Ok I had some time here at work so I took the golfcart over to the motorsport hall of fame and got ole' louis'es bio. He was born in switzwerland in 1878 he became a bicycle racer at a young age one day he came across a De Deion powered tricycle and was enthralled. He joined the firm and wound up in Brooklyn NY. There he jumped ship and joined Fiat it was here that he won his first race against Barny Oldfield. in 1909 he joined Buicks racing team at the invitation of Willam Duraunt( the guy who owned GM) he won a few races for buick untill he was sidelined by a severe crash during the Vanderbilit cup in 1910. Louis went out on his own and told Durant about a 6 cyclinder prototype that he was testing in the wee hours of the morning (shortly after passing 100 he was arrested and put in jail. They then evolved the car into the 1910 chevrolet. Durant and Chevrolet parted ways during an argument. Years later Chevy recalled the argument over tobacco. Chevy liked cigarettes, while Duraunt prefferd cigars. Chevy said "I lit a cigarette and he immediatly offered one of his cigars with a comment that I shouldent be so damn stubborn. Thats when I walked out" If ypu guys want to hear about his Indy exploits I can type thoese too.. :D OH! he died in 1941.


[Modified by ASRoff, 2:08 PM 7/1/2002]

 

The Corvette was named after the sailing vessel. It was chosen because it was considered to be a small ship capable of speeds faster than the rest of the fleet. Sounds aptly named to me. :yesnod:

 

a highly maneuverable ship smallet than a frigate.

 

Everyone is basically right. When it came time to name this new car the Chevrolet managment team and a advertising team tried to come up with a name. According to Dave McLellan in his new book they went through about 300 names and regected them all. Myron Scott who was one of the participants came up with the name "Corvette". Corvette was the name of a class of fast naval pursuit ships. Mr Scott proposed the name to Ed Cole and it took off from there.

When the emblem was first introduced it was the american flag with the checkered flag. But GM lawyers got into the mix and refused to let the american flag to be used commercially. Then the Fleur-de-Lis was used.

 

A Corvette was also once a type of fast attack navy vessel.

 

now, the story I heard was that it was only coincidence that a Corvette was a small and fast ship...the name was finally chosen out of several contenders because it sounded good.

Slightly off topic: I also heard a story about the origin of the word "Camaro", it being chosen by Chevrolet meaning "a good friend" in some language, but somebody dug up it also meant "crayfish" in Spanish(I think it was Spanish).


[Modified by Justin1984, 6:36 PM 7/2/2002]

 

The truth is that Corvette is really an acronym.

C Cash
O Outlays
R Regularly
V Virtuously
E Endless
T To
T The
E End

 

I heard that :lol:

 

Very sharp 'Vette you have CG77Vette, back in '86 I had just graduated Purdue with nary a nickel to my name hardly, and my friend back home I discovered upon getting home after graduation, he had just bought a new '86 same exact color scheme as yours. I was so jealous! Well, now I have my own, see sig, but just wanted to complement you on yours, brought back memories of many a cruise around night with my friend in his mighty '86!

 

About the Name
Yep, it's been known that Corvette came from the fast and manuverable escort ships of WWII Remember that it was only 8 years after WWII when the first Corvettes were being built.

A "C" name was a criteria and Chevy has used a lot of "C" names just as has Ford used a lot of "F" names.

However, Corvair was first used as a name for the fastback Corvette concept car shown at the 1954 GM Motorama, this name then languished until the GM's abortive attempt at an air-cooled compact several years later.

Even less known was that Schwinn Bicycles introduced a "Corvette" bicycle model in about 1955

:smash: :smash: :smash:

 

Maybe he rode in in a goat cart! :jester

 

C onstantly
O n
R adar,
V ehicle
E xcites
T icketing
T roopers
E verwhere

 

I don't think Chevy looks at foreign wording to closely when it picks its domestic car names. For example the Chevy NO GO, I mean, Nova. ;)

 

In Scrabble you can use Corvette on a triple-word score, play it off of a C. Major points!!! I always thought it was a Proper noun :p: but I can use it now.

 

I understand that the (somewhat secretive) project name was Opel that originally designed the first Corvette. A dictionary search under "C" was how it all started...