Ah, no, the worst would be worse than that. AMC, long ago and far away, had a model called the "Matador". They could not figure out why the car did not sell in Spanish-speaking territories. Until someone who actually SPOKE Spanish clued them in that "Matador" meant "murderer"...

And AMC also put a 304 c.i.d. V-8 in a Gremlin. The Javelin, and the cousin, the�AMX, were their sports cars, and needed a particular displacement for the class they were in at SCCA events. They were trying to put that V-8 in everything in their line-up, to bring down the unit costs, since they were buying the engines from Chrysler, or some other such hare-brained arrangement. Most of their automatic transmissions were obtained from Chrysler...

________________________________
From: Jim Felder <jim.felder@GMAIL.COM>
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Sent: Fri, June 18, 2010 12:53:25 PM
Subject: Re: NVC vehicle model names? WT_ were they thinking?

If you get outside of the US, the worst has to be the Chevy Nova,
which didn't sell well in spanish-speaking countries where no va is
slang for "won't go."

Or maybe VW's thing? Can you imagine calling in to work to say that
you were going to be late because your thing was broken down or
somebody ran into your thing?

Jim

On Fri, Jun 18, 2010 at 11:16 AM, Loren Busch <starwagen@gmail.com> wrote:
> �RE: Car Names
> My nominee for "Name of a Car That Invokes The Worst Image" has to be the
> Gremlin. �Hmm. �I'm in the showroom, looking for a new car. �And here is one
> that comes new, from the factory, with Gremlins built in!!! �I don't even
> have to drive it to know it's going to have problems! �Wow, what brilliant
> piece of marketing....
>