British English has many fond words for a product with flaws.
It has character: It is odd or imperfect in a way that people like.
Temperamental: Of a machine, working well on some days and not on others.
Foibles: Small odd habits or weaknesses, usually forgiven.
There’s a knack to it: It works, but only for someone who knows its trick.
The old girl: A fond name for an old car, boat or machine.
In the BBC series Doctor Who, the Doctor travels in a time machine called the TARDIS. It is meant to change its appearance to blend in wherever it lands. Its “chameleon circuit” broke before the first episode, so it stays stuck in the shape of an old London police box. Attempts to repair it in later episodes fail.
In 1996, the BBC applied to register the police box as a trademark. The Metropolitan Police challenged the application, but in 2002 the Patent Office ruled in favor of the BBC.
In the BBC sitcom Only Fools and Horses, the market trader Del Boy drives a three-wheeled Reliant Regal van. In 2007, a Reliant Regal van from the series was sold at an auction in London for £44,227.50, more than twice its estimate.
Henry is a vacuum cleaner made by Numatic in Somerset. It is round and red, with a name on its lid and a smiling face. Numatic says its “famous smile” has remained unchanged, and that by 2017 it had made more than ten million Henrys.
Raleigh launched the Chopper in 1969. It had a small front wheel, a larger rear wheel, a long padded seat with a high backrest and tall handlebars. A later version had its handlebars welded in place because tilting them made the bike almost impossible to steer.
The later version alone sold more than a million. Until BMX bikes arrived in the mid-1980s, the Chopper is reported to have outsold other bicycles by six to one.
Rowland Emett built whimsical machines. At the Festival of Britain in 1951, his Far Tottering and Oyster Creek Branch Railway was one of the most popular attractions. Its locomotives were called Nellie, Neptune and Wild Goose.
In 1968, he designed the elaborate inventions of Caractacus Potts, the eccentric inventor in the film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
Sinclair Research launched the ZX Spectrum on 23 April 1982. It became known for its “infamous rubber keyboard.” Over five million were sold.
Since 2007, Britain has held a competition called Shed of the Year. It began after a petition for a National Shed Day was rejected. The first winner was a shed built as a Roman temple. From 2014 to 2017, the competition was broadcast on Channel 4, presented by George Clarke.
Wallace, the hero of Nick Park’s animated films with his dog Gromit, is an inventor of elaborate contraptions that often do not work as intended. The first film, A Grand Day Out, was first broadcast in 1990. The Wrong Trousers, from 1993, won the Academy Award for best animated short film.
In 1996, a creative team at the advertising agency BMP DDB built a campaign for the yeast spread Marmite on the fact that it divides opinion. The line was Love it or hate it.