Chevrolet history

Chevrolet
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North American historyChevrolet was co-founded by Louis Chevrolet and William C. Durant. Louis Chevrolet was a race-car driver, born on December 25, 1878, in La Chaux de Fonds, Switzerland. William Durant, founder of General Motors, had been forced out of GM in 1910 and wanted to use Louis Chevrolet's designs to rebuild his own reputation as a force in the automobile industry.
As head of Buick Motor Company, prior to founding GM, Durant had hired Chevrolet to drive Buicks in promotional races.[citation needed]Chevrolet first used its "bowtie"[1] logo in 1913. This logo is said to have been designed from wallpaper Durant once saw in a French hotel.

Another theory of the design of the mark is from the Swiss cross, because Louis Chevrolet was from Switzerland.In 1915, Durant made a trip to Toronto, Ontario to determine the possibility of setting up production facilities in Canada.
After meeting with "Colonel Sam" McLaughlin, whose McLaughlin Motor Car Company manufactured the McLaughlin-Buick, it was agreed that the Chevrolet Motor Car Company of Canada, operated by McLaughlin, would be created to build Chevrolet cars in Canada. Three years later, the two Canadian companies were purchased by GM to become General Motors of CanadaLtd.[citation needed]By 1916 Chevrolet was profitable enough to allow Durant to buy a majority of shares in GM.
After the deal was completed in 1917, Durant was president of General Motors, and Chevrolet was merged into GM, becoming a separate division. In the 1918 model year Chevrolet introduced the Model D V-8 series 4-passenger roadster and 5 passenger touring. These cars had 288ci, 35 hp (26 kW) engines with Zenith carburetors and 3 speed transmissions.Famous Chevy models include the large and luxurious Impala (1958) and the innovative air-cooled rear-engined Corvair (1960 - 1969).
Chevrolet had a great influence on the American automobile market during the 1950s and 1960s. In 1963, one out of every ten cars sold in the United States was a Chevrolet.The basic Chevrolet small-block V-8 design has remained in continuous production since its debut in 1955, longer than any other mass-produced engine design in the world auto industry, though current versions share few if any parts interchangeable directly with the original.
Descendants of the basic small-block OHV V-8 design platform in production today have been much modified with advances such as aluminum block and heads, electronic engine management, and sequential port fuel injection, to name just a few improvements over the 54-model-year design life of the engine concept to date.
The small block Chevrolet V-8 is used in current production model (2008) Impala sedans, a variety of light and medium duty Chevrolet trucks, and the current generation Corvette sports car. Depending on the vehicle type in which they're installed, they are built in diaplacements from 5.3 to 7 litres with outputs ranging from 303 to over 500 horsepower (370 kW) as installed at the factory.
It will also be used as a performance option in the forthcoming (2009 model year) revival of the Chevrolet Camaro. The engine design has also been used over the years in GM products built and sold under the Pontiac. Oldsmobile, Buick, Opel (Germany) and Holden (Australia) nameplates.
Recently, 6-litre, 400 horsepower (300 kW) versions of the small-block V-8 designed initially for the C-5 and C-6 Corvettes have been installed in factory-built high performance versions of the Cadillac CTS sedan known as the CTS-V