The badge on the boot lid of the 1962-70 Iso Rivolta IR300/340 is, like every other aspect of the car, a thing of beauty. A chrome finished casting made up of two different but decidedly complementary scripts—a heavier italicized cursive for the Iso and a more delicate, almost art deco extrusion for the Rivolta—could be hung on an art gallery wall. Oh yeah, it’s true, the car is called a Rivolta, like in revolting.
Why would you saddle a car with such a name? Well because it’s a family name—Renzo Rivolta was the founder of Iso Autoveicoli S.p.A—and the fact is that the name didn’t have the same context in Italian as it does in English. We English speakers may stifle a giggle at the mere mention, but in Italy they hold Rivolta in great honor not just because of his sixties sports cars but also as the creator of the Isetta bubble car a decade earlier.
Many a brand has carried the name of its builder or benefactor, and for every Ferrari or Chevrolet, there has been a Bizzarrini or Koenigsegg. Today we want to be a little childish and decide which of those family names has been the funniest ever applied to a car. I think even Porsche applies seeing as how no one can seemingly pronounce it correctly.
Image: DRIVE
Hooniverse Asks: What’s the Funniest Family Car Name?
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74 responses to “Hooniverse Asks: What’s the Funniest Family Car Name?”
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So what you are trying to tell me is that people used these for something besides pizza delivery?
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LePizzadeliverer was voted down at the late night naming meeting, that’s for sure.
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I swear that’s what they did when their loans were up and they ended up on the used car lots.
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“It wasn’t founded by Floyd Hummer?”
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The Dodge Swinger is an easy one here. Especially for the seventies. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/25385f4ff577372602bc49312beac75af4d220fb3d564adb5f0f0fb630b104fb.jpg
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Bonus points for Swinger Scat Pack edition.
http://www.grayflannelsuit.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/dodge-dart-swinger-340-1970_ad.jpg-
Here we see Saddam Hussein with his Scat Pack Swinger.
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If this wasn’t a Classic Captions, it should be.
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We are a couple weeks behind on that for what it’s worth.
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Swinger/Swinging didn’t mean specifically what it does now. It simply meant hip, vibrant, and adventuresome.
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I associate swinging/swingers/key parties strictly with the 1970s, not any other decade. (It was the swingin’ sixties, without the wink-wink, nudge-nudge that came later.) Are you saying television & movies have lied to me?!
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About all you’d expect in a company named the same as British slang for ‘gentlemens vegetables’
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Even better I came across a Swinger branded RV a few years ago. Imagine trying to sell your spouse on a Swinger motorhome! https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0294eac375b4379b75ccf3321207c7102a34fa98fbc68858f7a355df80c6c1ef.jpg
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If nasty shag carpet and paneling could talk.
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That is really nice. I’ll bet it’s Dodge powered as well.
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It was. It later came up for sale and was listed as 440cid powered from what I remember.
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I remember an old Car and Driver TV thing that showed how a lot of the older RV’s were based on Dodge trucks in the seventies.
You know this is the kind of knowledge that will make money some day.
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Seriously?
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Fits a very small family.
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What were they thinking? I have no rational angle on this one.
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There was a lot of talk about lunar probes and deep space probes at the time.
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A Congressional committee Probed the naming strategy, ultimately calling to Junket.
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There was just too much Porking the barrel
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There was a family of Ford concept cars called the Probe I, III, III, etc. starting in the early 80s. Apparently, they didn’t hear the giggles at the car shows.
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I’m sure it was sold to them this way.
“People are going to probe the universe and explore the outside world in their new Ford”
While the bean counters thought
“We don’t care what it costs. Just get rid of the front wheel drive Mustangs tooling costs”.
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Honda had some really bad luck when trying to name what later became the Jazz/Fit in 2001. It wasn’t discovered at all until posters and brochures arrived at the Swedish marketing department for translation. Let’s just say it didn’t help that the model was advertised as “small on the outside, but spacious once you get in” and “a daily pleasure.”
Removing the last two letters was enough for the US market, but for Europe they decided to start from scratch just to be sure. It’s said to have cost Honda several million euro.
http://www.gocompare.com/coveredcontent/coveredimages/154731/jazz.png-
Didn’t completely succeed, in Norwegian forums the original name is sometimes used as a nickname – but marketing-wise, that’s still better than the original idea…
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When I lived in Japan I desperately wanted a Nissan Cherry, but they were hard to find. Most of them turned out to be used.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c7620a63f9e34399208c0644f31fc84bd236040a0bb0f09cef720e9aefc79f0d.jpg-
That one looks like it’s held up well.
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well, after it was used it was given a hot bath and as everyone knows a hot bath puts the cherry back in everyone.
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I always thought the Pontiac LeMans (not knowing about the race as a young teen) was kinda funny because we learned that one of the lady parts in heath class was called the “Mons Venus” and thought, “heh, the mons!” Now we have a race called LeMons. Now, I hope that is all YOU think about, too.
