Where did Chevrolet get their names from???

Tell me about it..... I owned a Pontiac version of that car... An '81 Pheonix. It was a blast to drive it in the snow... That was me first and last FWD car I ever owned... Never again if I can help it!..

 

WOW... What a bunch of..........Interesting Comments

 

There is no refuting the "no va" thing in Spanish. It means "doesn't go". I'm sure that was unintended by GM. As far as Nova meaning something else in Spanish, I found this: "nova" is the third person singular present of the verb novar. Novar means To renew an obligation formerly contracted.

My guess they got Nova from the Latin word for New. In English, I think it also means an exploding star. Maybe it came from that.

I never thought about Corvair being a reference to the air cooling. That's a pretty good guess.

 

Its like they've run out of good names..ever checked out some of the names on Kias and Diahatsus? where do they come up with that stuff? same 100K a year genius that dreams up names for new drugs...

 

It really was a piece of crap... After I replaced the left side CV joint, I sold it for 1100 bucks.. I was lucky to get that out of it..

 

Literally means Of the King if it is spelt Del Rey but in english it would be pronounced Del Ray. But the translation would be belongs to the king, or the king's.

 

Color and trim names were fun sometimes. I read a story years ago about the design team trying to name Packards new white leather. It was white and "antiqued" in a golden tan color that filled in the depressions. If you think about it for minute it sounds kinda nice. Ordered to stay until it was sorted out the designers got tired and started coming up with silly names until they settled on "Phartedon White" and then left for the evening ready to continue the next day. The boss comes in and sees this name and blows his top. Of course the joke was to indicated the color antiqued into the white but he didn't think it was funny. "Who would by leather that was farted on?!?" Thinking quickly one of the designers said that they wanted to emulate the beautiful marble ruins in Greece.

So that's how they got the name "Parthenon White" for that leather color. Kool and funny story. Hope ya liked it.

 

Phartedon..... I think this thread farted on my brain.

 

I'm still trying to see myself going into a Chevy dealer and asking to see a stripped down George!!-MIKE

 

Hogwash.
Yes, "No" in Spanish means no and "Va" does indeed mean go, but the two words are NEVER used together, by a Spanish speaker, to mean "Doesn't" or "Won't" or "No Go". Nova in Spanish, oddly enough, mean the same thing that it does in English. Additionally, Pemex, the Mexican oil monopoly,has a gasoline brand called "Nova". Do you think they would sell a product called "No Go" to put in your tank? Does anyone think that a multi billion dollar corporation like GM wouldn't have at least one Spanish speaking person tell them that this is a bad idea? How about their world wide dealership and marketing people. This is a perfectly stupid and bogus myth that people just love to believe, but it is bullshit, pure and simple.
Back to high school Spanish for you.

 

Seen any chevy novas in Mexico??? Probably not! But they sure love them old Impalas.... Now I'm in the mood for some WAR music...

 

I agree 100% - putting two words together gives 'em a whole new meaning. Same goes for some english words too. Otherwise there'd be a lot of 'therapists' out of work!

 

It's the same in Italian.... no-va means it don't go.. But, I always proved them otherwise with the ones I owned....

 

"Goat" was never an official name, but simply a nickname. Besides, before 1964, the "Goat" nickname referred to PLYMOUTHS in general. Since the Dodge has been known as a "Ram" since the '30s, the Plymouths garnered the nic until Pontiac essentially took it in '64. Kinda like what Ford did to Pontiac with the "Super Duty" moniker.

 

Help me out with this one guys

"El Camino" translates into "The Road"????????

 

My father-in-law flew P-38's in in combat in Italy in WWII and P-51's after the war when they formed the AZ Air National Guard. He has always said the P-38 Lightening was the better airplane. Besides which is faster from point A to point B, a horse or lightening? (He said jokingly.)

When it comes to car names, the marketing "folks" are always involved. All of them are copyrighted so another manufacturer doesn't use them. Probably the Camero wasn't the Panther for a copyright reason. Ford later used a similar word in the Pantera. Lots of Chevrolet's are variations on the "Chev..." portion of their brand name. Ford has used variations of the "Ex..." like Explorer, Expedition, Excursion. Its those marketing types, bean counters, lawyers that get in the mix. You can't violate someone else's copyright.

