Chevrolet
Industry
Automotive
Founded
3 November 1911 (101 years ago)
Founder(s)
Louis Chevrolet
William C. Durant
Headquarters
Detroit, Michigan, United States
Products
Automobiles
Owner(s)
General Motors Company
Website
Chevrolet.com
Chevrolet (pron.: /ʃɛvrəˈleɪ/), also known as Chevy, is an American brand of vehicle produced by General Motors (GM). Chevrolet was founded by Louis Chevrolet and ousted General Motors founder William C. Durant on November 3, 1911.In 1918 it was acquired by General Motors.
Chevrolet was positioned by Alfred Sloan to sell mainstream vehicles to compete with Henry Ford's Model T in the 1920s, with "Chevrolet" or "Chevy" being synonymous with GM. In North America, Chevrolet produces and sells a wide range of vehicles, from subcompact automobiles to medium-duty commercial trucks, whereas in Europe, the brand name is used mainly for automobiles produced in Korea by General Motors.
On November 3, 1913, Swiss race car driver and automotive engineer Louis Chevrolet co-founded the Chevrolet Motor Car Company in Detroit with William C. Durant and investment partners William Little (maker of the Little automobile) and Dr. Edwin R. Campbell (son-in-law of Durant) and in 1912 R. S. McLaughlin GEO of General Motors in Canada.
Durant was ousted from the management of General Motors in 1910 for five years. He took over the Flint Wagon Works, incorporating the Mason and Little companies. As head of Buick Motor Company prior to founding GM, Durant had hired Louis Chevrolet to drive Buicks in promotional races.Durant planned to use Chevrolet's reputation as a racer as the foundation for his new automobile company.
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.
Chevrolet first used the "bowtie emblem" logo in 1914. It may have been designed from wallpaper Durant once saw in a French hotel room.More recent research by historian Ken Kaufmann presents a case that the logo is based on a logo of the "Coalettes" coal company.Others claim that the design was a stylized Swiss cross, in tribute to the homeland of Chevrolet's parents.
Louis Chevrolet had differences with Durant over design and in 1915 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 1917, Chevrolet's factories were located at New York City; Tarrytown, N.Y.; Flint, Michigan; Toledo, Ohio; St. Louis, Missouri; Oakland, California; Fort Worth, Texas, and Oshawa, Ontario.In the 1918 model year, Chevrolet introduced the Series D, a V8-powered model in four-passenger roadster and five-passenger tourer models.
Chevrolet continued into the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s competing with Ford, and after the Chrysler Corporation formed Plymouth in 1928, Plymouth, Ford, and Chevrolet were known as the "Low-priced three". In 1933 Chevrolet launched the Standard Six, which was advertised in the United States as the cheapest six-cylinder car on sale.
Chevrolet had a great influence on the American automobile market during the 1950s and 1960s. In 1953 it produced the Corvette, a two-seater sports car with a fibreglass body. In 1957 Chevy introduced its first fuel-injected engine,the Rochester Ramjet option on Corvette and passenger cars, priced at $484. In 1960 it introduced the Corvair, with a rear-mounted air-cooled engine. In 1963 one out of every ten cars sold in the United States was a Chevrolet.
The basic Chevrolet small-block V-8 design has remained in continuous production since its debut in 1955, longer than any other mass-produced engine in the world, although current versions share few if any parts interchangeable with the original. Descendants of the basic small-block OHV V-8 design platform in production today have been much modified with advances such as aluminium block and heads, electronic engine management, and sequential port fuel injection. Depending on the vehicle type, Chevrolet V-8s are built in displacements from 4.3 to 9.4 litres with outputs ranging from 111 horsepower (83 kW) to 994 horsepower (741 kW) as installed at the factory. The engine design has also been used over the years in GM products built and sold under the Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Buick, Hummer, Opel (Germany), and Holden (Australia) nameplates.
