Autoblog

Click on the above photo for more hi-res pics of the Blown Tire Reventón

As many commenters have noted, the Spanish name of the million-euro Lambo, Reventón, is a bit of a surprise. The accent over the 'o' changes the stress, but it apparently doesn't change the meaning of the word in Spanish: blown tire. As one reader wrote, not exactly the right name for a car you plan on driving at 300 KPH. Yes, Reventón was the name of a bull that killed a toreador, like Murcielago was the name of a 19th century bull. But "murcielago" also means "bat" in Spanish, and "espada," also Spanish, means "sword."

In fact, Spanish seems to be the language that comes up most frequently in these delicately-named situations. Nissan made a car called the Moco, which means "snot." Chevrolet made the Nova, which, of course, means "no go." Mitsubishi still sells an SUV called -- not in Spain -- the Pajero, which means "wanker" in the, uh, more literal sense. Then there was the Mazda Laputa, which we can't get into on a family web site. Same goes for the Lexus LF-A, which caused one wide-eyed Spaniard we know to say "They need to change that name."

As other commenters have noted, none of this is really going to matter with a million-euro car that only 20 people will get to buy. But the debate is still fun: if there were a car called "blown tire" in your language -- even if it was named after a championship-winning something-or-other -- would you want it?

Thanks to everyone who brought this to our attention in the comments!

Click on the image for a gallery of images of the Five Hundred/Taurus?

Ameritech/SBC/AT&T/BellSouth spent the better part of a decade and hundreds of millions of dollars marketing the Cingular brand and dumping the AT&T Wireless name only to turn around and drop the new name and return to AT&T. Ford dropped the Taurus name after more than twenty years when they introduced the Fusion and Five Hundred.

Now hot on the heels of a post here about whether car names really matter much, comes a story from Dow Jones Newswire that Ford may reverse course again and rename the facelifted 2008 Five Hundred to Taurus. Sudden name changes are not new to Ford. Consider how the Lincoln Zephyr became the MKZ after just one year on the market and the Aviator became the MKX only months before its introduction. So far, Ford is not publicly commenting, but it seems doubtful that any name change will affect the fortunes of the big Ford sedan.

The official name change is reportedly going to take place tomorrow at the Chicago Auto Show. Stay tuned.

UPDATE: We asked Ford if the story was true, the official response received was: "We have not made any official announcements regarding our Chicago Auto Show news. Stay tuned for tomorrow's press conference." We figured we'd get a non-answer like that, which is clearly not a "no." In addition, the Freep's now reporting that the rename will indeed happen tomorrow, according to a source they have at Ford.

[Source: Dow Jones Newswire via Smartmoney.com]