Mazda Bongo Friendee
The Bongo Friendee was also known as the Ford Freda. I'm not sure what's worse. They were huge eight-seat MPVs, which could be specified with factory fitted kitchen units. Some models even had a bizarre elevating roof which converts into a kind of levitating double bed of doom. Aficionados have wittily dubbed them 'Bongolows'. Ha.



Great Wall Wingle
Chinese car maker, Great Wall (which shares its name with my local takeaway) says the Wingle looks "just like a brave and fierce lion". Without the mane, legs or pointy teeth, of course. When we stumbled upon it at the Paris Motor Show last month, we were blown away with the amount of badging. One version is the Great Wall Wingle CC1031PS60. We kid you not.

• The Wingle narrowly beat GW's other pickups, the Socool, Deer and Sailor

Honda Life Dunk
Dunking biscuits, Dunkin' Donuts and Duncan Goodhew are all good. The Honda Life Dunk is not. Well, at least its name isn't. The vehicle to which these hilarious badges are screwed is a dinky citycar for the Japanese market. It was a turbocharged version of the eminently more sensible Honda Life. Why, oh why didn't they call it the Honda Life Turbo?

Daihatsu Naked
Researching this supermini caused a frantic phone call from the IT team wondering if I had some sort of Japanese car fetish. I don't; and even if I did, I'd choose a better looking car than this. It wasn't so much designed, more thrown together after a boozy Friday in the pub. Exposed bolts and look good on a rugged Land Rover, but not on this supermarket stalker.

Mazda Autozam Carol MeLady
Sounding like something Thunderbirds' Parker would say after a heavy bout of concussion, the MeLady was a version of the Carol citycar. Autozam was a short-lived brand launched by Mazda to knock out cheap cars. Still with me? Good. The oddly-styled four-wheel drive boasted tiny 12-inch wheels and looked like a G-Wiz electric car which fell into a vat of ACME curve creating cream.

Isuzu Bighorn
Also known as the Holden Jackaroo in Australia and the Vauxhall Monterey on these shores, the Bighorn is one step away from a post-watershed phrase. This SUV was neither shaped like a horn, nor made from one, so the only thing it could be named after is the bighorn sheep. We're not sure of the ovine/4x4 connection, so answers on a postcard to the usual address…

Toyota Stout
Guinness is good for you, or so we used to be told. Driving a 1960s pickup truck was not, with a ride harsh enough to snap spines at 300 paces. Five years after the Stout hit the streets; Toyota saw sense, made it a more comfortable and slapped a Hilux badge on it. Builders and freedom fighters the word over have been driving them since.

Dodge Dart Swinger Special
Nowadays the term swinger means something other than an object moving from side to side, so the Dodge marketing team aren't really to blame for this. But time seldom suffers fools gladly, so we're perfectly happy to mock the moniker now. The car, incidentally, was a reasonably attractive 1970s muscle car with a big V8 under the hood.

Nissan Diesel Big Thumb Dump
We've taken a bit of a cheap shot choosing the Dump version of the Big Thumb range, but it's still a belter of a name. The heavy-duty Big Thumb range of vans, trucks and even cement mixers can apparently be identified by the Big Thumb logo on the grille. You would never have guessed.

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