You guys haven't even *started* on genuinely daft names yet! How about the Skoda Rapide Coupe, a car that should have been prosecuted under the Trades Descriptions Act. Did you know that one of the potential names offered up when Ford were attempting to name a new range was "Utopian Turtletop"? Bad as that was, the one they eventually plumped for was sooooo bad that the name eventually became a synonym for 'failure'. Take a bow, the Ford Edsel...
As a Moggy Minor freak, I'd love to see the Austin brand relaunched with a model Tayshus. C'mon, who wouldn't want to stand in the pub and say "I've got an Austin Tayshus?"!!
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You guys haven't even *started* on genuinely daft names yet! How about the Skoda Rapide Coupe a car that should have been prosecuted under the Trades Descriptions Act.
Somebody get a doctor for Lud, pronto, before his blood pressure rises to dangerous levels ...
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before his blood pressure rises to dangerous levels ...
I take medication for that NW. But it doesn't rise when ignorant bigots talk twaddle. I find that reassuring actually. It's what they're there for. How can anyone take seriously the opinions of a person who can't even spell the name of the model he or she thinks he's dissing?
Edited by Lud on 28/09/2009 at 15:24
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>>C'mon who wouldn't want to stand in the pub and say "I've gotan Austin Tayshus?"!!
Reckon Chrysler have got Austin Tayshus wrapped up already with the 300C ;-)
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Can't believe no one has mentioned the gloriously onamatopeic Proton Jumbuck....
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> How about the Skoda Rapide Coupe
It was actually a "Rapid", there's no "e" on there. Possibly sillier. I once had a Rapid 130, great fun, sadly let down by appalling metallurgy which meant important bits broke all the time.
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Numbers that pretend to mean something but actually don't are even sillier. 523, E300 - I'm sure there are plenty more.
And as for Saab's 9 3 and 9 5 , well I suppose they make neater badges than 729 and 59,049.
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I drive a cockroach, eh I mean a maggot ... no, no, I remember now - itsa Beetle :-D
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I always thought Justy was a silly model name.
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Mitsubishi ( or was it Toyota ? ) ' Starion ' . Japanese pronunciation of ' Stallion ' . True story
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To be fank, most car names are utterly ridiculous to me. But I don't envy anyone the job of dreaming them up.
Quite common, mainstream ones often seem silly to me. Civic. Why? Touran. Wassat then? Passat. Pardon, did someone just open a new bottle of pop? Pride. Not when driving one of them, no. Carens. Bizarre. Qashqai is the king of them at the moment. I am not one given to cringing, but that comes close. Insignia is horrible, too. Ugly word.
Someone upthread delights in female first names. Good job no-one chooses male equivalents or we'd all be renting a Ford Trevor next time we go on holiday.
I entirely prefer numbers to names, I find the naming business entirely silly for the most part. Of course, Alafasud is the exception that proves the rule. So elegant. It just sounded so right. And I quite like Lancia's habit of using Greek letter names. Ypsilon's taking it too far, though. I wonder how Vauxhall got to Omega before Lancia though, without feeling the need to go through the rest of the alphabet first?
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I entirely prefer numbers to names.
Is the Fiat Sedici a number or a name?
And is it just for people who can't multiply four by four without a calculator?
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Alfasud would have been even more elegant had I spelt it correctly.
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But it meant an Alfa built in the South of Italy AlfaSouth or put it another way the X type could have potentially been JaguarNorth or somesuch. Jag actually manage to make sense as did poor old Rover up until the very end.
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Yes, I'm aware of that, but it's the Quattroporte thing alluded to earlier. Sounds good to my ears, maybe sounds a bit dull to an Italian. Maybe not. I just like it, probably for no other reason than my bias in favour of the car (my favourite of all time, exotica included).
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Don't knock it - Italians manage to make the most humdrum thing sound so sexy.
EG Fiat 131 Supermirifiori - no idea what it means but who cares ?
