Well as long as we are on car parts and such this is a mystery to me: 

The Brits invented disc brakes (I think the Jaguar was the first to have them) - the rotating circular piece of steel that the pads grab onto is appropriately called - the DISC - at least in the UK. 

Here we call them disc brakes but the "disc" is called the rotor. 

For consistency one would think we'd call them "rotor brakes" but I digress...

And I'd always heard that the fender was the wheel enclosure - a fender as a term was really more appropriate in the 1920s-30s when a fender was over the top half of a wheel but the term as stayed through today when a "fender" is really just part of the bodywork. I suppose the British term "boot" as a similar origin when the earliest "boots" were simply trunks at the back of the car. And we call the "boot" the "trunk" which is a similar anachronism...

Bill (who would like to test drive an Elise) 

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