Read part one here and part two here.
40) Renault Kangoo Be Bop
There really is a lot to take in with the short-lived Renault Kangoo Be Bop. For starters, it was a tiny two-door van seemingly designed for the sole purpose of carrying grandfather clocks or big toy giraffes, since the rear windscreen and back half of the roof retracted to leave it as a semi-open top. Oh yeah, and did we mention it was called the Kangoo Be Bop?
41) Isuzu Mysterious Utility Wizard
Granted, you’d very rarely have seen the name of this car in full. The original three-door version was just badged as the MU, but the official line was that it stood for Mysterious Utility. Not sure what’s so mysterious about it, but there you go. Then, a year later in 1990, came the five-door version, which Isuzu called the MU Wizard. Why? Who knows—maybe they used magic to conjure up the extra wheelbase. You’re a wizard, Isuzu.
42) Peugeot Bipper Tepee
As we’ve already seen with the Kangoo Be Bop, at the turn of the 2010s, the French car industry appeared to be locked in a contest to see who could give their little van-based people carriers the silliest name. Citroen Nemo Multispace set the bar decently high, but its sibling model, the Peugeot Bipper Tepee, might just take the prize. What on earth is a bipper? And what’s it got to do with a kind of conical tent? Answers on a postcard, please.
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43) Ora Funky Cat
Plenty of Chinese cars have names that sound a bit strange to western ears, but most sensibly get a name change before they leave the mainland. GWM, for instance, rebadged the Wingle pickup as the Steed for the UK. It apparently forgot to do a name change for the Funky Cat, though. That said, we were quite sad when it was renamed the Ora 03 a year or so later—the name was the best thing about it by miles.
44) Honda That’s
Honda That’s...that’s what? Hello? Where have you gone? Honda explains this kei car’s confounding name in its original press release: “When we see something in our daily lives that strikes our fancy, we say, “Hey! That’s it!” Honda chose this name to express the casual, natural relationship they hope That’s owners will have with their cars.” At least you can now correct anyone who claims the Kia Cee’d is the only car with an apostrophe in its name.
45) BMW Individual M760Li xDrive V12 THE NEXT 100 YEARS
This total omnishambles of a name is indeed rooted in some kind of logic. It was a special edition of the range-topping, V12-powered, all-wheel-drive, long-wheelbase, M division-fettled 7-Series, created by BMW’s Individual personaliation division to celebrate the company’s centenary. Still doesn’t make it a good name, though, and there’s really no need for it to shout at us.
46) Mercedes-Benz G-Class Edition STRONGER THAN THE 1980s
Again with the shouting, guys. We can hear you. We love the retro vibes of this 2025 special-edition G-Class, inspired by its ancestor from—well, you can guess which decade—but STRONGER THAN THE 1980s may well just be the biggest stream of meaningless corporate nonsense ever tagged onto a car’s name.
47) Proton Satria XLi Son of a Gun
Yes, this really was a real special edition—limited to the Australian market, as far as we can tell. From what we can gather, it was positioned as a sporty model, complete with trinkets like a bodykit, chromed exhaust tips, and a sports-style steering wheel and gearshifter. None of which explains why it was named like it was trying really hard not to swear.
48) Renault Vel Satis
‘Vel Satis’ sounds like Renault was trying to be all pretentious and give its baffling overgrown posh hatchback thing a Latin name, but the reality is even more stomach-churning: It’s derived from the words ‘velocity’ and ‘satisfaction.’ Pass the bucket, please. What’s more, you’d be feeling very little in the way of velocity or satisfaction in a car with, at most, 245hp and a notoriously rubbish ride.
49) Autozam Carol Me Lady
The Mazda Carol kei car is already curiously named, first appearing around the same time as the Nissan Gloria and Silvia, and taking a similar approach by being named after one of your granny’s friends. Then, when it came back in 1989, initially under Mazda’s short-lived Autozam sub-brand, the strangeness was doubled down on with this special edition that sounded like it was tipping a fedora at you.
50) Skoda Rapid
Whether we’re talking about the ’30s original, the rear-engined ’80s model, or the modern and slightly underwhelming VW-built version, ‘rapid’ has been a wildly overambitious moniker for any of the Skoda models that have worn it. We have checked just in case something was getting lost in translation here, but no—rapid means exactly the same thing in Czech as it does in English, so we have no idea what Skoda was thinking.
51) Chevrolet Epica
We have to assume Epica derives from ‘epic,’ which begs the question of what exactly about this pitifully bland sedan was epic. The styling? No. The performance? Definitely not. The fact that it was offered with a straight-six engine that—we kid you not—was designed with Porsche’s input? Interesting, but not epic. Sales so abysmal that less than 20 years after its launch, there are comfortably fewer than 40 left on British roads? Well, we suppose that makes it an epic fail.
52) Mitsubishi Carisma
Wow, what an original take we’re having on the Mitsubishi Carisma! Nobody in the history of car journalism has ever pointed out the deep irony of this name being applied to a crushingly dull car before! Yeah, fair enough. This one’s been pointed out many, many times before. Doesn’t stop it from being true, though.
53) Proton Savvy
The Proton Savvy was very affordable when it was launched, so we suppose you could be called financially savvy for buying one, much in the same way you’d be financially savvy if you ate nothing but supermarket own-brand instant noodles every day for the rest of your life. There are many ways in which that would be a deeply un-savvy move, though, and so it goes for the car, too.
54) Honda Legend
The Honda Legend was far from a bad car—in fact, if you’re after an enormously comfy and reliable highway cruiser and don’t mind feeding a very hungry V6, it’s quite a shrewd used buy—but the name really rather promises a lot that we’re not sure the car delivers on. Perhaps Honda Decent, Honda Okay, or Honda Nice Idea But I Think I’ll Just Buy an Audi A6 would be more apt.
55) Hyundai Stellar
Taken literally, ‘stellar’ means ‘of or relating to the stars.’ Taken figuratively, it’s a term of seriously high praise. The Hyundai Stellar definitely doesn’t come from outer space (as far as we’re aware, at least), and though it was a well-made, comfy, and good-value car, we’re not sure the other meaning is too appropriate, either—although you might have thought differently when you laid eyes on a Stellar minicab at the end of a heavy night out in the late ’80s.
56) Oldsmobile Intrigue
What are we supposed to be intrigued by? The styling that appeared to have been created by gently shaving bits off a bar of soap? The interior plastics that seemed to be made out of melted-down Action Man figures? The fact that initially, it had a 3.8-liter V6 with just 195hp? We suppose that last bit is intriguing inasmuch as it shouldn’t be possible to get so little power out of so much engine.
57) Chrysler Sebring
Sebring is one of the oldest and most revered race circuits in America, the home of one of the crown jewels of endurance racing. The perfect name, then, for an ugly, underpowered, poorly made, slow, chintzy, cramped, uncomfortable, and joyless sedan from a brand with a piddling amount of motorsports heritage. Sorry, did we say perfect? We meant the exact opposite of that.
NOTE: This article first appeared on TopGear.com. Minor edits have been made.
