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Chevrolet was named after its founder, Louis Chevrolet who gained fame as a racing car driver in the early years of the motor cars history. The backing came from William Durant, who had founded General Motors but, in a corporate bloodbath had been ousted from control of GM and turned out. Durant immediately looked for opportunities within the car industry and set about laying the foundation for an automobile conglomerate with which to regain control of his beloved GM.
Durant and Chevrolet had a lengthy history together before they set up Chevrolet. Durant had headed Buick prior to founding GM, and Chevrolet had been hired to race Buicks on the racing circuit. As a result, Louis Chevrolet was well known, especially amongst car aficionados, and Durant instantly recognized a way to harness Louis reputation to serve his own corporate comeback.
Designs for the first Chevy prototypes were already off the design board and ready for production before the company was incorporated. In fact, the high end Series C Classic Six was already built before the doors had opened for business, and it was designed to strict instructions laid down by Louis himself.
The company logo has long been a source of controversy over its origins. Louis parents were Swiss and some believed the car marque was a stylized Swiss cross, however others have argued that Durant saw the pattern on some French wallpaper. The argument seems to have been settled by car historian, Ken Kaufman and others who have identified the source of the Chevy marque as being based on another company s logo ? Coalettes ? a manufacturer of man made, burning coals.
Durant was keen to broaden the range of cars under the Chevy brand, as well as to extend the company s influence amongst other car makers and distributors. A deal was struck with Buick to allow Chevy chassis with Buick bodies to be sold, with manufacture taking place at Chevy s Toronto plant in Canada. This was a phenomenally successful deal for Chevy, and sealed the company s commercial fortunes and, by 1913, Durant had struck a deal with GM to take Chevrolet over but he was not yet strong enough to wrench control of GM back...yet.
By 1916, Chevrolet was extremely profitable and this made Durant extremely rich (Louis too, but Louis now starts to fade from the story). Using this wealth, Durant was able to buy a majority stake in General Motors ? his strategy had paid off, and now he set about removing those who had seen his departure from GM 6 years previously.
Chevrolet became one of the all time, best selling car marques in the US and around the world, and has been part of the GM family ever since its acquisition.
Chevrolet s biggest impact on the US car market took place in the post Second World War years; the golden era of the big car with chrome and fins ? the 1950 s and 1960 s. Chevy became synonymous with car design and style, with extremely long cars, exceptional chrome and bodywork combined with luxury and performance without a supercar price tag. By 1963, 10 of all cars sold in the US were Chevy s, and the company had a dominant grip on the North American car market.
The oil crisis of the 1970 s ushered in an era of high gas prices which severely dented Chevrolet s commercial performance. Chevy s were known for conspicuous gas consumption, the company being the first to offer a fuel injected engine in the 1950 s for instance. This was fine when gas prices were extremely low, but as oil prices soared, Chevy sales plummeted and the company found itself competing against a wave of cheap Japanese imported cars which delivered extremely good gas mileage.
The future of the Chevrolet marque was put into doubt as a result of the recent economic crisis which led its parent, GM to declare bankruptcy. Fortunately, after a restructuring the Chevrolet has been retained as one of the slimmed down stable of car marques to be used by the rejuvenated General Motors.
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