In 2005, General Motors re-launched the Chevrolet marque in Europe, using rebadged versions of the Daewoo cars produced by GM Korea.
The Chevrolet division is currently recovering from the economic downturn of 2007–2010. After sales of General Motors vehicles plummeted and when the U.S Government bailed out the company, GM began developing more fuel efficient cars and trucks in order to compete with foreign automakers. In late 2010 General Motors began production of the plug-in electric Chevrolet Volt (and related Opel/Vauxhall Ampera), which later was announced as the 2012 North American Car of the Year, European Car of the Year and World Green Car of the Year.
Vehicle models
Sport
Chevrolet enters a variety of cars in sporting events around the world and is particularly well known in NASCAR and the FIA World Touring Car Championship.
NASCAR
Major teams include Hendrick Motorsports, Richard Childress Racing, Earnhardt Ganassi Racing and Stewart Haas Racing who all drive Chevy SS themed cars. Hendrick has 10 championships, RCR has 6 championships, Stewart Haas has 1 championship. Chevrolet is the most successful manufacturer to be involved in NASCAR with 35 manufacturer's titles and the most recorded wins by manufacturer. Previously the Chevy Monte Carlo and Impala were used.
American Le Mans Series
The Corvette runs in the American Le Mans Series GT class. Corvette Racing started in 1999 at the Daytona 24-hour race and has since won eight consecutive ALMS GT1 manufacturers and team championships and seven ALMS GT1 drivers' titles. The Corvette also takes part in the French America 24 Hours of Le Mans race.
FIA World Touring Car Championship
In 2005, when the Chevrolet brand was re-launched in Europe, Chevrolet took part in the WTCC with a version of the Lacetti, developed by the UK-based Ray Mallock Ltd (RML). In 2009 the Cruze replaced the Lacetti and in 2010 won the Drivers' and Manufacturers' championship.
British Touring Car Championship
Chevrolet participated in the BTCC with the Cruze between 2010 and 2011.
British football
In May 2012, Chevrolet replaced Audi as the official car sponsor of the British football team Manchester United,and from the start of the 2014-15 season Chevrolet would become the team's shirt sponsor. The deal is contracted to run for seven years.
In July 2012, Chevrolet and English Premier League football team Liverpool F.C. announced a four-year partnership which would see Chevrolet become the official automotive partner of the club.
Marketing
Chevrolet bowtie logo
The Chevrolet bowtie logo was introduced by company co-founder William C. Durant in late 1913. According to an official company publication titled The Chevrolet Story of 1961, the logo originated in Durant's imagination when, as a world traveler in 1908, he saw the pattern marching off into infinity as a design on wallpaper in a French hotel. He tore off a piece of the wallpaper and kept it to show friends, with the thought that it would make a good nameplate for a car. However, in an interview with Durant's widow, Catherine published in a 1986 issue of Chevrolet Pro Management Magazine, Catherine recalled how she and her husband were on holiday in Hot Springs, Va., in 1912. While reading a newspaper in their hotel room, Durant spotted a design and exclaimed, "I think this would be a very good emblem for the Chevrolet." Unfortunately, at the time, Mrs. Durant didn't clarify what the motif was or how it was used. Ken Kaufmann, historian and editor of The Chevrolet Review, discovered in a Nov. 12, 1911 edition of The Constitution newspaper, published in Atlanta, an advertisement appeared from by the Southern Compressed Coal Company for "Coalettes," a refined fuel product for fires. The Coalettes logo, as published in the ad, had a slanted bowtie form, very similar to the shape that would soon become the Chevrolet icon. The date of the paper was just nine days after the incorporation of the Chevrolet Motor Co. One other explanation attributes the design to a stylized version of the cross of the Swiss flag. Louis Chevrolet was born in Switzerland at La Chaux-de-Fonds, Canton of Neuchatel, to French parents, on Christmas Day 1878. An October 2, 1913 edition of The Washington Post seems, so far, to be the earliest known example of the symbol being used to advertise the brand.
