Chevrolet

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For other uses, see Chevrolet (disambiguation).
"Chevy" redirects here. For people named or nicknamed Chevy, see Chevy (given
name).

Chevrolet

Chevrolet dealership in Wallingford, CT,

June 2014

Formerly
Chevrolet Motor Company
Chevrolet Division of General
Motors Company

Type Private (1911–17)
Division (1917–present)

Industry Automotive

Founded November 3, 1911; 109 years ago

Founder Arthur Chevrolet

Louis Chevrolet
William C. Durant

Fate Merged to General Motors in 1917

 Headquarters Detroit, Michigan
, 
U.S.

Area served Worldwide (except):

show

List

Key people Alan Batey, Senior Vice President[1]

Products Automobiles
Commercial vehicles
Trucks

Services Vehicle Financing

Insurance
Maintenance
Repairs
Sales

Parent General Motors

Website www.chevrolet.com

Chevrolet (/ˌʃɛvrəˈleɪ/ SHEV-rə-LAY), colloquially referred to as Chevy and formally

the Chevrolet Division of General Motors Company, is an American
automobile division of the American manufacturer General Motors (GM). Louis
Chevrolet and ousted General Motors founder William C. Durant started the company
on November 3, 1911[2] as the Chevrolet Motor Car Company. Durant used the
Chevrolet Motor Car Company to acquire a controlling stake in General Motors with
a reverse merger occurring on May 2, 1918, and propelled himself back to the GM
presidency. After Durant's second ousting in 1919, Alfred Sloan, with his maxim "a car
for every purse and purpose", would pick the Chevrolet brand to become the volume
leader in the General Motors family, selling mainstream vehicles to compete with Henry
Ford's Model T in 1919 and overtaking Ford as the best-selling car in the United
States by 1929.[3]
Chevrolet-branded vehicles are sold in most automotive markets worldwide. In Oceania,
Chevrolet is represented by Holden Special Vehicles, having returned to the region in
2018 after a 50-year absence with the launching of the Camaro and Silverado pickup
truck (HSV was partially and formerly owned by GM subsidiary Holden, which GM is
retiring in 2020). In 2005, Chevrolet was relaunched in Europe, primarily selling vehicles
built by GM Daewoo of South Korea with the tagline "Daewoo has grown up enough to
become Chevrolet", a move rooted in General Motors' attempt to build a global brand
around Chevrolet. With the reintroduction of Chevrolet to Europe, GM intended
Chevrolet to be a mainstream value brand, while GM's traditional European standard-
bearers, Opel of Germany and Vauxhall of the United Kingdom, would be moved
upmarket.[4] However, GM reversed this move in late 2013, announcing that the brand
 would be withdrawn from Europe from 2016 onward, with the exception of
the Camaro and Corvette.[5] Chevrolet vehicles were to continue to be marketed in
the CIS states, including Russia. After General Motors fully acquired GM Daewoo in
2011 to create GM Korea, the last usage of the Daewoo automotive brand was
discontinued in its native South Korea and succeeded by Chevrolet.
In North America, Chevrolet produces and sells a wide range of vehicles,
from subcompact automobiles to medium-duty commercial trucks. Due to the
prominence and name recognition of Chevrolet as one of General Motors' global
marques, 'Chevrolet', 'Chevy' or 'Chev' is used at times as a synonym for General
Motors or its products, one example being the GM LS1 engine, commonly known by the
name or a variant thereof of its progenitor, the Chevrolet small-block engine.

Contents

 1History
 2International operations
 3Vehicle models
 4Sport
 5Marketing
 6Watches
 7Branding by other manufacturers
 8See also
 9Notes
 10References
 11External links

History

First logo of the company, 1911

The "bowtie" emblem, introduced in 1913

On November 3, 1911, Swiss race car driver and automotive engineer Louis

Chevrolet co-founded the "Chevrolet Motor Company" in Detroit with his brother Arthur
Chevrolet, William C. Durant and investment partners William Little (maker of the Little
automobile), former Buick owner James H. Whiting,[6] Dr. Edwin R. Campbell (son-in-law
of Durant) and in 1912 R. S. McLaughlin CEO of General Motors in Canada.
Durant was cast out from the management of General Motors in 1910, a company
which he had founded in 1908. In 1904 he had taken over the Flint Wagon
Works and Buick Motor Company of Flint, Michigan. He also incorporated the Mason
and Little companies. As head of Buick, Durant had hired Louis Chevrolet to drive
Buicks in promotional races.[7] Durant planned to use Chevrolet's reputation as a racer
as the foundation for his new automobile company. The first factory location was
in Flint, Michigan at the corner of Wilcox and Kearsley Street, now known as "Chevy
Commons" at coordinates 43.00863°N 83.70991°W, along the Flint River, across the
street from Kettering University.
One of the technical advancements Chevrolet benefited from was the implementation of
an overhead valve engine from the very beginning, as the company was developed as a
junior model to Buick, who had patented the overhead valve and cross flow cylinder
design as being more efficient than the conventional use of the flathead engine.
Actual design work for the first Chevy, the costly Series C Classic Six, was drawn up by
Etienne Planche, following instructions from Louis. The first C prototype was ready
months before Chevrolet was actually incorporated. However the first actual production
wasn't until the 1913 model. So in essence there were no 1911 or 1912 production
models, only the 1 pre-production model was made and fine tuned throughout the early
part of 1912. Then in the fall of that year the new 1913 model was introduced at
the New York auto show.

Chevrolet plant in Tarrytown, NY, c. 1918

Chevrolet first used the "bowtie emblem" [8] logo in 1914 on the H series models (Royal
Mail and Baby Grand) and The L Series Model (Light Six). It may have been designed
from wallpaper Durant once saw in a French hotel room. [9] More recent research by
historian Ken Kaufmann presents a case that the logo is based on a logo of the
"Coalettes" coal company.[10][11] An example of this logo as it appeared in an
advertisement for Coalettes appeared in the Atlanta Constitution on November 12,
1911.[12] Others claim that the design was a stylized Swiss cross, in tribute to the
homeland of Chevrolet's parents.[13] Over time, Chevrolet would use several different
iterations of the bowtie logo at the same time, often using blue for passenger cars, gold
for trucks, and an outline (often in red) for cars that had performance packages.
Chevrolet eventually unified all vehicle models with the gold bowtie in 2004, for both
brand cohesion as well as to differentiate itself from Ford (with its blue oval logo)
and Toyota (who has often used red for its imaging), its two primary domestic rivals. [14]
1929 Chevrolet Firebrigade, Porto

Louis Chevrolet had differences with Durant over design and in 1914 sold Durant his
share in the company. By 1916, Chevrolet was profitable enough with successful sales
of the cheaper Series 490 to allow Durant to repurchase a controlling interest in General
Motors. After the deal was completed in 1917, Durant became president of General
Motors, and Chevrolet was merged into GM as a separate division. In 1919, Chevrolet's
factories were located at Flint, Michigan; branch assembly locations were sited
in Tarrytown, N.Y., Norwood, Ohio, St. Louis, Missouri, Oakland, California, Ft. Worth,
Texas, and Oshawa, Ontario General Motors of Canada Limited. McLaughlin's were
given GM Corporation stock for the proprietorship of their Company article September
23, 1933 Financial Post page 9.[15] In the 1918 model year, Chevrolet introduced
the Series D, a V8-powered model in four-passenger roadster and five-
passenger tourer models. Sales were poor and it was dropped in 1919.