Chevrolet Tuning & Performance Parts

Prince, The Beach Boys, Elton John and Snoop Dogg. All have written songs dedicated to various Chevrolet, or Chevy, cars, and in the process have given General Motors’ top brand in America a special and lasting cachet The history of Chevrolet itself has a touch of rebellion about it, the company having been founded in 1910 by racing driver Louis Chevrolet and General Motors founder William Durant, after the latter was pushed out from GM for trying to get it to build some of Chevrolet’s own car designs. Durant started making cars in Canada, and the success of his venture was consolidated when he agreed to also start building car bodies for the formative Buick motor company and, just a few years later, General Motors agreed to buy out the whole operation. Shortly afterwards, Durant used his fortune to buy a majority stake in GM, and so the wheel had turned full circle. The move also ensured Chevrolet’s continued survival as a stand-alone division of GM. It has gone on to produce several classic vehicles, including the Impala family saloon and the Camaro sports coupe.

Down the years, several Chevrolet cars have been voted the coolest of their time, but today’s car buyer wouldn’t necessarily know that, as the brand has been repositioned within the General Motors stable at the value end of the market. Here in the UK, its ‘bow tie’ badge was attached to the former Daewoo range of cars between 2005 and 2016, but after a further reorganisation, the Chevrolet name has re-emerged, specifically to be applied to the limited number of Corvettes imported into the country. So even though Chevrolet is no longer used as a brand in Europe, the name is so closely linked with the Corvette (below) that General Motors has allowed it to live on - possibly thinking that a ‘Vauxhall Corvette’ would sound too similar to the Chevette - a very different car for which that particular brand became widely known.