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Perhaps out of a fear of naming confusions or reinterpretations, a la the BMW Gina and Pontiac Ass-tek , many companies seem to be going towards alphanumericism (though that presents trouble in China, where the number "4" conjures up the sound of "death"). People fault the Chevy Nova for its Spanish translation , but we still like the name. The Japanese have all sorts of strange and awful naming conventions, aka the Mitsubishi Delica Space Gear and Daihatsu Naked . The Russians created the Lada brand because the original name, Zhiguli, sounded too much like "gigolo." But what are the worst names? Is it insane to call a 350Z a Fairlady Z? What about the VW wish to name most of their cars after wind patterns? The Touareg, Routan and Tiguan sound more like diseases than cars. "Oh, you hear about Franky? He's got the Routan." These are just off the top of our heads — what do you consider the worst car name of all time? [Photo: SugarCloud.com...
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Because the current alpha-numeric soup is too confusing, BMW is reportedly going to be changing up their name game. But don't get too excited just yet. No, BMW will not be giving their cars real names; the 135i will not be renamed the 'BMW Dual Thruster DeLuxe Junior' and the X5 will not be renamed the 'BMW Fire Turd Momma.' Apparently what BMW thinks we all need is a bit more alpha-numeric confusion. At this point, we would like to explain to you exactly how BMW will be changing things-- but we can't make any sense of the explanation. Here's what we've heard: "Due to upcoming U.S. regulations in effect for Model Year 2009, we are changing some of our naming protocol. The new naming protocol will affect all products that currently have an engine displacement designation within the name--X3, X5, X6, Z4 and Z4 Coupe." We think that means there will be more models like the 'xDrive35i.' So maybe we should all brace ourselves for the 'BMW...
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