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Wednesday March 29, 2006
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 What could be more upscale than naming your car after America's fastest growing sport, lacrosse? Thus we have the Buick LaCrosse (shown at left), the replacement for the Regal.
One problem north of the border, however: Although lacrosse translates to the stick in French, to some Quebecois, it's also a synonym for masturbation. So Buick worked up a different name for Canada: The Allure.
Some other cars with checkered names:
Mitsubishi Pajero. The LaCrosse problem south of the border: Pajero is also slang for masturbator.
Ford Caliente. Caliente means hot in Spanish. It also means streetwalker. (But then, Ford has also sold the Escort.)
Toyota Fiera. In Puerto Rico, fiera translates loosely to ugly old woman.
Ford Pinto. To Brazilians, pinto is slang for small penis.
Chevrolet Nova. You've probably heard this one already: no va means won't go in Spanish. Although it got laughs ("how could GM be so dumb, again?"), reports of lousy sales in South America are more urban legend than fact, and linguists argue that it's an awkward construct in Spanish (no funciona would be more appropriate).
AMC Matador. What's fine for Mexico doesn't work so well in Puerto Rico, where matador is slang for killer.
GM Hummer. We won't go there.
Sometimes, naming problems pop up after the fact. Renault's 1980-era Fuego (Spanish for fire) had some serious electrical problems. And you just knew the AMC Gremlin was going to have mechanical problems.
Because most of the good names are already registered in a major country, or because of the snicker factor, you're ever more likely to see cars with numbers for names (like the Nissan 350Z, BMW 530i, Mercedes E320, Mazda6, and Saab 9-3) or initials (the Acura RL, TL, TSX, and Pontiac GTO). The Lincoln Zephyr spent only a few months with that storied FoMoCo nameplate before being rebadged as MKZ, which is pronounced Mark Z.
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