted on the American market too. Reading Wikipedia, though, it seems it was quickly replaced by a much better quality automobile called the Pinto…
Many place names have been tainted by history. A barely-scratching list: Columbine, Newtown, Oklahoma City, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Dresden, Dachau. Not quite the same as product names bringing taint, but in the same basket.
Mad Magazine nailed it with a piece called “When Your Business Becomes a Household Name.” The highlight was the before and after panels of the proud/ashamed owner of the Bobbit Sausage Company.
That’s the thing though - those were victims of history. Cortina is the victim of having its desirable name deliberately applied to a product, and hence becoming less desirable in the process.
It had absolutely zero to do with David Koresh and his sect of Branch Davidians. Elk, Texas didn’t either and it was actually much closer to the compound than Waco was, but how ubiquitous is its association now, ‘Siege at Waco’, ‘Ruby Ridge and Waco’, etc ad nauseum.
There was a diet suppresant once called Ayds (pronounced aids). It was heavily marketed through the 60s and 70s, and into the 80s before the unfortunate naming of Acquired Immune Deficiency. It was renamed to Diet-Ayds, but that didn’t save the company.
When we went to Germany, we went to Berchtesgaden. Some people we told thought we were cruising around looking for Nazi memorabilia. We did indeed go up to the Kehlsteinhaus, but mostly we went to look at the scenery, as Berchtesgaden is a large national park with spectacular views. The most beautiful place ever. We spent an hour just standing looking at the Königssee.
Even now, 75 years later, you say “Berchtesgaden” and people say “Hitler.” I think he was actually there about three or four times.
ETA: I’m sorry, I didn’t get the intent of the OP. There’s nothing named after it. I’ll try to think of something else.
