
Gurgel Itaipu - rmsaksida
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gurgel_Itaipu
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aflag
I'm always saddened to remember the fall of Gurgel. Had they achieved their
goals, Brazilian economy could've benefited immensely.

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gtirloni
Didn't they only exist because Brazil was mostly closed to imports at the
time?

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forinti
Gurgel had existed for a long time making small cars, off-roads and dune
buggies. Other small manufacturers existed and still do.

They wanted to build cheap cars and take advantage of a lower tax rate for
small cars. When they were the most successful, a strike of the customs
officials broke their supply of parts from Argentina. Then the federal
government and the state government of Ceará reneged on their financing deals.
This might have been because of lobbying from the big 4 (Fiat, GM, VW, and
Ford), but I don't know if this has been proved.

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Hackbraten
In German, “Gurgel” translates to _gargle_ (imperative singular) or _throat_
(used colloquially, as e. g. in “grab them by the throat”).

I wonder what other brands translate to ridiculous, non-brand-y words in other
languages.

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rmellow
The Chevrolet "Nova" has a different name in Latin countries. In Spanish "No
va" means "not going", obviously something you don't want from a car.

The Mitsubishi "Pajero" is called "Montero" in Spanish speaking countries.
Again in Spanish, "Pajero" means "wanker".

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edjrage
> in Latin countries

If you mean “in Spanish-speaking countries”, alright. In Portuguese “nova”
just means “new”, just as French's “nouveau” or Italian's “nuova”.

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bromuro
The joke still work - maybe not in french tho. In lot of languages variations
(like dialects) “nova” can be heard or played as “it does not work”.

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jcranmer
> In lot of languages variations (like dialects) “nova” can be heard or played
> as “it does not work”.

I'm skeptical of that. "go" isn't really idiomatic for "work" in English, and
in Romance languages, you're going to use the local variant of "marcher"
(literally "to walk") or "to function" to refer to technology working, so I
suspect using the literal translation of "to go" is going to be a very
strained idiomatic relationship at best.

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tyingq
Looks like you could replicate that with a golf cart, some sheet metal, and a
press brake.

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gtirloni
This is probably posted here because of some similarities with Tesla's
Cybertruck (namely, the square angles in an electric car).

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masklinn
Wonder if it was for ease of manufacturing (less need to form the metal
sheets) or for styllistic reasons.

The Citicar / Comuta is similar:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citicar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citicar)

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rmsaksida
In Gurgel's case I think it was both. On the one hand, it was styllistic,
because all their cars had that look, from minicars to trucks. Even their logo
looked as blocky as their cars. See for example the X15:
[https://i.imgur.com/vLiH8I1.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/vLiH8I1.jpg)

On the other hand, they were made from fiberglass or "plasteel" (a composite
of fiberglass and steel), and I'm not sure how mouldable that material is.