The first bowtie logo without embedded text first appeared in 1985, as part of the Heartbeat of America ad campaign. In 2004, Chevrolet began to phase-in the gold bowtie that serves as the brand identity for all of its cars and trucks marketed globally.
Typography
The Klavika Condensed font was designed by type design studio Process Type Foundry under the art direction of Aaron Carámbula for General Motors marketer FutureBrand as part of Chevrolet's 2006 redesign. After the expiry of the exclusivity period, the commercial version of the font (Klavika Condensed) was released to the public in the fall of 2008. In the Young Creative Chevrolet corporate identity guidelines, Klavika is listed for use in all communication materials. Klavika was phased out beginning in 2012 and replaced by Knockout (from Hoefler & Frere-Jones) while the campaign was still ongoing. Currently, Goodby, Silverstein & Partners is utilizing the typeface families Louis, a group of simplified, legible grotesque gothics named after co-founder Louis Chevrolet, and Durant, a roman group, just as simplified and legible, named after co-founder William Durant, on print, television and Chevrolet's website advertisements.
100th anniversary
As part of Chevrolet's 100th anniversary in 2011, a dedicated channel was created by the American internet based Pandora Radio station, playing the Top 100 songs mentioning the brand. Beginning on November 3, 2011, Chevrolet celebrated the countdown to its 100th birthday by encouraging its customers and fans to tell their Chevy stories, vote for their favorite Chevrolet cars and trucks, and take the birthday party to their communities with the help of Chevrolet and its dealers. A feature-length documentary titled 'Chevy100, An American Story', produced by Roger Sherman, was premiered on November 3 at Detroit Institute of Arts in downtown Detroit, features drivers, collectors, restorers, racers and journalists who live and breathe cars and trucks.In honor of the 100th birthday of Chevrolet, Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Chevrolet and Indianapolis businessman David Ring have arranged to properly mark the grave of Arthur Chevrolet, brother of Chevrolet co-founder Louis Chevrolet.
Industry
Automotive
Founded
3 November 1911 (101 years ago)
Founder(s)
Louis Chevrolet
William C. Durant
Headquarters
Detroit, Michigan, United States
Products
Automobiles
Owner(s)
General Motors Company
Website
Chevrolet.com
Chevrolet (pron.: /ʃɛvrəˈleɪ/), also known as Chevy, is an American brand of vehicle produced by General Motors (GM). Chevrolet was founded by Louis Chevrolet and ousted General Motors founder William C. Durant on November 3, 1911.In 1918 it was acquired by General Motors.
Chevrolet was positioned by Alfred Sloan to sell mainstream vehicles to compete with Henry Ford's Model T in the 1920s, with "Chevrolet" or "Chevy" being synonymous with GM. In North America, Chevrolet produces and sells a wide range of vehicles, from subcompact automobiles to medium-duty commercial trucks, whereas in Europe, the brand name is used mainly for automobiles produced in Korea by General Motors.
On November 3, 1913, Swiss race car driver and automotive engineer Louis Chevrolet co-founded the Chevrolet Motor Car Company in Detroit with William C. Durant and investment partners William Little (maker of the Little automobile) and Dr. Edwin R. Campbell (son-in-law of Durant) and in 1912 R. S. McLaughlin GEO of General Motors in Canada.
Durant was ousted from the management of General Motors in 1910 for five years. He took over the Flint Wagon Works, incorporating the Mason and Little companies. As head of Buick Motor Company prior to founding GM, Durant had hired Louis Chevrolet to drive Buicks in promotional races.Durant planned to use Chevrolet's reputation as a racer as the foundation for his new automobile company.
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.
Chevrolet first used the "bowtie emblem" logo in 1914. It may have been designed from wallpaper Durant once saw in a French hotel room.More recent research by historian Ken Kaufmann presents a case that the logo is based on a logo of the "Coalettes" coal company.Others claim that the design was a stylized Swiss cross, in tribute to the homeland of Chevrolet's parents.
