Would you buy a car in "Abysmal Green"? | Axon's Automotive Anorak

Intrigued since I first came across this unfamiliar word just a few weeks ago at the Paris Salon, I researched Poating to find out what it means. As yet, all I have been able to find is this definition provided by the sometimes-risqué Urban Dictionary: “unnecessarily slow to reveal a hidden love or crush.” This could cunningly be the ideal name for a car, one that takes time to get used to and grow fond of, such as the Jaguar XJ-S. It looked hideous initially (especially after the seminal E-type) and was suitably derided when it was first launched in 1975, but now over time has matured like a fine wine into something that could actually be considered quite stylish and cool.

I stumbled across the word Poating while examining one of the many new Chinese cars that made its European debut at last month’s Paris Motor Show. This intriguing and strange word appears on the silver plastic corporate badge mounted in the centre of the fussily ornate grille of each of the WEY Coffee SUV models. WEY is the prestige brand within the giant Chinese vehicle maker Great Wall Motors’ (GWM) extensive vehicle portfolio, with different brand names spread across all major vehicle segments.

This new range is set to be called the range-topping WEY Coffee 01 and smaller Coffee 02 in Europe. While in its domestic Chinese market, GWM also takes its naming inspiration from warm, brown caffeine drinks for its WEY SUV models; the WEY Moka and WEY Macchiato. GWM has a habit of using odd names for its vehicles; its best-selling pick-up being called the Wingle, with the cheeky small city hatchback made by its more affordable ORA brand, named the Cool Cat (or Funky Cat in some export destinations).

Perhaps these peculiar GWM names are trying to sound exotic, aspirational or exciting, but confusingly become lost in translation. As someone that can barely string a cohesive sentence together in English – never mind a foreign language – I respect these international overseas companies using foreign-sounding words (usually in English) to name and market their products. Nissan, for example, unfittingly named its celebrated 240Z-370ZX sports models as Fairlady in the Japanese home market, after the popular period stage play and film, My Fair Lady, because it sounded exotic when the model name was first used in the late 1950s. The same goes for the marque’s contemporary and prestigious Cedric and Gloria models, as these were regarded as typically British names, and thus aspirational, at the same time.

Around 30 years ago, when I briefly lived and worked in Japan, odd phrases in English that made little or no sense whatsoever to me as a native English speaker were very popular as they sounded cool and cosmopolitan to the local population. ‘New Cooking’ was used extensively on Japanese TV to advertise the latest, improved recipe Big Mac burgers, for example, with tiny Tokyo children finding it great fun to shout “New Cooking” to me when passing as an obvious western visitor. I used to politely smile at them, and didn’t have the heart to explain that New Cooking didn’t really mean anything in English, not that they would have understood anyway.

‘Hard and Heart’ was another meaningless English phrase that often used to blare out loudly from the TV set in my room. This was an entertaining television ad campaign to promote the latest, improved (or should that be ‘New Cooking’) version of the attractive Giugiaro-designed Isuzu Gemini FF, an agreeable Golf-sized range of JDM hatchbacks and saloons, promoted by a series of ever-more daring 30-second ads of rows of Geminis being thrown around Paris back streets by some very skilled (and brave) stunt drivers.

Although I don’t really have a clue what ‘Hard and Heart’ means (probably the subliminal message being that the Isuzu was designed to appeal to both the head and heart with its cocktail of robust quality and construction allied to appealing looks?), the ‘Hard and Heart’ campaign clearly worked because I can still recall it more than 30 years later. The Gemini FF failed to topple its established Toyota Corolla, Nissan Pulsar or Honda Civic rivals from the JDM sales charts though, so maybe it wasn’t such a good marketing campaign after all!

As much as I admire non-English speaking attempts to use the global marketing language of English, the end results can sometimes cause unintended comical giggles. Take Suzuki, for example. Before it began exporting its four-wheeled vehicles in earnest in the early 1980s, it placed a tentative toe in the waters of some closer Asian markets where English was widely spoken, such as Singapore and Malaysia. It exported its early 1970s Fronte kei car in a choice of enticing metallic colours, one of which was called Abysmal Green. 

Various Communist-era vehicle makers also laughingly attempted to use basic English for useful dollar-earning international markets in printed export promotional literature. Giant Russian car and truck manufacturer GAZ claimed that its Volga M24 saloon models had the “paddiest berths”, for example (this meaning that the model had well-upholstered, comfortable seats, I assume). 

Zastava in the Soviet era former-Yugoslavia was alarmingly honest in a special international English export sales brochure, saying that the engine of its Skala (a local, cheaply re-engineered Fiat 128) was “reassuringly unreliable” (probably true, but possibly not the message that it was trying to convey). Zastava also tried (in vain) to explain how the folding rear seats of its 1300 hatchback was a simple operation that made the car usefully practical and versatile, but instead it used utter gobbledygook to attempt to explain this feature over three baffling English-esque paragraphs that made no sense at all (although the accompanying photographs explained this benefit very clearly at a quick glance).

A rare English-language sales leaflet for the 1950s German Kleinschnitzer microcar was just as confusing, proudly stating that its engine ran on rubber bands. Poating might have been a suitable model name for this ugly device. Gott im Himmel!