Five cars with more than one model name

Friday, 27 July 2018

Cars don't always get the same name around the world. we take a look at five that don't.

It's not easy coming up with model names that work everywhere in the world. In fact, sometimes it's impossible. Here are five cars that are called one thing in New Zealand and something else entirely in other parts of the world.

Hyundai Kona

Hyundai's funky small SUV is named after the Western district of the Hawaiian islands, but unfortunately in Portugal it sounds exactly like 'cona', which is a very offensive slang word for lady parts in Portugese.

That clearly wasn't going to help in the car's marketing, so Hyundai decided to name it Kauai in Portugal.

* Five carmakers that use confusing badges

* Five cars with terrible celestial names

* Five vehicles named after places in the Pacific Ocean**

Kauai also happens to have a link to the western part of Hawaii, being one of the western islands, so the name makes sense.

Not quite sure why they decided to launch it as the Hyundai Encino in China though.

Nissan X-Trail/Qashqai

Ever wondered why the latest versions of the Nissan X-Trail and Qashqai look so alike? The answer is that they are both sold as different versions of the same car in the US: Rogue and Rogue Sport. The X-Trail/Rogue is the world's biggest-selling SUV. Put the Qashqai/Rogue Sport into the mix and this model family is simply massive.

Nissan even managed to stumble into a brilliant product tie-in with the first Star Wars stand-alone movie - Rogue One - when it was released in 2016, by chucking out a Rogue One Limited Edition that came complete with a full-size replica of a Death Trooper helmet from the movie.

Great Wall Steed

The Great Wall V240 was renamed the Steed when the new version launched here last year, which is a bit of a silly name. But it's nowhere near as magnificently silly as the name it gets in its home market - the Wingle.

The current version is called the Wingle 6, denoting it is the, umm, third version of the Wingle. Yeah, that's right, the first one was the Wingle 3, the facelifted version was the Wingle 5 and the newly-facelifted version is the Wingle 6. Not sure why.

Don't ask to see the Kona at a Hyundai Portugal dealership. It'd be wrong on so many levels.

Toyota Corolla

Over the past few decades, the world's best-selling car has been best known in this part of the world as a hatchback.

So it is somewhat odd that a Corolla hatchback only actually exists in this part of the world. Everywhere else in the world the car we know as the Corolla hatch is called the Auris, and the Corolla only exists as a sedan.

When Toyota split the hatch off as a different model, Toyota Australia and New Zealand insisted on keeping the Corolla name on the hatch, which makes a lot of sense really.

Pajero Sport suffers from same Spanish-name affliction as the larger Pajero.

Corolla hatch is called Auris elsewhere in the world. But not this new one, which will be Corolla again. Yes, we're confused too.

And it seems Toyota now agrees, as the next generation Corolla will be available as a hatch again.

Mitsubishi Pajero Sport

When Mitsubishi launched its Triton ute-based Pajero Sport here it nicked Land Rover's trick of naming its smaller vehicles after its larger ones, but adding 'Sport' on the end of the name (something Nissan also did in the US with the Rogue).

It is fairly common knowledge that Mitsubishi had to rename the Pajero 'Shogun' in Europe because of an unfortunate meaning in Spanish. Of course, it had a similar problem with the Pajero Sport and, logically went with Shogun Sport there too.

Interestingly, the Triton that the Pajero/Shogun Sport is based on has a range of different names around the world, including L200 and Strada, as well as being rebadged as the Fiat Fullback and Ram 1200.