What's The Worst Car Name?

Perhaps out of a fear of naming confusions or reinterpretations, a la the BMW Gina and Pontiac Aztek, many companies seem to be going towards alphanumericism (though that presents trouble in China, where the number "4" conjures up the sound of "death"). People fault the Chevy Nova for its Spanish translation, but we still like the name. The Japanese have all sorts of strange and awful naming conventions, aka the Mitsubishi Delica Space Gear and Daihatsu Naked. The Russians created the Lada brand because the original name, Zhiguli, sounded too much like "gigolo."

But what are the worst names? Is it insane to call a 350Z a Fairlady Z? What about the VW wish to name most of their cars after wind patterns? The Touareg, Routan and Tiguan sound more like diseases than cars. "Oh, you hear about Franky? He's got the Routan." These are just off the top of our heads — what do you consider the worst car name of all time?

[Photo: SugarCloud.com]

Send an email to Matt Hardigree, the author of this post, at matt@jalopnik.com.

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