Car manufacturers spend millions, even billions of pounds on developing new models. They then spend an extra one-hundred gazillion pounds on marketing their shiny new car and convincing the public to buy it.
This makes it all the more strange that there are so many cars on the roads with dreadful names. After all, why would you spend that much money on developing a new car and then give it a name which will put off 99 per cent of its potential market?
BMW, Mercedes and Audi have the right idea by not giving their cars names at all; however, some manufacturers have given their cars seriously awful monikers.
So, to celebrate the very worst in automotive lunacy, we've compiled a list of the ten worst names ever to grace a car's boot-lid.
10. Kia Pro_cee'd
Not only is the Pro_cee'd's name a truly dreadful attempt at a pun on the word 'proceed', it also features approximately 200% more punctuation than a car name ever should. Not content with the ill-advised apostrophe nestling between the final e and the d, Kia decided that what the Pro_cee'd needed was an underscore. Why? God only knows.
9. Geely PU Urban Nanny
We're forever being told that the Chinese will one day dominate the global car market. Well, not with nameplates like this they won't. The phrase 'Urban Nanny' immediately evokes images of a Mary Poppins doing a gangster rap. This isn't a good thing.
8. Toyota Deliboy
We don't like to appear to be taking the mickey out of our Far Eastern brethren, although we are obliquely aware that most of the cars on this list are from Eastern countries. But when they start selling cars named after misspelt British sitcom characters, we have to draw the line.
7. Mitsubishi Mum 500 Shall We Join Us
Shall We Join Us? Is that some sort of logical conundrum specifically designed to make robots' heads explode in the 25th century? Well, whatever it is, it sure as heck isn't a good name for a car, even a car as woefully ugly as this.
6. Skoda Superb
Surely Skoda must have known that by naming its big saloon 'Superb', it'd be opening itself up to snide remarks from every corner of the motoring world. The Czech firm recently pulled off the same trick with the new Rapid (top speed: 109mph).
5. Honda Life Dunk
In 2000, Honda fitted a turbocharger to its already-bizarrely-named Honda Life and created the Honda Life Dunk. Presumably then, Dunk means turbocharged, so the Porsche 911 Turbo should, by rights, be called the Porsche 911 Dunk. Somehow we can't see Porsche going for this.
4. Great Wall Wingle
When Great Wall Motors brought the Wingle to the European market, they renamed it the Steed. This was a good move.
3. McLaren MP4-12C
With the MP4-12C, McLaren designed the greatest car in the history of the universe... and then named it after a dishwasher. We do realise that each character in the McLaren's ludicrously long name has its own significance; however, we just wish that McLaren had seen sense and called the MP4-12C something a little less nerdy.
2. Isuzu Mysterious Utility Wizard
Mysterious Utility Wizard. Mysterious Utility Wizard. No, it's no use -- it doesn't matter how many times you say it, Mysterious Utility Wizard is a catastrophically stupid name for a car and one which raises a myriad of questions: What's mysterious about it? Is the wizard mysterious, or the utility? What was Isuzu's PR man smoking when he thought of it?
1. Mitsubishi Lettuce
Ford named its Mustang as such because it felt that the car mirrored some of the grace, poise and power exhibited by a thoroughbred horse. Mitsubishi, presumably, named their car Lettuce because they felt it displayed some of the characteristics of nature's least interesting vegetable. They weren't far wrong, but we think lettuce is just marginally more interesting.
So there you have it, our top ten stupidest car names of all time. If you think we've missed any out, let us know by commenting below.
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