Juicy Maggot Wagon, Ponkyloulou, Uriah the Heap: Britain’s strangest car names ranked

Juicy Maggot Wagon, Pookie Bubble Bear and Ponkyloulou are Britain’s strangest car names, according to a poll conducted for National Name Your Car Day on 2nd October. 

They beat such rivals as Pookie Pie, Chugaboom and Uriah the Heap in a nationally representative survey conducted by pollsters Censuswide for the car loan app Carmoola.

Britain’s strangest car names ranked

Note: Respondents were asked which names they considered “the strangest or weirdest names” for a car – and to select up to 3

Over a third (36%) of British drivers have given their car a name or nickname, according to a related poll of 1,707 British drivers conducted for Carmoola by Censuswide.

“Millions of motorists give their car a name”, says Aidan Rushby, CEO of Carmoola. “They do so to give their car a personality or to make it feel more like a friend or part of the family, or just a bit of fun, among other reasons. And some of the names they pick are gloriously strange.”   

The inspiration for some of the winning names in Carmoola’s poll – like Pookie Bubble Bear in second place and Ponkyloulou third – is a mystery. 

But other names polling strongly have identifiable origins:

• “Maggot wagon” (as in Juicy Maggot Waggon, which topped the poll) is U.S. slang for a garbage truck, or sometimes for the metal food truck that makes the lunchtime rounds in the parking lots of U.S. industrial parks.
• The Purple People Eater (in fifth place) is the name of a novelty song that hit No. 1 in the Billboard charts in 1958.
• Chugaboom (sixth) is an alternate spelling of Chuggaboom, a British metalcore band formed in 2014.
• Ming the Merciless (seventh) is a comic book villain who first appeared in Flash Gordon stories in 1934 and has been Gordon’s arch-foe ever since. 

Gumby Truck (as in Gumby, the clay animation cartoon character born in 1953), Uriah the Heap (as in Uriah Heep, a character in the Charles Dickens novel, David Copperfield), Big Benz and Ermintrude all make the top 10 of strangest names. 

Aidan Rushby, CEO of Carmoola has given his own car – a Mercedes C Class Convertible C43, bought on Carmoola finance – the comparatively conventional name of “Mila”, which he picked with the help of Carmoola’s in-app car name generator.

He says his choice may have been subconsciously influenced by its link with the movie star Mila Kunis, who has not just owned a Mercedes camping vehicle of late herself but also shares the Ukrainian heritage of Carmoola, a UK/Ukrainian startup.

Carmoola is bringing back its own car name generator by popular demand in time for Name Your Car Day on October 2nd.

Methodology

Carmoola commissioned Censuswide to find Britain’s strangest car names by conducting research in two stages. Censuswide first asked a nationally representative poll of 2,000 Brits to share the strangest car name they’d heard of someone giving their car. Carmoola narrowed down the nearly 600 car names submitted to a short list of the 12 strangest. Censuswide then asked a nationally representative poll of 1,000 Brits and to pick the strangest or weirdest names from this short list. 

The research was conducted by Censuswide with Nationally Representative General Consumers between 18.09.24 to 20.09.24. Censuswide abide by and employ members of the Market Research Society which is based on the ESOMAR principles and are members of The British Polling Council.