Louis Chevrolet had differences with Durant over design and in 1915 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 1917, Chevrolet's factories were located at New York City; Tarrytown, N.Y.; Flint, Michigan; Toledo, Ohio; St. Louis, Missouri; Oakland, California; Fort Worth, Texas, and Oshawa, Ontario.In the 1918 model year, Chevrolet introduced the Series D, a V8-powered model in four-passenger roadster and five-passenger tourer models.
Chevrolet continued into the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s competing with Ford, and after the Chrysler Corporation formed Plymouth in 1928, Plymouth, Ford, and Chevrolet were known as the "Low-priced three". In 1933 Chevrolet launched the Standard Six, which was advertised in the United States as the cheapest six-cylinder car on sale.
Chevrolet had a great influence on the American automobile market during the 1950s and 1960s. In 1953 it produced the Corvette, a two-seater sports car with a fibreglass body. In 1957 Chevy introduced its first fuel-injected engine,the Rochester Ramjet option on Corvette and passenger cars, priced at $484. In 1960 it introduced the Corvair, with a rear-mounted air-cooled engine. In 1963 one out of every ten cars sold in the United States was a Chevrolet.
The basic Chevrolet small-block V-8 design has remained in continuous production since its debut in 1955, longer than any other mass-produced engine in the world, although current versions share few if any parts interchangeable with the original. Descendants of the basic small-block OHV V-8 design platform in production today have been much modified with advances such as aluminium block and heads, electronic engine management, and sequential port fuel injection. Depending on the vehicle type, Chevrolet V-8s are built in displacements from 4.3 to 9.4 litres with outputs ranging from 111 horsepower (83 kW) to 994 horsepower (741 kW) as installed at the factory. The engine design has also been used over the years in GM products built and sold under the Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Buick, Hummer, Opel (Germany), and Holden (Australia) nameplates.
In 2005, General Motors re-launched the Chevrolet marque in Europe, using rebadged versions of the Daewoo cars produced by GM Korea.
The Chevrolet division is currently recovering from the economic downturn of 2007–2010. After sales of General Motors vehicles plummeted and when the U.S Government bailed out the company, GM began developing more fuel efficient cars and trucks in order to compete with foreign automakers. In late 2010 General Motors began production of the plug-in electric Chevrolet Volt (and related Opel/Vauxhall Ampera), which later was announced as the 2012 North American Car of the Year, European Car of the Year and World Green Car of the Year.
Vehicle models
Sport
Chevrolet enters a variety of cars in sporting events around the world and is particularly well known in NASCAR and the FIA World Touring Car Championship.
NASCAR
Major teams include Hendrick Motorsports, Richard Childress Racing, Earnhardt Ganassi Racing and Stewart Haas Racing who all drive Chevy SS themed cars. Hendrick has 10 championships, RCR has 6 championships, Stewart Haas has 1 championship. Chevrolet is the most successful manufacturer to be involved in NASCAR with 35 manufacturer's titles and the most recorded wins by manufacturer. Previously the Chevy Monte Carlo and Impala were used.
American Le Mans Series
The Corvette runs in the American Le Mans Series GT class. Corvette Racing started in 1999 at the Daytona 24-hour race and has since won eight consecutive ALMS GT1 manufacturers and team championships and seven ALMS GT1 drivers' titles. The Corvette also takes part in the French America 24 Hours of Le Mans race.
FIA World Touring Car Championship
In 2005, when the Chevrolet brand was re-launched in Europe, Chevrolet took part in the WTCC with a version of the Lacetti, developed by the UK-based Ray Mallock Ltd (RML). In 2009 the Cruze replaced the Lacetti and in 2010 won the Drivers' and Manufacturers' championship.
British Touring Car Championship
Chevrolet participated in the BTCC with the Cruze between 2010 and 2011.
