Ian; for a yank, please elucidate. we thought he was named after a car.
Yes indeed it was I made that point as I saved the entry. Suspect that Adams may have been alluding to the fact that many of English schoollboys in the early 70s had a badge with Ford on it next to one with Prefect on it. Sadly we can't ask him..
The two badges:
The colour of the prefect badge suggested the house for which you were a prefect - look at Google images for 'prefect' and you see prefect badges of different colours. Often English schools would associate their house names with colours - I remember one school i was at having Norman (green), Tudor (red), Stuart (yellow), Windsor (blue) representing various Houses of the British Monarchy. Possibly a very English thing and I can't really inagine what Adams was thinking - but as with many of my entries it makes a nice story.
