What’s in a name?

Many of the sites profiling BMW’s new 5-door Mini Clubman, which goes on sale in the UK in November this year, make no mention of the ‘suicide door’ it has behind the front passenger seat. No wonder. It’s not exactly a moniker designed to conjour up feelings and emotions of safety, security and smooth driving. Yet a suicide door it has.

It’s called a suicide door for good reason as it opens backwards on reverse hinges. Unfortunately it also allows passengers to enter or leave the vehicle safely in countries that drive on the right-hand side. In the UK and New Zealand, where we drive on the left, this right-hand-side-only passenger door will open directly into oncoming traffic. Motoring Editor for The Press and Dominion Post, Dave Moore, has an excellent write-up about the new model and its controversial door.

It’s not the first car or car component to suffer from being associated with an unfortunate name. MrCopywriting.com notes the Chevrolet Nova never sold well in Spanish speaking countries probably because “no va” means “it does not go” in Spanish. Ford also had problems in Brazil where its Pinto flopped. When Ford discovered that ‘pinto’ was Brazilian slang for ‘tiny male genitals’ it replaced the nameplates on the vehicles with ‘corcel’ which means horse.

For years Skoda cars had a reputation for being poor quality. However, in a survey undertaken by Britain’s Top Gear Magazine in 2005, Skoda vehicles trumped many other well known brands and models performing better than Ford, Renault, Volkswagen, Mercedes and even Porsche. In the survey 76,000 drivers rated 159 cars for overall driving experience, reliability, dealer service and cost. Only three European cars appeared in the top ten and they were all Skodas. All the others were Japanese cars.

One of Europe’s oldest car manufacturers, Skoda Auto is now a subsidiary of Volkswagen. However Skoda still is very much associated with the Czech Republic, its birthplace.

This is unfortunate because the word ‘skoda’ in Czechoslovakian means ‘damage’, ‘detriment’ or ‘disadvantage’. Good job it doesn’t have suicide doors too!