By Robert Emslie
Welcome to Thursday Trivia where we offer up a historical automotive trivia question and you try and solve it before seeing the answer after the jump. It’s like a history test, with cars!
This week’s question: What is the origin of the name Corvette?
If you think you know the answer, make the jump and see if you’re right.
It’s perhaps an aspect of its inception that has been marginalized over time, but Chevrolet’s Corvette was the brand’s first attempt at facing a new competitive force. That threat was cars built outside of the United States, which were offering something that the domestic players did not.
These early interlopers didn’t represent a significant threat to Chevy’s sales numbers. Instead the newly available Jaguars and Porsches proved that a viable niche market existed here for lithe and capable sports cars. The Bow Tie Brigade determined to take a slice of that pie by creating an entrant that met the imports in size and feature, but still maintained a semblance of its domestication.
This American sports car, like its parent company, arrived with a French name. The Corvette debuted at GM’s Motorama show in 1953 to great fanfare, and production began the next year. That was 62 years and 7 generations ago, and today the Corvette name is as familiar to auto enthusiasts as their own, but in the 1950s it wasn’t a common term outside of the Navy. That’s where it originated, and amazingly, it wasn’t actually anyone at Chevy that came up with it.
From The Gentleman Racer:
Corvette was the first mass produced post-war American sports car, but when GM introduced the car the name was still up in the air. Hundreds of people submitted ideas, but it would be the submission of Myron E. Scott, a newspaper photographer who would submit the winning name.
Myron thought the name Corvette rolled off the tongue well and thought a tie into the fast strike ships called “Corvette” that gained fame in World War II would appeal to the American men, many who had served in the war. This would go on to form the foundation for the nautical names that would be applied to Corvettes and concepts such as the Mako Shark and Sting Ray (later to be used as Stingray).
The name Corvette was first used on ships in the 1670s by the French Navy. These small, light, and fast ships would often be used as escorts for larger ships. While they generally were under 100 feet long and only had one gun deck, their maneuverability and speed gave them a unique advantage against the larger ships. Literally a Corvette could run circles around larger ships and in the era of cannons fast moving targets were hard to hit. The British would keep Corvettes in their fleet during the colonial incursions into the rivers of the Far-East and Africa, at this point most Corvettes were steam powered.
You can learn even more about the history of Corvettes – the ships, not the cars – on the CIMSEC site, including what a ‘Flower Class Corvette’ is. And the next time you see a ‘Vette in traffic you’ll know you’re safe from submarine attack.
Image: The Gentleman Racer
That was easy.
See also Camaro: French for mullet.
*Camero.
Tangentially related based on the link: I think this is what a Ninja’s genitalia looks like.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/cd/USS_Independence_LCS-2_at_pierce_%28cropped%29.jpg/800px-USS_Independence_LCS-2_at_pierce_%28cropped%29.jpg
Top speed above 50mph? That’s a ski boat!
I hope you’re not speaking from personal experience.
It’s also a bit ironic since WWII era Corvettes were the Hyundai Accent of escort ships, small slow and cheap. The Flower Class was a re-purposed whaling ship design and was notorious for actually being slower than a German submarine running on its diesels, which was one of the reasons why the larger River class frigate was developed, to produce an escort that was faster than a U-Boat. That said, like their econobox analogy, Flower class ships were durable reliable and reasonably effective at keeping U-Boats from sinking freighters as well as making decent cut rate minesweepers.
I remembered that name “corvette” had to do with ships. The fact that I learned that from Star Wars should probably be forgotten though…
http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20070106183238/starwars/images/b/b0/Corvette-CHRON.jpg
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/CR90_corvette
I actually knew this one!
This does not, however, mean that this boat lent its name to any automobiles.
Nope.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4b/USS_Port_Royal_CG-73.jpg