Chevrolet Company History

Chevrolet may not have been born in the U.S.A., but it's a name that is immediately associated with American car-making. Although his involvement in auto production was brief, Swiss-born Louis Chevrolet, race car driver and entrepreneur, lends his name to millions of namesakes.

Louis Chevrolet

Louis Chevrolet was born in La Chaux-de-Fondson, Switzerland in 1878. As a young man, Chevrolet had a passion for all things automotive and excelled as an auto mechanic. In 1899, he got a job in working for car manufacturer Darracq, where he was thoroughly educated in the mechanics behind the combustion engine. This job permitted him to earn enough money to immigrate to North America.
In New York, Chevrolet continued to work in automobile workshops and also began to race Buick cars. It was his racing career that would put him in the path of William C. Durant, founder of General Motors. The two men formed Chevrolet Motor Car Company in 1911. But sadly, theirs was to be a short-lived partnership due to creative differences. Chevrolet wanted to produce high-end, luxury automobiles, while Durant wanted to produce affordable cars for common people. Chevrolet sold his interest in the company to Durant in 1913.

William Durant and General Motors

William Durant's stormy relationship with GM--the company he founded--is an uncanny parallel of 2008 to 2009 events imitating history. At the time Durant formed Chevrolet Motor Car Company with Louis Chevrolet, he'd just been ousted from his position at GM. The development of ridiculously large and impractical vehicles and expenditure on car models that were never developed had left the company in debt, forcing bankers to intervene in order to prevent the company's financial collapse. Chevrolet Motors would be Durrant's ticket back into GM, although he would again find himself out of the company during the power recession of 1920.
Compared to Ford's functional, unstylish vehicles, car brands such as Chevrolet helped establish GM as an innovative company that changed in looks and style year after year. Until the Wall Street crash of 1929, GM was extremely successful, and managed to top Ford's sales. After the Great Depression, GM swiftly recovered and in 1955 became the first company to make more than 1 billion dollars in one year.

Innovations in Engineering

In 1921, GM placed the experimental new copper-cooled engine in all its Chevrolet cars to replace the piston engine. However, the program ended in 1923 and some 300 cars recalled by GM. Chevrolet introduced the six-cylinder engine, known as the "cast iron wonder," for use in commercial vehicles in 1929. In 1950, Chevrolet's "Powerglide" transmission became the first of its kind to offer fully-automatic shifting.

Notable Chevrolet Cars

Chevrolet has produced cars of distinct style and flavor over the years, some of them being the El Camino (1958), the F-body Camaro (1966) and the Chevette (1975). However, in addition to the pick-up truck, the Chevrolet car that first comes to mind is the Corvette, which was introduced in 1953 as the first volume production sports car and the first car to be made with a plastic body.
In 2003, the Corvette celebrated its 50th birthday. Some 5,000 Corvettes were driven by their owners from all 50 states, meeting at the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, Kentucky.

Chevrolet and American Culture

Chevrolet cars have reached iconic status in their representation of classic Americana. Chevrolet is mentioned in the lyrics of numerous pop songs, including Don McLean's "American Pie," Prince's "Little Red Corvette," Bob Seger's "Night Moves" and Elton John's "Crocodile Rock." Chevrolet cars are depicted in artworks such as Alfred Gockel's "Gas and Gulp" and David Lindsley's "'55 Chevy." Classic Chevrolet cars continue to be a popular subject for professional photographers and graphic designers, and the cars themselves have been featured in many films and television shows.

Resources

• GM Media Online