Marketers do a great job of convincing us to buy stuff (often stuff we don’t need) – but through the annals of history they have occasionally gotten things wrong. This is a list of the ten most unfortunately funny car names.
1Mazda LaPuta (in spanish: “the whore”)
2Mitsubishi Pajero (in spanish: “wanker”)
3Nissan Moco (in spanish: “booger”)
4Buick LaCrosse (in French: “masturbating teenagers”)
NOTE: our reader JS wrote us to explain that “LaCrosse (…) means two things:either the act of masturbating (teenagers or not) or to trick someone. “
5Chevrolet Nova (in spanish: “It Doesn’t Go”)
General Motors had a very famous fiasco in trying to market the Nova car in Central and South America. “No va” in Spanish means, “It Doesn’t Go”.
6Opel Ascona (in Spain and Portugal: “female genitalia”)
7Honda Fitta (in swedish and norwegian: “cunt”)
NOTE: our swedish reader Jonathan wrote us to mention the Mercedes-Benz Vito, which also means “cunt.”
Our reader P.F. Bruns also wrote us: “Honda caught that mistake before releasing the car, and instead markets it outside the US (including Norway) as the Jazz”.
He then added: “What about the Ford Bronco? That’s not how I want my vehicle to ride. I’ll hold out for the Ford Draft Horse, myself, or perhaps a nice Ford Clydesdale. ‘Swinger’ also was weak; you could instead have used the incredibly ironically named ‘Reliant.’ You could rely on it to shed bits of trim…and the occasional piece of drivetrain. How about the fact that Yugo once offered a GT model?” –thank you both!
8Daihatsu Charade
It’s not really a car, it’s just pretending! This was one of those econo-boxes that was not merely humiliating to drive, it embarrassed its owner each time its name was uttered. “I drive a Charade.” Good-bye, prom date!
9Dodge Swinger
You’ll also find ads for these on the back pages of adult magazines. Okay, it was the ’70s, but still – why not just call it the STD?
10AMC Gremlin
Do you really want to own a car named after annoying small problems that are next-to-impossible to fix? Courtesy of the same folks who brought you the Pacer.