With so many car makes and models being launched each year, it must be difficult for car manufacturers to come up with names, which are new, dynamic and reflective of personality and unique features. Some names get lost in translation and others are misunderstood culturally. Check out our favourite whacky car names below:
Audi Q3
The Audi Q3 hit the market back in 2011, and it’s one many of us will be familiar with. Q3 seems like a reliable, standard name, however, in Spanish, the pronunciation is ‘cu-tres’ which sounds pretty similar to the Spanish word ‘cutre’, which translates to? Crappy and gross. That one may have been a little tricky to foresee, but we can’t help but wonder if the name impacted sales in Spain and other Spanish speaking countries.
Isuzu Mysterious Utility Wizard
This SUV hit the Japanese market in 1989. And its name is certainly quite the mouthful. We’ll admit that it might have sounded cool in Japanese. But we can’t help but think it sounds a little like a 70s vacuum cleaner or a washed-up superhero when translated into English.
Chevrolet Nova
Chevrolet first introduced the Nova back in 1962. After its release, the manufacturers were puzzled by the poor sales in Spanish-speaking countries. In Latin, the word ‘nova’ means new. But in Spanish, ‘no va’ literally translates as ‘doesn’t go’. We can certainly see why sales were down.
Mitsubishi Lettuce
This tiny Japanese motor was first released in 1962. And Mitsubishi certainly weren’t especially creative when naming it. We’re not sure why they named a car after a vegetable, and a boring vegetable at that. They might as well have called it the Mitsubishi Beige.
Nissan Moco
This mini MPV hit the market in 2001. And shortly after, Nissan had to change the name in some countries. Yep, you’ve guessed it, another language issue. The name, when Moco is translated into Spanish means snot or booger. Not a term you’d want to associate with your new car.
Nissan Homy Super Long
Nissan launched the new version of their original caravan back in 1976. They called it the Nissan Homy - a fair name for a comfortable camper van. They later introduced a bigger version of the caravan and decided to add ‘super long’ to the original name.
The Mitsubishi Pajero, the Mazda LaPuta and the Honda Fitta are but a few others that warrant a mention. But we’ll leave translation of those ones up to you!
Whether your car has an unfortunate name or not, you’ll want to protect it. And you can do that with Aviva car insurance.
