History of Chevy
By Fei Lim

Chevrolet, or "Chevy" is one of the brands of General Motors. In fact, Chevy is the most popular and best selling of all of the General Motors brands. Chevrolet was founded by William Durant and Louis Chevrolet in the early 1900s. In 1911, Chevy entered the market with the intent of competing with Ford's Model T. Chevy's "Classic Six" was a sedan with seating for five that had a 299 cubic inch six cylinder engine. The Classic Six could go 65 miles per hour, which was considered very capable for the time.

Chevy is known for their "bowtie" logo which they first used in 1913. William Durant designed the logo based on wallpaper he saw in a hotel in France. In 1915, William Durant went to Toronto to consider setting up production in Canada. William Durant liked what he saw and he set the Chevrolet Motor Car Company of Canada. General Motors later purchased two other Canadian car companies to create the General Motors of Canada.

Chevy quickly became the best selling General Motors car, so William Durant had enough money to purchases the majority share in General Motors in 1916. By 1917, Durant became the president of the General Motors company. Chevy became even more popular in 1955 with the release of their small block V8. The original Chevy small block V8 came in three variations. The standard 265 cubic inch version had a two barrel carburetor had 165 horsepower. The four barrel carburetor version has 185 horsepower, and the "power pack" version had 195 horsepower thanks to some more aggressive valve-train components. The Chevy small block V8 became popular almost overnight and became the weapon of choice for hot rodders over the previous favorite, the Ford Flathead. Even though the Chevy 265 cubic inch small block V8 was smaller than the other V8s from Buick, Plymouth, and Dodge, it gave the competition a run for its money. A Chevy power pack engine with a three speed manual transmission could do 0-60 miles per hour in around 8 seconds, which was very good performance for the day.

Chevy continued to improve their small block V8 and increase the displacement and output to keep it on top in terms of performance and popularity. Chevy found massive sales in the late 1950s thanks to their Corvette. The Corvette was a small sports car with two seats designs to compete with the European sports cars. By the mid 1960s the muscle car wars had begun and Chevy was determined to stay on top. In 1964, Ford released their Mustang, which was the first "pony car" and essentially was a small muscle car. Chevy followed suit with their Camaro. While the Ford Mustang was much more popular then the Mustang with the general popular, most of the Mustangs sold were V6 models. The Chevy Camaro beat the Mustang in performance and was more popular with performance fanatics. Car salesmen and tuners often put larger engines in the Camaro, and such hot rodded Camaros ruled the streets. The advantage of pony cars versus the larger muscle cars was that they were lighter and handled better. When a big block muscle car engine was dropped into the lightweight pony car Camaro, the driver was given the best of both worlds. The Yenko Camaro is considered one of the best performing cars of the muscle car era and surviving examples can sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

As the muscle car era came to an end due to high gas and oil prices in the early 1970s, Chevy turned its attention to small, economical cars. These small, efficient cars sold well but did not get the blood pumping. Although the Camaro model continued, the horsepower was sharply reduced due to modifications that increased gas mileage and drops in displacement. By the mid 1980s the gas prices has come down and Chevy led the way in horsepower with their Camaro and Corvette models. The Chevy Corvette of the 1980s and 1990s could compete with the much more expensive European super cars in terms of acceleration, handling, and braking performance. The Camaro was a very popular and less expensive alternative.

The Camaro was recently discontinued, but the Corvette continues to compete with and surpass European sports cars that cost three to four times as much money. The Z06 is the high performance version of the Corvette and can do 0-60 miles per hour in less than four seconds. The Z06 also has world class handling and braking performance.

Chevy has created concept drawings and models for a future return of the Camaro. The new Camaro concepts have a retro look and are in line with many of the other retro models on the market such as the Charger and Thunderbird.