Car Names: The good, bad, and downright ugly

The subject of automotive names and designations has been documented in countless columns and articles over the years. To date, I have resisted the urge to retell the tales of the famed Chevy Nova ("It won't go" in Spanish) marketing blunder and the like, but over the course of some recent research I came across several new entries that I simply could not ignore.

In all fairness, it's is easy to see where the manufacturer's marketing departments run into trouble. The automotive industry, and for all intents and purposes the entire retail environment, has been flooded with so many brand names and niche products that the English language and alphabet simply can't support all the descriptive labels the manufacturers like to use. Add to this globalization and the concern for translation, and slang meaning is compounded considerably.

Traditionally, companies reserved the more unique names for cars within specific limited markets or geographic regions. Most of the luxury brands, however, adopted some variation of the alphanumeric names early on which, in retrospect, was probably the best play. For the most part, the use of a few letters and numbers with no established meaning was harmless enough. Where models were pushed in many different countries with even more languages and dialects, this was certainly the easiest route.

The altered state of being that was the 60s and 70s brought one of the first tangible movements in automotive design: the muscle car era. And with it came a deluge of creative car names. Whether this creativity was the product of marketing genius or just a lot of reefer is largely inconsequential at this point. Names like "Barracuda" and "Marauder" will always be cool.

But for every time they got it right, even back then, there seemed to be several models that came off as pathetic or simply conjure no association whatsoever. The "Superbird" was a monster of a car, but what is that name supposed to mean? Another one I have always had trouble with is the "Monte Carlo." Sure, whenever I hear it I do tend to think of Chevy's efforts to step outside the box and offer a monster V8 in an otherwise humble sedan. But, to me, there is absolutely nothing I can think of that's less like the wealthy principality along the Mediterranean than this car.

Fast-forward to present day and the job of naming a car becomes truly grim. Most manufacturers seem to have given up on the possibility of describing the car's actual attributes. All the cool animals have been used, and even the more "aggressive" fruits, vegetables and spices have generally been taken. So all that's left is to make up their own darn names and just cross their fingers that they don't hold a secondary meaning having something to do with the church, self-gratification, and/or farm animal excrement.

And here is another question: why is it always so horribly bad when they do get it wrong? For example, why couldn't the "Opel Ascona" mean "little flower" or "cute worm," which would have been cause for just mild embarrassment, instead of female genitalia, which it does in Northern Spain and parts of Portugal? For that matter, when Buick launched the "LaCrosse" in Canada why couldn't it have come across as "the fancy pen on wheels," or something to do with archery? Nope, in French-speaking Quebec, the meaning is, of course, masturbating teenagers.   

Similar fates met the Honda "Fitta" in Scandinavia (again female parts), the Mitsubishi "Pajero" in Spanish-speaking countries (again with the self-gratifying male), and the always-clever Mazda "LaPuta" as the less-offensive "whore," which I don't think anyone would want to take for a spin around the block.

There are a few more honest mistakes that while, mercifully, don't bury the associated company in controversy, were just plain bad ideas from the get-go. More often than not they come from the uniquely charismatic Japanese market.  Some that quickly come to mind are the Honda "Life Dunk," Mazda "Bongo," Daihatsu "Naked," Volugrafo "Bimbo," Toyota "Deliboy," and my personal favorite, the Isuzu GIGA 20 "Light Dump."

Before you start feeling bad for the people who came up with these silly monikers, remember that they weren't simply slapped on the back end of the car after a brief focus group just prior to launch. These names were part of the design and image of the car directly from conception. As a matter of fact, they needed to be trademarked in a public place within the Trademark office often several years before the cars ever hit the pavement. In fact you can go there right now and see what's registered for the future Nissan "Fairlady Z."

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