British football
In May 2012, Chevrolet replaced Audi as the official car sponsor of the British football team Manchester United,and from the start of the 2014-15 season Chevrolet would become the team's shirt sponsor. The deal is contracted to run for seven years.
In July 2012, Chevrolet and English Premier League football team Liverpool F.C. announced a four-year partnership which would see Chevrolet become the official automotive partner of the club.
Marketing
Chevrolet bowtie logo
The Chevrolet bowtie logo was introduced by company co-founder William C. Durant in late 1913. According to an official company publication titled The Chevrolet Story of 1961, the logo originated in Durant's imagination when, as a world traveler in 1908, he saw the pattern marching off into infinity as a design on wallpaper in a French hotel. He tore off a piece of the wallpaper and kept it to show friends, with the thought that it would make a good nameplate for a car. However, in an interview with Durant's widow, Catherine published in a 1986 issue of Chevrolet Pro Management Magazine, Catherine recalled how she and her husband were on holiday in Hot Springs, Va., in 1912. While reading a newspaper in their hotel room, Durant spotted a design and exclaimed, "I think this would be a very good emblem for the Chevrolet." Unfortunately, at the time, Mrs. Durant didn't clarify what the motif was or how it was used. Ken Kaufmann, historian and editor of The Chevrolet Review, discovered in a Nov. 12, 1911 edition of The Constitution newspaper, published in Atlanta, an advertisement appeared from by the Southern Compressed Coal Company for "Coalettes," a refined fuel product for fires. The Coalettes logo, as published in the ad, had a slanted bowtie form, very similar to the shape that would soon become the Chevrolet icon. The date of the paper was just nine days after the incorporation of the Chevrolet Motor Co. One other explanation attributes the design to a stylized version of the cross of the Swiss flag. Louis Chevrolet was born in Switzerland at La Chaux-de-Fonds, Canton of Neuchatel, to French parents, on Christmas Day 1878. An October 2, 1913 edition of The Washington Post seems, so far, to be the earliest known example of the symbol being used to advertise the brand.
The first bowtie logo without embedded text first appeared in 1985, as part of the Heartbeat of America ad campaign. In 2004, Chevrolet began to phase-in the gold bowtie that serves as the brand identity for all of its cars and trucks marketed globally.
Typography
The Klavika Condensed font was designed by type design studio Process Type Foundry under the art direction of Aaron Carámbula for General Motors marketer FutureBrand as part of Chevrolet's 2006 redesign. After the expiry of the exclusivity period, the commercial version of the font (Klavika Condensed) was released to the public in the fall of 2008. In the Young Creative Chevrolet corporate identity guidelines, Klavika is listed for use in all communication materials. Klavika was phased out beginning in 2012 and replaced by Knockout (from Hoefler & Frere-Jones) while the campaign was still ongoing. Currently, Goodby, Silverstein & Partners is utilizing the typeface families Louis, a group of simplified, legible grotesque gothics named after co-founder Louis Chevrolet, and Durant, a roman group, just as simplified and legible, named after co-founder William Durant, on print, television and Chevrolet's website advertisements.
100th anniversary
As part of Chevrolet's 100th anniversary in 2011, a dedicated channel was created by the American internet based Pandora Radio station, playing the Top 100 songs mentioning the brand. Beginning on November 3, 2011, Chevrolet celebrated the countdown to its 100th birthday by encouraging its customers and fans to tell their Chevy stories, vote for their favorite Chevrolet cars and trucks, and take the birthday party to their communities with the help of Chevrolet and its dealers. A feature-length documentary titled 'Chevy100, An American Story', produced by Roger Sherman, was premiered on November 3 at Detroit Institute of Arts in downtown Detroit, features drivers, collectors, restorers, racers and journalists who live and breathe cars and trucks.In honor of the 100th birthday of Chevrolet, Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Chevrolet and Indianapolis businessman David Ring have arranged to properly mark the grave of Arthur Chevrolet, brother of Chevrolet co-founder Louis Chevrolet.