 

hey... ya got me! I'm just an old fossil and that's what I thought that I remembered, don't confuse me with the facts ok?, I probably say dumb shit all the time. I was just trying to comment on the vagaries of the naming process, not necessarily Chevy. Iacocca might of had wood for the name for a long time, I don't know, or maybe I got the whole thing confused with something else, that happens more often these days. Humor me, please? I meant well.

 

Hey, I had an '84 Skylark for a winter. Great in the snow; leaked oil like a sieve; but then I figured there was a reason I got it for free besides the half-assed attempt at fixing the brake lines.


As for Ford's Ex-names, if Ford bought the tooling to sell Buick's SUV, would they call it an Ex-Lax? (Lacrosse, or however they're spelling it)



My understanding is El Camino is "The Way" but it could vary some I suppose depending on what context it's used in. I cheated through two years of HS Spanish and that was a long time ago, so...


One fun model name is the Studebaker Champ pickup. It got it's name when someone realized they had tons of unused Champion scripts - maybe even still had the dies - and they could just pay a guy to break off the i-o-n cheaper than having a new die cut for some other name. Or so the old wives tale is, I wouldn't be surprised if they actually altered the die to cast it that way - but still less tooling cost than something new.

 

Rumer was a few years ago when Chevrolet and Toyota got together and built that little POS econo box (didn't the end up calling it a Nova?) they decided combining the corp names wouldn't be marketable but I always thought a "Toylet" would of been fitting!

 

I thought "Camaro" was swahili for .."Mus-wear-mullet"
Maybe not

 

Not!! Maybe for the '70 and newer ones......

 

It's hard to wrap my brain around a concept where somebody would be so lame-brained as to buy a car depending on what it's name was??

"Cool' names are; Well, Bullshit;

I've always thought that they could dispense with the flim-flam and simply go with; Model designations, A, B, C, or 1, 2, 3, 4, etc.

 

Mustangs,Pintos,Camaros and Vegas on the HAMB???

 

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The original proposed name for the Camaro
was Panther. The Pontiac Firebird was going to
be called the Banshee. Regarding the Panther
- the name came close enough to being used
that Chevy even had some die-cast 'Panther'
name emblems made up that were used on
a few pre-production prototype cars. Do I get
the 500 bonus points?? Can I have a cookie
instead??

Mart3406
==============================

 

I agree with that!
Everyone seems to think its from the WW2 Corvette class of Convoy Escort Vessel.
THAT Corvette was based on a Whaling vessel that offered the strength to survive the worst weather the North Atlantic ocean could supply...and also be CHEAP enough to make in huge numbers to screen those convoys from all sides. Equally important was the need to have a small ship that could be built in many local small shipyards. Had to build them FAST!

Basicly, they're presence kept the U-boats submerged and unable to keep up with the convoy without surfacing. They weren't even originally intended to chase or sink U-boats.
That was meant for the "Hunter-Killer" flotillas of Destroyer vessels.

Eventually things changed somewhat, with better armed, faster and longer versions...but that was later in the war.

Corvette escort vessels were among the worst vessels you could be assigned to in the war. They were wet vessels, rolled BADLY in any sea and didn't even have watertight partitions. Take a torpedo and you were swimming!
High tech they weren't.
Hardly the type of vessel the Chevy Corvette would want to be named after.

The wind driven Corvettes on the other hand were the deal in fast, light and manuverable vessels for their time. They were lightly armed and so relied on speed and agility to keep out of trouble, while still offering a sting to the enemy.

 

meaning of "chevette"= Chevette of a cliff and get sumptin else!
Squadrons of p-51's were harder to find than horses.

 

Regarding the "Mustang"...seems simple to me:
The plane was named after the horse...and the car was named after the plane!
The long front, small cockpit, the use of "scoops" on the side to represent the focal point of the plane. Performance styling...
All points toward aircraft to me.

Now if it had a mane....

 

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Also "Chevette or leave it"

Mart3406
================

 

Someone said something about "a multi billion dollar company like GM wouldn't use a name without researching it" - Didn't they make a car called a Beretta and then find out it was the name of an Italian gun company?

 

Yep!