Team-BHP - Funny/Intermixed car names

The Toyota MR2 caused laughter in France - while the letters stand for Midship Runabout, 2-seater, when pronounced in French it sounds like merde...

While a lot of foreign names sound/look funny to outsiders (this includes the entire Malaysian car industry), the real fun begins when people misuse foreign languages. The Japanese are the undisputed masters in this area. Mitsubishi's Starion was reputed to be meant to be called "Stallion", but that the Japanese had gotten the Ls and Rs confused. Mitsubishi claimed that it was a combination of "star" and "orion".

The ones that annoy me are the non-words, meant to bother no one but just inspire some vaguely modern and dynamic message - names such as Vectra, Optra, Altima, Elantra, Optima, Altea etc etc. Notice that they all end with the letter "a"?

Finally, the Seat Malaga was known as the "Credo" in Greece, as Malaga means w**ker in Greek. I think that part of the problem might be the sheer number of slang words that have sexual connotations...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aditya (Post 26652)

Tata Indica V2... one would get confused about the no. of cylinders this one has.

In fact one of my customer from US who has come to Bangalore was talking about how things are relatively small in India and to prove the case in point he said look at the Indica its has only 2 cylinders, I had to step in to correct the thingslol:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Abhay (Post 75325)

Petra is a town somewhere in the middle-east/Turkey..

Siena is a town in northern Italy where they run the famous horse race called Il Palio de Siena :)
- the names for the two Fiats!

Talking about names of cities here are two more

Hyundai Tucson
Hyundai Sedona

Both are well know places from Arizona.

Here are 33 cars with animal names!

Howstuffworks "33 Cars Named After Animals"

1. Barracuda(Plymouth)
2. Beetle (Volkswagen)
3. Bison (Chevrolet heavy-duty truck)
4. Blackhawk (Stutz)
5. Bluebird (Nissan/Datsun)
6. Bronco(Ford) 7.Charger (Dodge)
8. Cheetah (rare 1960s high-performance sports car)
9. Cobra (Shelby, Shelby-Ford)
10. Cougar (Mercury)
11. Fox (Audi, Volkswagen)
12. Gazelle (Singer)
13. Honey Bee (Nissan/Datsun)
14. Impala (Chevrolet)
15. Jaguar (outgrowth of S.S. Cars, formerly Swallow Sidecars, Ltd.)
16. Lark (Studebaker)
17. Marlin (AMC)
18. Mustang (Ford)
19. Pinto (Ford)
20. Rabbit (Volkswagen)
21. Ram (Dodge)
22. Road Runner (Plymouth)
23. Sable (Mercury)
24. Skylark (Buick)
25. Spider/Spyder (Porsche)
26. Stag (Triumph)
27. Sting Ray/Stingray (Chevrolet Corvette)
28. Super Bee (Dodge)
29. Thunderbird (Ford)
30. Viper (Dodge)
31. Wasp (Hudson)
32. White Eagle (Kissel)
33. Wildcat (Buick)

Also:

1. Rhino [International Cars & Motors Ltd (ICML)]
2. Scorpio (M&M)
3. Cayman (Porsche)
4. Cayenne (Porsche)

Anybody know any more?

Quote:

Originally Posted by shravan316 (Post 26672)

What about Fiat Punto.....sounds wierd.

What's weird about that?
Anyway here are some meanings
Punto-Point
Palio/Siena/Petra-Names of Places
Uno-One
Baleno-Whale
Alto-High
Cielo-Sky
Armada-Army

Quote:

Originally Posted by ambylimo (Post 169965)

yh peugot doblo and fiat petra...such dum names..

It was the Fiat Doblo. Petra is a name of a place in Greece. Palio & Siena are places in Italy.

Quote:

Originally Posted by nfs3000 (Post 75551)

Talking about car names, A long time back GM launched a car in Russia and named it NOVA, and in russian it mean " doesn't run" so the car was instant failure in the russian market due to stupid name. I bet GM engineers did a lot of R and D while developing the vehicle, but they didn't do enough R&D while naming the CAR.

It was the Chevrolet Nova.Not Russia but some Spanish-speaking country, where it supposedly translated as "won't go" or "will not"

The Daihatsu Charade and the Suzuki Sidekick top that list of ridiculous names..
Now if only the Sidekick was made in India, it would have been called the Maruti Stepney.. (from a south indian term for sidekick!)
Now I remembered some stuff from my days back.

Indian's desires travel very fast..Especially those with swift Dzires.

I wonder where Toyota came up with the Altis?

I remember that the Hyundai Atoz stood for nothing

Even better was the Santro (reminded me of Santra ) , the guy who came up with this must have just eaten an orange before he thought of it! Santro Xing =>Santa Singh!

I remember somebody said that the car-namer must have had a hangover when thinking of a name for the Ford Ka.It dosen't remotely look like a crow.

To end this, a remembrance from a childhood school joke which me and a few friends came up with..Remember Sipani Motors (makers of the Dolphin/Montana/D-1?).They had an invention called the C-Pani engine.It was optimized to not have a fuel tank..There was a hole at an appropriate spot in the drivers seat..It would channelize driver's emissions, compress them and propel this unique automobile forward..All the driver had to do was to eat Chana and drink pani.Guaranteed gas power!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mpower (Post 75842)

Oh! Puleeeze.....if it was a joke....its a good one.

Jokes apart Sumant Mulgaonkar was the father of Telco's ERC. One of India's greatest automobile engineers...they should name a car after him.

No no that's true..It wasn't a joke. The naming was perfect.Look at the sumo - don't tell me it's nano-sized.hope you get my point.

I always thought the predecessor to the VW Jetta was called the Propellera.