Camaro history for the birthday girl

When my family goes to car shows, my wife’s favorite cars are ’67-’69 Camaros.  She is also starting to take a liking to the late ‘70s Z-28s, and she thinks a new Camaro might be fun to have too.  To summarize: my wife likes Camaros.  And today happens to be her birthday.  I’d love to buy her a Camaro as a gift, but I can’t afford that.  I can, however, provide a brief history of the Camaro in her honor.  For Maria, let’s take a look back at Chevrolet’s popular Ponycar.

History of the Monte Carlo, Chevrolet's personal luxury coupe

Today I want to talk about one of my favorite automotive nameplates of all time: the Chevrolet Monte Carlo.  When this car debuted in 1970, Chevrolet called it a “personal luxury coupe.”  You’ve just got to love that.  This car had the longest hood in Chevrolet history, but a relatively small interior.  A V8 monster like this was purely gluttonous, and in my opinion, one of the best cars of its time because of it.

60 years of Corvette! 1953-2013

Did you know that 2013 marks the 60th anniversary of the Chevrolet Corvette?  Since the Corvette is admittedly my favorite car, I couldn't let this momentous occasion pass by without a little recognition.

What other car elicits such widespread admiration as the Corvette? And I'm talking about every single year, from the first production car in 1953, right up until the latest Corvettes that are rolling off the line in Bowling Green, Ken. To prove that point, I'm including a slideshow at the end of this article with pictures of every single year the Corvette was produced. I took every one of these pictures myself, mostly at car shows around Kansas City.

Australian hybrid. History of the Chevrolet El Camino

It’s a car! It’s a truck! No—it’s an El Camino! Chevrolet’s light duty hauler is one of the most versatile machines out there. From hauling hay to heading to church, the El Camino is one of the best examples of sport plus utility ever to grace America’s highways.

The idea for the El Camino isn’t exactly American, though. Long before this concept had legs in the U.S., Australia had fully embraced the car/truck concept. Known down-under as the “Ute,” these hybrid Fords and Chevrolets were rolling through the Outback as far back as the 1930s. Even today, long after the El Camino’s exit from the American market, Utes are still a popular mode of transportation in Australia.

Chevy's other Vette

Sometimes, people harbor an irrational soft spot for cars they shouldn’t. When I was a kid, my mom really liked driving Chevettes. She had three or four of them over the years, and never had anything bad to say about the thrifty little runabouts.

Now, at the time, I really hated them. I think they had air conditioning, but it never really worked. I think they had radios, but they never really worked. My dad used to glue old license plates under the carpet on a couple of them so your feet wouldn’t pop through the rusty floor Fred Flintstone style. Her last one, an ’85 two-door, was still around when I started driving, and I remember that you could floor it going up gradual hills and it would lose speed. Sorry, Mom, those things were crap wagons.

The Chevrolet Suburban is the longest-running nameplate ever produced. A history and pictorial review of Chevy's heavy hauler

When you think about what model of vehicle has been around longer than any other, several candidates might come to mind. Iconic nameplates like the Porsche 911, Chevrolet Corvette, Chrysler 300, and the Ford Crown Victoria seem like they’ve been here forever—but they’re not the champs.

As the ISSCA meets up this weekend at the Woodward Dream Cruise, we look at the history of the 1994-1996 Impala SS

The big Woodward dream cruise takes place this weekend in Detroit. Automotive enthusiasts from all over the nation will converge on the Motor City to celebrate America’s automotive heritage with the granddaddy of all car cruises.

Chevrolet is a major sponsor of the cruise this year, with all kinds of displays and events happening as part of their 100th Anniversary celebration. Included in all the action, the Impala SS Club of America is holding their annual ISSCA Nationals event in conjunction with the Dream Cruise.

Chevrolet and the Indy 500 both turn 100, and the Chevy Camaro is once again the pace car

The Indianapolis 500 is held over Memorial Day weekend, so I figured it was time to do a little Indy 500 pace car trivia. Of course, Indy is the oldest running race in the U.S., and among the most respected in the world. More than any other, Chevrolet has been the car chosen to pace this historic event, including the past ten years consecutively. And even before that, brothers Louis and Arthur Chevrolet, competed in the very first Indianapolis 500 on May 30, 1911.

It may seem like the first Chevy Indy pace car was the 1967 Camaro, because that’s the one you seem to hear about the most. But actually, bowties took the helm twice before that. Way back in 1948, a Chevy Stylemaster convertible was used as the Indy pace car. This stately Stovebolt was appropriately decorated with colorful pace car graphics that encased the entire side of the car. Then in 1955, the first year of the popular small-block Chevy V8, a red and white Bel Air convertible led the field.

Did you hear that 2011 marks Chevrolet's 100th anniversary? No? Well, let's take care of that right now.

2011 marks the 100th anniversary of Chevrolet. I’m not sure how many people know that. I mean, I’m a Chevrolet nut, I try to stay relatively informed, and I really haven’t seen or heard very much about this.

The biggest public acknowledgement of this centennial seems to have been at a press conference at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit earlier this year. I was there. It wasn’t that big. There was a pretty nice video that played before the press conference (that few people in attendance even paid attention to), and they offered free beer to journalists. Otherwise, they introduced a couple variations of the new Aveo replacement Sonic. Happy frickin’ birthday.