Edited by Pugugly on 28/09/2009 at 17:07
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Don't knock it - Italians manage to make the most humdrum thing sound so sexy. EG Fiat 131 Supermirifiori - no idea what it means but who cares ?
I had one. It meant rust.
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THe 'fiori' bit is flowers, isn't it? Handy, because there's a florist I use occasionally whose phone number ends in 131. The other digits are the same as the recipient's, so 131 is all I have to remember.
Google translates 'mira' as 'aims'. I have no idea how this fits in with naming a car. Perhaps the Supermirafiori was for the man who could aim over the flowers.
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But who cared it was a pretty name for a pretty enough car at the time.
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While we are in Italy, let's hear it for the longest ever chrome word on a boot lid: Seidicivalvole, on the back of a Fiat model whose name I forget.
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See more sexy Italian which means something mundane no doubt !
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See how sexy isn't that ?(I had figured it out by the way)
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Sexy as all come up if you ask me. At least it would seem so if I were a car on heat.
I didn't really think you wouldn't have worked it out PU.
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Seidicivalvole on the back of a Fiat model whose name I forget.
Tipo was one. There may have been others. And I still see an M reg Tipo every day at my daughter's nursery, in daily use by another Dad. Always very pleased when I see an Italian car soldiering on in to old age, in the face of those who consider it impossible. Still, I'm not brave enough to live by that myself and will be sticking to my Mazda for a while I think. Have been a bit wobbly about swapping it for a 156 lately, but I'm holding fast in the face of irrational temptation. Another time.
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Ford seems to have had a number of names that were one step from totally silly, e.g:
Ka was an Egyptian god(dess). So was Thoth.
The car that came between the Fiesta and the Sierra should logically have been called the Siesta. It was about as memorable :-)
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I'd heard that Ford use customer focus groups to suggest names for new cars. So far, they came up with the Ford Focus and Ford Ka (car). Better than the Ford Customer or Ford Group, I suppose.....
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Most names used by Daewoo and Kia are pretty silly in my view. Strangest is Tacuma - if you told me you had a Tacuma I wold ask what your doctor is doing about it?
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Most names used by Daewoo and Kia are pretty silly in my view. Strangest is Tacuma - if you told me you had a Tacuma
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I would ask if it too was wobbly and likely to finish up getting your feet ( and everything else).
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Good article on this here
www.channel4.com/4car/ft/feature/feature/3054/1
Can just see a builder going to ask for a Mazda Proceed Marvie Will Breeze pick up.
And to match the Isuzu Big Horn is the Giga 20 Light Dump. Actually I suppose if you're French speaking a good choice of second car could be the MR2 (pronounced phonetically sounds like the word for organic waste material!).
Not sure if true but Chevy were meant to have bombed with the Nova in Spanish speaking markets as translates as it doesn't go. Again phonetically, are Corsas not very refined? Especially the old D-Merits?
Edited by Dynamic Dave on 28/09/2009 at 22:14
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EG Fiat 131 Supermirifiori - no idea what it means but who cares ?
That's Supermirafiori.
Mirafiori was the place where they made them. See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiat_131
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Motorbikes have proper names - Fireblade, Ninja, Bandit, Blackbird, Sprint, Daytona, Bonnerville, Scrambler, Adventure etc etc- Ok some are a bit silly maybe - Diversion ??
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IIRC, Motorcycle Mechanics did occasional articles on Phobof phart.
It was probably LJK.
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A late friend with a fine vulgar sense of humour once invented a Vauxhall model of surpassing rudeness. Somewhere between Viva and vulgar as it were...
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More of a medical term than rude perhaps.
Well they had Senator and Diplomat, perhaps Gynacologist was also one.
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I can think of a response but I'd be fired....
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Who hasn't heard what Stephen Fry's dad calls his Volvo?
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In the trade - Granada became Grandad, Corsair = coarse hair,
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Not read all the posts..... but a few sillies
Nissan Figaro and Pao
Dacia Denim
And history gave us
Triumph Gloria
Jowett Weasel, Flying Fox, Silver Wedding !!! Jason. and a whole rook of bird's names ( pun intended ) including Curlew, Plover, Blackbird and Kestrel, ( a symphony in steel )
Riley also had a Kestrel and Datsun a Bluebird.......any more birdies out there ? Forgot the Umber Awk !
