Last week, while researching the bizzare VW-powered Emis Art, I found another Emis product that grabbed my attention in a way I normally only associate with an unexpected hand to the genitals. The product itself, while interesting, wasn’t the shocking thing. It was the name, which, upon a quick glance, looked to be the phrase ‘Fuck Up.’ Woah.
Yep, this novel little kit to turn your Beetle into a very usable little pick-up truck or small van is actually, officially called the Fusck Up. Yep, Fusck Up. As in one confusing letter removed from Fuck Up, which is possibly the absolute last phrase you’d want associated with a vehicle of any sort.
I think I understand how the name came to be, though — in Brazil, the VW Beetle was known as the Fusca, the Portuguese word for ‘beetle’, and I suppose pick-up trucks were called, in a term borrowed from English, pick-ups. Combine ‘Fusca’ and ‘Pick-up’ and you get ‘fusck up.’ But you wouldn’t think that means you have to actually use that name, right?
I have no idea if Emis was aware of the similarity to the comically profane English term, or, if they were, if they even cared. Maybe they liked it, in a sort of punk-rock, yeah-our-truck-is-a-fuck-up kind of way?
Looking at these rare pictures of a wild Fusck-up caught in its natural habitat, it’s nice to see that it appears to be used like an actual, honest-to-Xenu work truck. There’s plenty of Beetle pick-up kits in the US as well, but they tend to be used more for the novel aesthetic value and they rarely carry much more than a cooler full of Coors to a car show.
If you want, you can try to beat this as the worst name for a car in the comments, but I’m pretty skeptical you can beat Fusck Up. Because, come on.
Fusck Up.
Contact the author at jason@jalopnik.com.