- This story’s moral is, check what your car’s name means before you put it out on the streets.
Naming a car model isn’t an easy task. You want to express the purpose of that specific automobile, while also making sure the name is catchy and marketable.
As a result, carmakers sometimes come up with names that are pretty wild and wacky on their own. But there’s another issue — when you start marketing your car internationally, the name could mean something extremely rude or silly in other languages.
If you’re a very, very long-time Oddee reader, you may remember that we once made a list of the 10 most hilariously unfortunate car names. If you don’t, that’s all right — it was 14 years ago.
We figured that it’s high time to revisit this topic. After all, as you’re about to find out, there are many more ridiculous car names out there.
1) Audi e-tron
Audi e-tron (the lowercase E is crucial for branding) is Audi’s attempt at breaking into the electric car market. Having entered production in 2018, the car hasn’t been particularly successful.
It might be because of the name. In English, it seems nice and futuristic, but in French, it sounds like étron — or “turd.”
The fact that Audi had to call many of the vehicles because their batteries could catch fire might’ve done something for e-tron’s reputation too. But we choose to believe it’s the name.
2) Toyota MR-2
Unlike the e-tron, Toyota MR-2 is a popular car. But like the e-tron, it hit a bit of a poop-related snag in French-speaking countries.
You see, when you read MR-2 the French way (“M-R-deux”) it sounds like merde. And as you probably already guessed, that means “shit.”
Excuse our French.
3) Volkswagen Vento
In 1992, Volkswagen introduced the Vento as a successor to the Jetta. The Vento continued the company’s tradition of naming its cars with words related to wind.
In this case, vento simply means “wind” in both Portuguese and Italian. But in Italy, it also carries a double meaning — it also means “wind” as in “breaking the wind.”
Yeah, the Italians are basically driving around in a Volkswagen Fart.
4) Mazda Titan Dump
Mazda Titan is a long-running commercial truck model. It launched in 1971 under Mazda, then transferred to Ford, and today it’s rebadged as Isuzu Elf.
But the very first model of the Titan was a bit different. It had the added word “dump” in its name.
Mazda probably through it accurate, since the vehicle is essentially a dump truck. But how many people want to drive a Titan Dump for their job?
5) Ascari KZ1
Ascari KZ1 and its racing sibling KZ1-R were produced by now-defunct British company Azcari Cars. They were sporty, fast, and very exclusive supercars with only 50 ever made.
Does that take your breath away? The cars sure made people choke in Germany — but for all the wrong reasons.
The Germans avoid putting the letters K and Z together like the plague. That’s because once upon a time the combination stood for Konzentrationslager — or concentration camp.
Yikes.
6) Daihatsu Scat
Come on, we don’t even need to make the joke here. The car’s called Scat.
Granted, that’s not the situation everywhere. In Japan, the vehicle is called Daihatsu Taft, short for Tough and Almighty Four-wheel Touring Vehicle. They ignored the V at the end.
In Australia, meanwhile, the car got the name Wildcat and in Austria, it was sold as Pionier. But for the rest of the European market, Daihatsu decided to name the model after animal droppings for some reason.
7) Hyundai Kona
Hyundai Kona is named after the famous district on Hawaii’s Big Island. But in Portugal, the vehicle is sold under the similarly Hawaiian-inspired name Hyundai Kauai.
That’s because the name Kona sounds a bit offensive. It sounds like cona, which is an exceedingly vulgar way to refer to the female genitals.
Essentially, the company didn’t want to sell a car called Hyundai C**t. The same fate befell Opel Ascona, which we mentioned in the previous list.
8) Isuzu MU
Granted, there’s nothing vulgar, offensive, or otherwise questionable about the name Isuzu MU. It’s just a really, really stupid name.
Why, you ask? Because MU stands for “Mysterious Utility.”
So is Isuzu trying to tell us that it’s a mystery what this SUV can be utilized for? The name didn’t get much better with the five-door version, which was called Isuzu MU Wizard.
9) Ferrari FXXK
Again, we don’t even need to make any jokes. Ferrari FXXK was the Italian carmaker’s racing vehicle, manufactured from 2015 to 2017.
But the name could’ve been worse. You see, the car is based on the street-legal Ferrari FXX. The K at the end stands for the car’s the kinetic energy recovery system, or KERS.
So, the vehicle could’ve been called Ferrari FXXKERS.
10) Mitsubishi Town Box
Again, the name of Mitsubishi Town Box isn’t really that weird. It describes it pretty accurately — it’s a small boxy car made to navigate Japan’s narrow city streets.
But the problem is that Mitsubishi really liked to shorten the car’s name in its marketing. They often called it Mitsubishi T-Box.
Are you starting to see the issue? If not, move that space to the left by three letters.
Yeah, people nicknamed it Mitsubi Shit-Box.
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