Two new snow gritters secured the best names after a Twitter World Cup contest full of puns

A new council gritter is to be named Gritsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Anti-Slip Machiney after a massive public poll attracted more than 40,000 votes on Twitter.

The naming of two new Doncaster Council gritting lorries was thrown open to the public.

Alongside Gritsy Bitsy, the other vehicle will be named David Plowie.

Gritsy Bitsy, a play on words from Brian Hyland’s 1960 track Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polkadot Bikini, was put forward by Natalie Washington, 34.

“It was incredibly tight!” Natalie told the Press Association. “I think it went ahead early on, then it went back to 50-50. I thought: ‘Is it going to lose?’ but it rallied later on.

“When you go on courses or whatever, and you have to say an interesting fact about yourself, well I’ve got one now. I can say I’ve named a gritter!”

The two finals saw David Plowie beat Basil Salty with 58% of the vote, while Gritsy Bitsy won a tighter contest with 53% of the vote against Spready Mercury.

Hundreds of names were sent in to the council before a panel reduced them to 16 potential names which would face the public vote.

The final pairings were decided after the most successful four names were drawn from a pot.

A council spokesman said: “We have named gritters before, but we did them with schools.

“It seems to have cheered Britain up. It’s been amazing and got people interested in gritting.”

Other gritters in the council’s fleet include Brad Grit, Gritney Spears, The Subzero Hero, Mr Plow and Usain Salt.

Names knocked out in earlier rounds of the Doncaster Gritting World Cup included Grit Van Dyke, True Grit, Rule Grittania and Salt Disney.

And the puns didn’t stop at the naming of the salt spreaders.

Twitter user George Silberstern called for the operations and maintenance tracking scheme to be called Grit Expectations.

A move welcomed by the council.

Celebrities including Curtis Stigers, Bob Mortimer and Tanni-Grey Thompson have been among those captivated by the naming process.

The American singer suggested Grit Balls o’ Fire for one of the truck’s names.

And while creative juices were obviously flowing, there was one name which was vetoed before the competition began: Gritty McGritface.