The Ford "Goat Dung"

[JimmyTheHand]

The original Cortina was going to be called Caprino - until Ford realised that was Italian slang for goat dung - wonder how that would have gone down in areas like Bedford with lots of Italians

[GuitarTech]

Rolls-Royce was going to call one of their "silver" cars the silver mist, till someone in the marketing department found out that "mist" also means manure or sh*t in German...

[timbob]

I'm sure I read something about the Toyota MR2 not being called as such in France.

"Emm-eer-deux". Say it quickly and you nearly get "Merde"...

[Caulkhead]

The MR2 was called MR in France as when pronounced, MR2 sounds like 'Merdeux' or stty. It's also not surprising the Citroen VD became the Visa outside France. . . . . . .

ETA - great minds and all that

[AnotherClarkey]

JimmyTheHand said:

The original Cortina was going to be called Caprino - until Ford realised that was Italian slang for goat dung - wonder how that would have gone down in areas like Bedford with lots of Italians

Really? The Italian sitting next to me on the sofa reckons this is rubbish - 'caprino' just means 'little goat' or possibly 'of a goat' at a push.

[BFG TERRANO]

I was once told citroen means lemon?

[Blib]

Nova in Spanish means "Doesn't go", apparently.

[xRIEx]

Possibly a myth: the Ford Pinto didn't sell well in Brazil because 'Pinto' is slang for 'small male genitals' in Brazilian Portugese.

[JimmyTheHand]

AnotherClarkey said:

Really? The Italian sitting next to me on the sofa reckons this is rubbish - 'caprino' just means 'little goat' or possibly 'of a goat' at a push.

Judging by the way slang changes between generations it could be something that fell out of use (or just rubbish journalism) - but goat-dung to Italian

[davepoth]

Buick Lacrosse didn't sell well in Quebec because Lacrosse is slang for autophilia in Francophone Canada.

The same is true of the Mitsubishi Pajero in Spanish. The Mazda LaPuta didn't go down well there either since that means "Thewe" In Spanish.

Ascona means "Lady Garden" in Portuguese.

Edited by davepoth on Sunday 21st October 21:37