Auto Oddities: The Rename Game

By Bill Howard
March 29, 2006

What could be more upscale than naming your car after America's fastest growing sport, lacrosse? Thus we have the Buick LaCrosse (shown at left), the replacement for the Regal.


One problem north of the border, however: Although lacrosse translates to the stick in French, to some Quebecois, it's also a synonym for masturbation. So Buick worked up a different name for Canada: The Allure.


Some other cars with checkered names:

Mitsubishi Pajero. The LaCrosse problem south of the border: Pajero is also slang for masturbator.

Ford Caliente. Caliente means hot in Spanish. It also means streetwalker. (But then, Ford has also sold the Escort.)

Toyota Fiera. In Puerto Rico, fiera translates loosely to ugly old woman.

Ford Pinto. To Brazilians, pinto is slang for small *****.

Chevrolet Nova. You've probably heard this one already: no va means won't go in Spanish. Although it got laughs ("how could GM be so dumb, again?"), reports of lousy sales in South America are more urban legend than fact, and linguists argue that it's an awkward construct in Spanish (no funciona would be more appropriate).

AMC Matador. What's fine for Mexico doesn't work so well in Puerto Rico, where matador is slang for killer.

GM Hummer. We won't go there.

Sometimes, naming problems pop up after the fact. Renault's 1980-era Fuego (Spanish for fire) had some serious electrical problems. And you just knew the AMC Gremlin was going to have mechanical problems.


Because most of the good names are already registered in a major country, or because of the snicker factor, you're ever more likely to see cars with numbers for names (like the Nissan 350Z, BMW 530i, Mercedes E320, Mazda6, and Saab 9-3) or initials (the Acura RL, TL, TSX, and Pontiac GTO). The Lincoln Zephyr spent only a few months with that storied FoMoCo nameplate before being rebadged as MKZ, which is pronounced Mark Z.

source : technoride.com

 

lol great article. sad but true...manufacturers have been picking some poor names over the years. Sounds catchy to the product planners, but it's obvious they did not do any other research internationally.

 

Its always better to stick with numbers.

 

Thanx, nice read. Some funny stuff.

 

Too funny!

What was the story with the Zephyr name?

 

I liked that fake story about the Toyota Priapus. That was a laugh...

 

lol, great read!!!

 

good joke about the Ford Escort, I never thought about that...

 

Sounds like the left hand here doesn't know what the right one is doing.

 

A classic case of this coming back to bite was the unpopularity of the Chevrolet Nova ( the late 80's Corolla-based one ) among Hispanics. Why? Simple. " No Va " in Spanish means " It won't run ", or literally, '"No Go "

 

International marketing has produced imminently forgettable car model designations by number. Jumbles of letters and numbers may be perfectly safe and meaningless in a number of languages, but they are extremely difficult to build a brand image around. Any professional marketer cringes at the thought of trying to market an RX 330 against an ML 320, or a CTS against a BMW, a 350 ZX or a ZO6. What the heck does THAT mean? Doesn't Corvette, Thunderbird, Mustang, Wildcat, or Impala give you something a whole lot more secure to hang your brand image on? I'd rather try to sell the new, more powerful Water Buffalo than a QX-4.

Mass international marketer Exxon was once the Humble Oil and Refining Company, "Humble" (pronounced "UM-bull" by snooty natives) took its name from the small town - today a tiny middle-class bedroom community of sprawling Houston. The company founded in 1911, and owned by a group of Texas businessmen was owned in part by Standard Oil of New Jersey. When the breakup of Standard Oil came, it precipitated a scramble for a corporate identity.

No longer able to use the Standard name, the company became simply "Humble" in Texas, while other states toyed with other names. Of course there was nothing HUMBLE about the company, and the name was changed to a new corporate identity ESSO, under which it had been marketing internationally and in a few eastern states for several years. ESSO, was selected as a sort of "pronouncer" for S.O. (Standard Oil), the original company name they were not allowed to use. In Texas, the marketing company was renamed ENCO - the thought was that ENCO would be America’s ENergy COmpany - but few if any got it, any more than they got ESSO.

Finally, to end the confusion of interlocking divisions and companies, the corporation, now grown to a HUGE multinational sought out a new name. Sadly, any of the existing names meant something, somewhere - so what they needed was a name that was absolutely meaningless EVERYWHERE. The story is told that the name, selected (or at least confirmed) by a linguistic computer was EXXON, because nowhere in any language is there a double X.

Fortunately, they'd established the Standard/ESSO/ENCO tiger as their corporate mascot with the slogan "Put a tiger in your tank!" - which translated more or less well around the world - with the possible exception of some wildlife protection agencies, and a couple of third-world nations where it translated, "Eat a tiger!", but at least the visual image of the friendly tiger and the ubiquitous plush tiger tail secured by an elastic band to the filler neck of countless vehicles, helped unite the company under the "manufactured" name, EXXON.

Of course some wags back home in Texas, who had probably let their options slip, refer to the company to this day as "the sign of the double-cross".

(Sigh) You just can't please everyone.

 

Can't go wrong with numbers. That's all I ever see.

The Chevy Nova wasn't a big hit and non-existent today. Not sure how many generations of the Nova lasted.

Language and words can be subjective at times. One person might mean one thing and the other person can totally see it another way.

 

The Nova was the only one I heard about in Mexico. I don't think the Matador was a big seller either.

 

I guess this is the only time where sex doesn't sell, especially more male related/oriented

 

ROFL!!! Good read, good read.

Yeahhhhh, better stick with numbers.