Top Gear's Top Nine: mispronounced car names

By topgear, 13 August 2018
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Porsche Taycan

Inspiring this month’s Top Nine is the name of Porsche’s all-electric Mission E saloon. Taycan – that’s ‘Tie-Kan’, to you – translates from ‘a Eurasian dialect’ as lively young horse. Nothing to do with cult-classic Liam Neeson B-movies.

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Lamborghini Gallardo

Fifteen years after the first Audi-era baby Lambo, it’s still referred to a ‘gull-ardo’ and ‘guy-ardo’ when in fact it’s strictly ‘gay-ardo’. And while we’re at it, the replacement should be said ‘Ooo-ra-kann’, not ‘Hurricane’. So, now you know.

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Pagani Huayra

Italian supercars have a fine line in crazy names. Pagani went from the easy-to-pronounce Zonda to the impossible for Anglo-mouths ‘Huayra’, named after a South American god. ‘Way-air-ah’, is close, but we’ll stick with ‘Wirer’, thanks.

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Hyundai Tucson

Just FYI, this crossover is to be addressed as ‘Two-sonn’, not ‘Tuckson’. We thought it’d gone for good when Hyundai came up with the iX35, but for the latest model, the foolproof alphanumeric name was inexplicably ditched.

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Bugatti Chiron

Over to you, Americans. “Oh my gaaad, is that your Booogguddy Ky-ron?” However, your colonial inability to articulate ‘Byou-gatty Shi-ron will be forgiven shortly, as we address a guilty mistake from we self-righteous Brits…

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Ford EcoSport

An appalling car. And fittingly, a silly name, clearly the work of a focus group (no Ford pun intended). Bizarrely, the not-very-economical, not-at-all-sporty EcoSport is officially pronounced ‘Echo-Sport”. No, neither do we.

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Dacia Lodgy

Lodgy isn’t a trick name to wrap your lips around. It’s just a silly one, a Wendy House nickname applied to an MPV. It’s the company that’s often said wrong: call it ‘Datcha’, not “Day-See-Ah’. Every day’s a school day. Good news.

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Toyota Yaris GRMN

This might just be our own laziness, but Toyota’s woefully inelegant title for the Yaris Gazoo Racing Meisters of Nürburgring is abbreviated to a tricky word jumble that becomes ‘German’, ‘Garmin’, or a dodgy impression of an angry bear.

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All Jaguars

Time to own up to this one. It is indeed ‘Jag-waah’, because in Portuguese, from which the word originates, ‘ua’ is pronounced ‘wah’, as per the name ‘Juan’. Anglicising it to ‘Jag-you-argh’ is wrong, and always has been.