The Audi e-tron or do you mean Audi Poo?

Some things are a lot harder than they look. Take, for example, making a delicious cake. To the novice, it looks like it should be, er, a piece of cake, but the reality is far from the case. Make the slightest error and you could end up with something more at home in a brick wall than on the afternoon tea table.

Or take naming cars. You’d think, wouldn’t you, that it had to be easy. You simply pick an animal or city or type of wind, or something else that reflects the vehicle’s ‘character’ and presto! You’re done. Suddenly, you have the Ford Cougar or the Hyundai Santa Fe or the Ford Zephyr. Even insects work - think of the VW Beetle. It’s simple. After all, what could go wrong?

Answer? Plenty. As Rolls Royce, that famous icon of British automotive luxury, learned the hard way (nearly) back in the mid-60s, when they were about to launch their latest masterpiece, the Silver Mist, in Germany. It wasn’t until very last moment, you see, that someone pointed out that, in German, ‘mist’ actually means ‘rubbish’ or ‘animal manure’. Fortunately, this alert came just in time, and disaster was averted. Instead, the Silver Shadow was born, though more out of desperation than romance.

And it wasn’t the last time a similar mistake would be made. The Toyota MR2, for instance, has become known as the ‘MR’ in French-speaking countries, as MR2 (pronounced ’em-er-deux’) comes a tad too close for comfort to the word ’merde’, meaning ’c**p’. And, as recently as this year, Audi launched its all-electric e-tron, apparently not realising that, in French, étron is a slang word for poo.

But there are – literally – hundreds of examples of how car manufacturers, or – more likely – their marketing agencies have made a pig’s ear of things in the naming department. We’ve mentioned a small sample of names which have rude or unpleasant meanings on other languages, but they’re not all like this – many are just inappropriate or silly, while others are just downright weird.

Consider, for instance, the good old Chevy Nova. To non-Spanish speakers, it may sound innocent enough, even attractive, until you learn that in Spanish, “No va˜ means “doesn’t go”. You don’t need to be a marketing genius to realise that this isn’t a brilliant idea for a car name. Perhaps it’s a tribute to the Latin sense of irony that the car still sold well in many South American countries!

Another example of an apparently-innocent name is the Fiat Uno. What’s wrong with that? Well, nothing really – as long as you’re not selling the car in Finland. Because, in Finnish, Uno means “fool”. So Finnish owners have to answer the question: “What car do you drive?” with the answer: “A Fiat Fool.” You can see how that wouldn’t be a turn-on for many people.

And, as we’ve said, some names are just plain strange. Quite what came over the Japanese manufacturer Daihatsu when it named its 660 cc mini car ‘”Naked”, we don’t know. But it did, and the Daihatsu Naked remained on sale between 1999 and 2004. Not that Daihatsu is the only Japanese company to err on the side of the odd. Around the same time Daihatsu we’re getting naked, for instance, Mitsubishi we’re going to the dogs. Because, in 1998 they introduced the Mitsubishi Dingo – a moniker which has unfortunate connotations in Australia, where the dingo famously (or, more accurately, infamously) stole a baby out of a tent. There were jokes at the time that the company would soon introduce the Mitsubishi Pitbull.

We won’t go on. After all, by now, we’ve probably made our point - which is that naming cars isn’t quite as easy as it may seem. In fact it’s a bit of a minefield. What may seem a perfectly fitting name in one country could quite easily make you a laughing stock in another. In fact, you don’t need to cross language barriers to generate a fit of the giggles. If you don’t believe us, we’ll leave the last word to the manufacturer Isuzu, which, in 1991, decided to brand its latest SUV with a name pretty much guaranteed to cause saucy chuckles across the English speaking world. What was it?

The Isuzu Bighorn.

Oh, and in case you didn’t know, at Desperateseller.co.uk we stock thousands of used cars at great prices – and many of them have fairly sensible names.