People are only just realising what Volkswagen car names actually mean – and it’s blowing their minds
Volkswagen is one of the most popular manufacturers in the world and some of their cars have weird and wonderful names.
Choosing the right name for a car is hugely important and can sometimes mean the difference between success and failure.
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But how did some of VW’s most successful cars get their famous nicknames?
We’ve covered some of the best here.
Beetle
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Shortly after its first appearance on German roads, the Volkswagen Type 1 was nicknamed the “Beetle”.
It survived translation into English and was officially known by that name by the late 1940s.
Other nicknames around the world include “The Bubble” in Denmark, “Coccinelle” or Ladybug in France, and “Turtle Car” in Thailand.
golf
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While some VW models take their name from different types of wind, the iconic Golf is actually derived from the German word for the Gulf Stream ocean current.
It also happened to be the name of a VW boss’s horse, That could be the real reason.
GTI
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The GTI label, an iconic VW badge, was originally inspired by the Italian term for high-performance, luxury fuel-injected cars: “Gran Turismo Iniezione”.
Passat
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Launched in 1973, the Passat was the first modern Volkswagen and got its name from the German word “Passatwinde”, meaning trade winds.
scirocco
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The VW sports coupe got its name from the “sirocco”, a hot, strong wind from the Sahara that blows northeast across the Mediterranean Sea.
Tiguana
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Before its market launch in 2009, Volkswagen, together with a German automobile magazine, asked readers what the new compact SUV should be called.
The choices were Namib, Rockton, Samun, Nanuk and Tiguan – a combination of the German words for tiger and iguana.
high!
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up!” happen to be the middle two letters in “Lupo”, one of the city car’s equally small predecessors, while “Lupo” is Latin for wolf, while “Amarok” (VW’s pick-up truck) means a similar animal in Inuit – both nod to VW’s hometown of Wolfsburg, Germany.
