He? She? It?

We have a friend who had trouble naming his dog.  When asked what the dog's name was, he would answer truthfully:  "Don't Know." In truth, that was the dog's name.

So what to name our new little smart car?  It's no longer "Don't know. . ." —at least for me.  I've just elevated his status as an inanimate noun to a higher plane.  Now when I ask Tom "Should we bike to the store or take the car?" I think of "the car" as his proper name, as in "Should we bike?  Or take The Car? The little guy who spells his brand name in all lower-case letters appears to like the proper upper-case attention.

I realize that the article "the" in English, unlike its counterpart in French and Spanish, appears to be a gender-neutral pronoun.  But in the sentences above, I --without thinking about it-- gave our little car a masculine identity.

I confess that the previous use of "his" and "the little guy" were written without a pre-determined sexual decision on my part.  But now I can't say "Don't know" about his sexual orientation.  It was determined, albeit serendipitously--by me at least. Tom may have a different opinion.

I'll agree that some cars exude much more testosterone and masculinity.  Nevertheless, from my perspective, he is what s/he is.