10 Cars With Ridiculously Long Names

A car’s name can say a lot about it. It’s why we always prefer models with actual, proper names rather than just alphanumerical designations that it takes an uber-geek to decipher (looking at you, BMW. And Audi. And Mercedes. And Lexus. And…).

Of course, if those names drag on for too long, it’s entirely possible that people are going to lose interest. Here are 10 examples where that’s dangerously close to being the case, and our attempts to decode them.

Renault Megane Renaultsport 230 F1 Team R26

Before the sub-brand was folded into Alpine, hot Renaults were saddled with having ‘Renaultsport’ immediately after their model name, followed by whatever extra identifiers were needed afterwards.

This hardcore version of the big-bummed second-gen Megane was arguably the worst offender. 230 was its 227bhp output in PS, while the F1 Team bit nodded to Renault’s victory in the 2006 F1 championship. Renault then popped on the name of its 2006 F1 car, just for good measure, we guess.

Alfa Romeo Giulietta Quadrifoglio Verde Launch Edition

Alfa Romeo’s already at a disadvantage here by having a two-word name, but its propensity for very poetic-sounding Italian model names only takes things further. Then you’ve got its  Quadrifoglio Verde performance badge, the Italian for ‘green four-leaf clover’ (helpfully, more recent models have just shortened this to Quadrifoglio).

Throw in a special edition to mark the introduction of the car, and you get this seven-word-long name for a very pretty and rather quick if somewhat dynamically messy hot hatch.

Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VI GSR Tommi Mäkinen Edition

Frankly, this entire list could be made up of special editions of Mitsubishi Evo and Subaru Impreza, but we’re sticking to one of each for the sake of fairness. Firstly, this uprated version of the legendary Lancer Evo VI.

GSR stands for Grand Sport Racing, apparently, and marked out slightly plusher, more kitted-out versions of Evos next to the stripped-back RS versions. Tommi Mäkinen Edition is, of course, an homage to the legendary Finnish rally driver, who won four straight WRC titles in Evos.

Subaru Impreza WRX STi tS Type RA NBR Challenge

Not to be outdone, Subaru launched this special edition Impreza in 2013, and hoo boy. WRX STi you’ll be familiar with. tS stands for ‘tuned by STi’ (in case that wasn’t obvious enough from the previous part of the name).

Type RA was for many years a signifier of harder-cored Imprezas, and nobody’s really sure what it stands for - possibly ‘Rally Application’ or ‘Record Attempt’. Finally, NBR Challenge celebrates the fact that Subaru won its class at the Nürburgring 24 Hours in 2011 and 2012. Just 200 of these were made, presumably because Subaru couldn’t afford enough badges to do any more.

Image: CEFICEFI, CC BY-SA 3.0

Porsche Cayenne Turbo e-Hybrid Coupe with GT Package

Ah, the deeply arcane world of Porsche naming conventions. This is the fastest, most expensive version of the latest Cayenne. As a Turbo e-Hybrid, it combines a twin-turbo V8 and electric motor for a stonking 729bhp.

A coupe it isn’t – it’s an SUV with a silly sloping roof, but Porsche still calls it that. Then there’s the GT Package, an effort to reclaim some of the physics-defying madness of the now-discontinued Cayenne Turbo GT. That sheds some 100kg from the car, mostly through the use of a carbon roof, and while it sounds like it’s just a box to be ticked on the options list, Porsche classifies it as its own separate version.

Mercedes-AMG A45 4Matic Petronas 2015 World Champion Edition

Another motorsport-themed special edition, and still not the last we’ll see on this list. Mercedes wasn’t short of Formula 1 success during the 2010s, and this was how it celebrated its 2015 victory: an A-Class with some stripes.

Okay, it was based on the 375bhp AMG A45 and came with plenty of extra kit as standard. Also a very big name. 4Matic is Merc’s four-wheel drive system, Petronas is the Malaysian state-owned oil and gas company that’s long been Mercedes’ title F1 sponsor and 2015 World Champion Edition… well, you can work that out. Thankfully, this came after Merc rebranded all its AMG models as Mercedes-AMGs, sparing us a ‘Benz’ in there too.

Image: Calreyn88, CC BY 4.0

Lamborghini Murcielago LP670-4 SuperVeloce China Limited Edition

It wouldn’t really be a list of long car names without a Lamborghini of some sort – here’s the best we could find. The LP670-4 SuperVeloce was the ultimate version of the thumping V12 Murcielago. If you’ve ever wondered what that jumble of numbers and letters means, it’s this: LP stands for ‘longitudinale posteriore’, or ‘longitudinal rear’, in reference to the engine’s position (let’s ignore the fact it’s mid-engined). 670 is its power in PS, and the 4 suffix signifies four-wheel drive.

SuperVeloce is the self-aggrandising but entirely accurate ‘SuperFast’. But what’s the China Limited Edition? It was a limited edition for the Chinese market. Duh.

Land Rover Range Rover Velar SVAutobiography Dynamic Edition

Until last year, when Land Rover did what everyone had been doing mentally forever and spun Range Rover off into its own distinct sub-brand, all Range Rovers were officially ‘Land Rover Range Rovers’. This was clumsy enough before LR started to produce more Range Rover models, like the Sport, Evoque and Velar.

Clearly unsatisfied with ‘Land Rover Range Rover Velar,’ though, it later came up with this heffalump of a name. The SVAutobiography was the ultra-luxe version of the Velar, equipped with JLR’s lovely supercharged V8. The Dynamic Edition brought with it some handling-oriented chassis tweaks and, somehow, two more words.

Toyota GR Yaris RZ High Performance Kalle Rovanperä Edition

As Mitsubishi has already demonstrated, the combination of a small four-wheel drive turbocharged car from Japan and a Finnish rally driver makes for some epicly long names.

This special edition Toyota GR Yaris, developed with oversight from the primary school child that won the WRC title in ‘22 and ’23, is just called the Kalle Rovanperä Edition in Europe, but over in Japan, where the GR Yaris range is slightly more complicated, it gets RZ High Performance sandwiched in there too.

The many-syllabled wonders of the Finnish language mean Rovanperä’s take on the GR just edges out a similar version co-developed by fellow Toyota rallying hotshot, Sébastien Ogier.

BMW Individual M760Li xDrive Model V12 Excellence The Next 100 Years

Nope. Not a chance.

We thought this uber-posh special edition 7-series was a bad joke from BMW when it unveiled it back in 2016, but no, it was very real. Let’s try and break this down. The Individual part was because it had plenty of extras from BMW’s Individual personalisation department. The M760Li was the most powerful, longest and V12-iest version of the 7-series on sale at the time.

xDrive is Beemer’s four-wheel drive system, and ‘The Next 100 Years’ (which BMW stylised in all caps for EXTRA EMPHASIS) was an extremely clunky way of celebrating the brand’s centenary. What are ‘model’ and ‘excellence’ doing in there? Quite frankly, we have no idea. Perhaps this was BMW’s way of compensating for the fact that it only has a three-letter name.