After all the design, engineering and safety testing is done, your meticulously crafted car is going to need a name. For Aston Martin, that almost always begins with a V and conjures up images of mighty viking warriors, with names like Vanquish or Valhalla.
But not all names can be this evocative, and some are just bad. So, we asked you for some of the dumbest car names on the market.
Here are some of your worst suggestions.
“Without a doubt, it was the Chevy SS.
“Call it Commodore SS, call it Caprice SS, hell call it Impala SS and say fuck the W body version, but give it a name. SS is an adjective, not a noun.
“It’s the equivalent of Honda naming a car ‘Type R’, Dodge naming a car ‘SRT’, or BMW naming a car ‘M’.
“The fact that the car itself is great just makes the mistake worse.”
Confusion abounds if you tell someone you drive a Chevrolet SS. Which was unfortunate for the model as it was a rear-wheel-drive sedan boasting a V8 engine that meant it lived up to the SS branding.
Suggested by: V10omous
“This thing was supposed to be the next Mustang and when it couldn’t be a Mustang, the best they could come up with for a sports car was a thing you use to poke around?”
Introduced in 1988, the Ford Probe was derived from the front-wheel drive Mazda G platform, which underpins the Mazda Capella.
Suggested by: sidbridge
“If the Mazda Titan Dump doesn’t make it into this list, I will be upset! Lots of odd Japanese car names and models, especially some of the JDM only models.”
Speaking of Mazda, how about the Titan Dump for an unfortunate name? Yes, it’s a truck rather than a car, but it’s called the Titan Dump – we were hardly going to ignore it.
Suggested by: Neil Bridgstock (Facebook)
“Any new Mercedes in the past decade or so.
“C63 that’s a 6.2L
“C300 that’s a 2.0L 4 Cyl
“S580 that’s a 4.0L V8
“I miss the good old days where the number means something. 500 SL, 500 E.”
Supposedly, the new Mercedes naming convention relates to the size of the naturally aspirated engine that would be needed to create the same amount of power. But for most, they’re a forgettable string of numbers and letters.
Suggested by: SennaMP4
“Cutlass Supreme. Sounds like something you have to request to get from the buffet in a casino.”
I’ll take my Cutlass Supreme medium, please.
Suggested by: Doug Kleintop (Facebook)
“Blanket award for all the Infiniti SUV’s. Their general irrelevance as a brand lets them skate off the radar for having a group of people decide QX(number) is somehow an appealing name for an automobile. NOT ON MY WATCH.”
Another loathed string of letters and numbers. While the ‘Q’ is said to pay homage to Infiniti’s first car, we’re just as clueless as you when it comes to the other digits.
Suggested by: tahoe-guy
“Actually it’s the Ecosport because for some reason they pronounce it ECHO-sport even though their turbocharged engines are called the ECO-boost like where’s the god damn consistency in that.”
There’s nothing eco-y, echoey or sporty about this lumpy SUV, which Ford originally released in 2003.
Suggested by: Brandon Brunch (Facebook)
“While we can all unequivocally agree that the answer is a Ssangyong, how do we decide which one is the dumbest of the dumbest? Korando, Musso, Rexton, Actyon, Rodius/Stavic, Kyron, Istana, Kallista. I mean, c’mon. How do you pick one over the others?”
SsangYong says the name Rexton comes from the Latin word ‘rex’ and the English word ‘tone’, so is meant to mean “the ruler’s tone.” The more you know.
Suggested by: hesanitationdept
“I am gonna go with the F-150 King Ranch. It either means that you wish you were the king of your ranch oppressing your plebeians or you are the greatest lover of ranch dressing around.”
One savvy poster quipped that this Ford pickup is actually named after King Ranch, the largest ranch in the U.S. And not, as we’d hoped, a tasty salad dressing.
Suggested by: kalassynikoff
“Maserati Quattroporte. Like could you imagine if Holden were as lazy?: the all NEW ‘Holden has a steering-wheel’.”
Taking the Italian word for ‘four doors’ doesn’t make this exciting or exotic. Do better, Maserati.
Suggested by: Portia Bethany Levene (Facebook)
“As much as I love the car and would kill to own one, the Ferrari LaFerrari always made me laugh. ‘Ferrari the Ferrari’. Just seems a tad lazy, especially for that type of car.”
Surely the marketing department at Ferrari could have come up with something more evocative than Ferrari The Ferrari? Surely!
Suggested by: gamblour