QOTD: The Worst Model Names of Them All?
It happened quite by accident last week, as good ideas often do. After last Wednesday’s Rare Rides post concerning the Nissan Stanza Wagon, reader comments got a little sidetracked. Dal20402 lamented there had never been a worse name for a car than Axxess (the Stanza Wagon’s successor).
Before I could unplug TTAC from the Canadian outlet on the wall, other commenters were jumping in with their terrible name suggestions. Seemed like a fun game, so today we open the floor to everyone’s suggestions.
Give us your submissions for the worst-ever automotive model names.
I came up with three off the top of my head last week, so I’ll cover those here and let others submit their names again for consideration.
Our first bad name example is the Pao, by Nissan. Sold only in the Japanese domestic market between 1989 and 1991, this interesting and retro-styled city hatchback didn’t get a name to match its design. It’s a cool car, but awful in name.
This van is called the Citroën Jumpy. The same (slightly restyled) van was also sold as a Peugeot, a Toyota, and a Fiat. Get with it, get Jumpy! The second-generation Jumpy was replaced with an all-new model after the 2016 year, after a production partnership between PSA and Fiat ended.
So what exactly is an “Expert Tepee?” That’s not entirely clear, but the Peugeot Expert Tepee is (or was) the same basic van as the Citroën above. Certain cargo specifications of Tepee look remarkably like the Ram ProMaster, aka the Fiat Ducato. This is no longer true for the current generation, as Citroën, Peugeot, and Toyota models are on a new body. The trio and their variants are manufactured together in France and Uruguay.
Production vehicles past and present fall within the bounds of our subject today. Vehicles that never got past the concept stage don’t count. Let’s hear your worst.
[Images: Wikipedia ( CC BY-SA 3.0), PSA Group]
Interested in lots of cars and their various historical contexts. Started writing articles for TTAC in late 2016, when my first posts were QOTDs. From there I started a few new series like Rare Rides, Buy/Drive/Burn, Abandoned History, and most recently Rare Rides Icons. Operating from a home base in Cincinnati, Ohio, a relative auto journalist dead zone. Many of my articles are prompted by something I'll see on social media that sparks my interest and causes me to research. Finding articles and information from the early days of the internet and beyond that covers the little details lost to time: trim packages, color and wheel choices, interior fabrics. Beyond those, I'm fascinated by automotive industry experiments, both failures and successes. Lately I've taken an interest in AI, and generating "what if" type images for car models long dead. Reincarnating a modern Toyota Paseo, Lincoln Mark IX, or Isuzu Trooper through a text prompt is fun. Fun to post them on Twitter too, and watch people overreact. To that end, the social media I use most is Twitter, @CoreyLewis86. I also contribute pieces for Forbes Wheels and Forbes Home.
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Late to the party as usual, but, the Ferrari LaFerrari. "The Ferarri The Ferrari." F70 would have been fine, thanks.
Plymouth Belevedere. Oh Belvedere! Come here boy!