The ' IRIS '...clever, ' It Runs In Silence '
The ' Old Mill '
Another place name..The Crossley Torquay and the ' Manchester ' truck..
All good fun.
Ted
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I remember BORGWARD german car i believe,
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Borgward was the make, the model was Isabella. Damn good car too in the fifties, bit expensive, no side, German, not very good-looking with a funny diamond in its face, went like the clappers. A friend's father, a solicitor in the Vale of Evesham, had one. But was much too sensible to let anyone drive it.
Taken over by NSU I think and swallowed up into VAG.
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Singer made the Porlock - named after the notorious West Somerset hill it could climb on a good day.
With the benefit of that 100 per cent accurate science hindsight, I guess 'Silver Ghost' sounds a bit naff.
I still think the best-ever car name was (is) Bentley Continental. Just describes what it was designed for.
Edited by mike hannon on 29/09/2009 at 06:41
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Just looked back a couple of posts. Actually, it was Dacia Denem - although VW did a 1970s special edition called the Jeans Beetle with denim upholstery.
Dacia's 4WD was the Duster - certainly didn't manage to wipe the floor with the opposition though - I read somewhere the other day there are only a couple left in the UK.
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>>>Borgward was the make, the model was Isabella. Damn good car too in the fifties<<<
I tuned an Isabella once - very strong build, not unlike the Volva 121 of its day ~
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Borgward_Isabella_TS_19...g
I'll wager there are a few about - in The Fatherland.
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>>>I'll wager there are a few about - in The Fatherland.<<<
A few??? - - - - - - ->
www.angelfire.com/co/borgward/
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Nice looking motors - especially the Coupe and the convertible - a contemporary rendering would be worth seeing.
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I well remember that well known tuner, Bill Blydenstein, racing a Borgward Isabella in the 1960s.
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>>>I remember that well known tuner, Bill Blydenstein, racing a Borgward Isabella<<<
Top Man = Vauxhall :)
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i think 'Phart' is journey in German as in 'ein Swarzwaldfart' with an f instaed of ph which I think means a walk in the Black Forest....please correct the spelling if better at German than me!
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Its Fahrt barney ... I'll never forget once when in Germany someone saying to me "Have a good Fahrt" :-D
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I think thats funny as long they dont call you a swine hund you be ok .Auf wiedersehn.
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That's enough comic German quips !
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Ford Ka
Renault Vel Satis
and the forthcoming Mini Crossman (cross man)!
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The latest MINI special edition the Mayfair - what short memories they have, these were arguably the most poorly made (from low grade steel) Minis ever made. They want 25k as well. I think the Crossman is a good play on the Clubman theme.
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>>>Renault Vel Satis<<<
Nil Satis Nisi Optimum is a Latin phrase that means "nothing but the best is good enough". ?Since 1878 this has been the motto of English football club Everton F.C. (wiki)
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You missed the strategic 'h' from the spelling barney.
Yes 'fahrt' was guaranteed to get a class giggling in O level German
'Fahren' means travel ISTR hence the 'Ausfahrt ' signs on the Autobahns for exit
Literal translation 'travel out '
Schwarz = Black
Wald = Wood
Fahrt = travel
I don't think anyone has mentioned the Panhard in the silly names list. Makes me think of Vic and Bob belting each other with frying pans.
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As we used to say in English the h is silent like p in bath.......................................
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On Radio Derby a female caller insisted on calling hers a 'K' 'A' rather than a 'kah' or a 'ka'.
What about those 'Pershows' or 'Pewshows' that my Scotish ear used to wince at?
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Would Citroen market SM models today?
Lots of strap lines come to mind.
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Pretty sure I once heard a senior Ford UK exec on a BBC Radio programme talking about the Kay Ay. Surprised me at the time.
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