Top five worst car names on the Australian market | Opinion

Recently, Suzuki announced its latest model, dubbed the ‘Fronx’ in its home market of India.

Surely, we all thought in the office, this car would get a different name if it were to arrive in Australia. It’s a small SUV which replaces the popular and affordable Baleno hatch, so, following the logic of some of its rivals, we all figured the natural progression for this car would be “Baleno Cross” or some such.

How wrong we were. Suzuki will bring the small SUV here, and it will keep its silly name. In fact, one deputy editor in the CarsGuide office even vowed to eat his iPhone if Suzuki decided to press ahead with it. I asked him how he intended to prepare it.

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This started a conversation: What are some of the worst car names? Not just globally, that’s too easy with the likes of the Chery QQ Ice Cream, Mazda Titan Dump, Mitsubishi Minica Lettuce, Isuzu Mysterious Utility Wizard (wonder where MU-X came from? Wonder no longer), or the Peugeot Bipper Tipee, almost all somewhat excusable by the fact that they weren’t really meant to be known in a primarily English-speaking market.

The same could go for names that are rude in other languages, the classic example being the Mitsubishi Pajero (we will let you Google what that means in Spanish - but it was changed to Montero in that and a few other markets), or the Audi e-tron which translates to “turd” in French.

No, this list is special, because it is filled with examples of cars that were sold here complete with unfortunate and downright baffling names which in most cases the manufacturer could have or should have changed if for no other reason than localisation in the Australian market.

Ford Probe

Ford Probe... no need to say more.

Why? Millions of words in the English language, and Ford chooses ‘Probe’. The whole story of this car is cursed, with Ford originally seeing it as a potential and much more fuel efficient Mustang replacement (to much outrage), along with a shared front-drive platform with Mazda. 

The worst part is in Australia Ford had the rights to the ‘Capri’ name. Sure it was a lacklustre car, but at least wore a badge that wasn't so… suggestive. The Probe was only built from 1988 until 1997 spanning two generations.

Kia Pro_Cee’d

The Kia Pro underscore cee apostrophe D.

For the most part, Kia has done pretty well with names. There are some slightly questionable ones, Bongo and Carnival ranking up there, but they’re easily off-set by names like Stinger, which you have to admit oozes cool.

This is what makes the Pro_Cee’d (or as one ex-Top Gear host likes to put it: The Pro underscore cee apostrophe D) so puzzling. Kia’s original intention with the name was to celebrate the car as the first Kia designed exclusively for Europe, and ‘Ceed’ was come up with as a shortened version of ‘Community of Europe with European Design.’

This was then spun-off to Cee’d_SW for the wagon version, Pro_Cee’d for the hot hatch version, and XCeed (which is at least clever) for the crossover SUV spin-off. Kia managed to sell nearly 750 Pro_Cee’ds (the only version offered locally) in Australia from 2014 to 2016.

Hyundai called their version of the car the i30. I’ll let you decide which is better.

Nissan Cedric

Cedric doesn't exactly conjure up an image of prestige or luxury.

When it comes to Japanese car names, particularly for the more high-end luxury region, there has long been a preference for old-timey English words, the more grand the better.

To give you an idea, during its time Cedric had to compete with the likes of the Toyota Crown, Mitsubishi Debonair, and Isuzu Statesman deVille.

Supposedly the name of this sedan derived from the main character of the late 1800s children’s novel Little Lord Fautleroy which the CEO of Nissan at the time, Katsuji Kawamata was inspired by, and figured the stately and literary status of the name would give the sedan a fighting chance against the fancy Crown.

The car was exported only for its first generation to Australia from 1962 to 1966, and then later as a Datsun-branded sedan.

Ferrari LaFerrari

Ferrari “The Ferrari”.

Firstly, yes, its name is the Ferrari “The Ferrari”, meant to suggest the idea that this is the definitive Ferrari, but then what? Are they done after that? Pack it up, we’ll never make one better? Sure its hybridised 6.2-litre V12 might still be great right now, but what do you call the next one?

It appears we’ll find out before long, with Ferrari promising a successor to the ‘definitive’ car by 2026. Just 710 LaFerraris were built between 2013 and 2018 and there is at least one in Australia, although it was only ever built in left-hand drive.

Ferrari isn’t the only one to pull this trick, with Renault branding the Renault 5 hatch ‘Le Car’ for the North American market. The Renault The Car. A fitting companion for The Ferrari The Ferrari.

Toyota bZ4X

‘bZ’ stands for ‘beyond Zero’ while 4X denotes it as an all-wheel drive.

These days there’s a lot riding on a brand’s first mainstream electric vehicle. Doubly so for Toyota, which has made a name for itself as being very late to the fully electric party, despite its head-start in hybrid tech.

Why then, has the Japanese giant chosen to confuse everyone with the name ‘bZ4X’ for the RAV4-sized EV? At least RAV4 was somewhat catchy, suited the car, and had the advantage of being one of the first true small SUVs. For the record, RAV4 stands for ‘Recreational Active Vehicle with 4-wheel drive.’

Despite its mishmash of capitalised and non-capitalised characters and a number thrown in for good measure though, ‘bZ4X’ makes a little more sense once you decipher it.

‘bZ’ is Toyota’s name for its incoming line of ‘beyond Zero’ battery electric vehicles, and 4X denotes it as an all-wheel drive SUV. We don’t know why the ‘b’ isn’t capitalised either, but we do know that there’s also a bZ3 sedan on the way, as well as registered patent filings for an entire lineup, including bZ1, bZ2, bZ2X, bZ3X, bZ4, bZ5, and bZ5X.