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For just plain offensiveness to English-
speakinglistening ears I think the Ssangyong Rexton is high on the list, even if it IS Mercedes based and not that bad looking.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/68dd29e2380be53ea44cf19d307b7415584c197ecade49ea7c93a483922dbb12.jpg
http://www.ranker.com/review/ssangyong-rexton/2081314-
But Ssangyong means ‘Double Dragon’. How unintentionally cool is that? However, I’d argue that ‘Korando’ is worse than Rexton. Makes me think of Komodo Dragons.
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“There he is, your Komodo Dragon, one of seven, in the world…”
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No word of a lie. I was raised in a town called Rexton.
If the car is anything like the town it will underwhelm you with its mediocrity.
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Somewhere in the house I still have (if I could find it) a 1/43 scale diecast Rivolta, silver, with jewel headlights.
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https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8717d2be6601cddb874b0aab6e3188950b1a730418c76ab58493091a2dc358c4.jpg Buick Wildcat. By the turn of the 1970s, this supposedly ferocious feline had grown into a fat and lazy Garfield.
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But still a good looking one?
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The ad didn’t wrok that well, since they spell G-O-G-G-O correctly in the video title.
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Best family name in the industry … Tata. I can see myself rolling a Tata Indica, shown here in a lovely green. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/615e0d2bbc3c69a7d8560382970c0378c6bb9a6088738b68f0daf871f1414a95.jpg ,
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Sweater puppies?
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OOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooo……….
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The example given is the Rivolta model from the Iso brand, so I’m going with model.
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I had the same understanding of the question. The question by itself isn’t clear in this distinction, but within the context of the post, Rob was pretty clearly asking for a family name of a car, and not a name of a family car.
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A car? I’ve always associated the brand with motorboating.
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Maybe not the type of family car you would road trip to Wally World in, but certainly useful for neighborhood errands.
The Pussycar.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fs6-0uIVNhA/TxUz6706B7I/AAAAAAAAAVk/NCQ2tWSBAhM/s1600/74091–44662250–u196d9.jpg-
Grab ’em while you can!
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DAF Daffodil. Not just a funny name for a car, but their advertising campaign gave a name to one of the more ridiculously named ’80s bands.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f4ca42b9b9afc642d9adf343221680bf0ff400f8e296934e1a83e55f64dd0846.jpg
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b6da5d47cadb7d1c68ed391ea9536e5d5a740bc08e7524692b31de8e66255dab.jpg-
My runner up is “Borgward Isabella”, which just sounds like a Disney villain.
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https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1b3ca58a93cd00585cdb573f1ee86000aece4249094aef18c7a58d6ac63feb33.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1ab93ad53061ee7a7a0e6cbf3cdaef520e029621bc9200f92611a976c488b48f.jpg Humber Super Snipe. What’s so super about an unassuming little wading bird?
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I think that the original motorised Snipe was a development of the Camel, so that makes even less sense!
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/de/Sopwith_Snipe.jpg
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If we’re restricted to family car names, then I’ll go with the Frisky Family Three.
http://i.ebayimg.com/images/i/151115405087-0-1/s-l1000.jpg -
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I don’t see what’s so funny about the name Mini Cooper.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/daedc636da56216d51d12af42bb53469ae4d70c832fb8ccbe65ef9538ea4a3dc.jpg-
I knew a gal in college named Missy Cooper.
She got married to a guy named Clubman Coop.
Half of this is true.-
I used to work on MINIs. At one point I had two repair orders on my desk.
The customers’ names were Marie Cooper and Veronique J. Mini.
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One would think Ford would have researched what the Edge SEL would have conjured up…
All sorts of names in this one. -
Studebaker’s Erskine Six was marketed as The Little Aristocrat, apparently after the youngest member of the famous performing family.
https://saucedo.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/aristocrats_00.jpg -
The Frisky Prince.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1b/TheFriskyPrince1961.jpg-
I kinda want it.
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“Autos Hurtu” sounds like a safety warning not the name of a company…
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f4/Hurtu-1924.jpg -
“Autos Hurtu” sounds more like a safety warning than a car company…
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f4/Hurtu-1924.jpg -
here in Australia in the 70s, holden had a model range called the Torana (originally based on the Vauxhall Viva range) and in Melbourne at least that was inextricably linked to a youth detention centre of the same name
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Some of the kids in Turana probably ended up there for stealing Toranas
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Not family cars, but Japanese van names have had some clangers in the past, eg Homy and Bongo.
Likewise some European small van names don’t translate too well, eg Jumpy and Bipper. -
Tragic comedy is still comedy, right?
Oddly not sold in the Middle East, from Toyota. Though it was for a long time a name owned by Morris.
https://sociorocketnewsen.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/ti-5.png?w=580&h=288
http://www.uniquecarsandparts.com.au/images/car_info/Morris/Isis/xMorris_Isis_Large_3.jpg.pagespeed.ic.28HIesfpfs.jpg
http://www.uniquecarsandparts.com.au/images/car_info/Morris/Isis/Morris_Isis_Large_2.jpg
http://www.autogallery.org.ru/k/mc/32morrisIsis_9aV.jpg-
After it had been recommended for its cars here, I watched a shown with a similar problem.
https://i0.wp.com/www.bubbleblabber.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/archer-s6-e1406667766884.jpg
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