Louis Chevrolet (1878–1941), Arthur Chevrolet (1884–1946) and ousted General Motors founder William C. Durant (1861–1947) started the company on November 3, 1911 as the Chevrolet Motor Car Company. Durant used the Chevrolet Motor Car Company to acquire a controlling stake in General Motors with a reverse merger occurring on May 2, 1918, and propelled himself back to the GM presidency. After Durant's second ousting in 1919, Alfred Sloan, with his maxim "a car for every purse and purpose", picked the Chevrolet brand to become the volume leader in the General Motors family, selling mainstream vehicles to compete with Henry Ford's Model T in 1919 and overtaking Ford as the best-selling car in the United States by 1929 with the Chevrolet International.
Chevrolet first used the "bowtie emblem" logo in 1914 on the H series models (Royal Mail and Baby Grand) and The L Series Model (Light Six). It may have been designed from wallpaper Durant once saw in a French hotel room. More recent research by historian Ken Kaufmann presents a case that the logo is based on a logo of the "Coalettes" coal company. An example of this logo as it appeared in an advertisement for Coalettes appeared in the Atlanta Constitution on November 12, 1911. Others claim that the design was a stylized Swiss cross, in tribute to Chevrolet's home country. Over time, Chevrolet used several different iterations of the bowtie logo at the same time, often using blue for passenger cars, gold for trucks, and an outline (often in red) for cars that had performance packages. Chevrolet eventually unified all vehicle models with the gold bowtie in 2004, for both brand cohesion as well as to differentiate itself from Ford (with its blue oval logo) and Dodge (who has often used red for its imaging), its two primary domestic rivals.
Louis Chevrolet had differences with Durant over design and in 1914 sold Durant his share in the company. By 1916, Chevrolet was profitable enough with successful sales of the cheaper Series 490 to allow Durant to repurchase a controlling interest in General Motors. After the deal was completed in 1918, Durant became president of General Motors, and Chevrolet was merged into GM as a separate division. In 1919, Chevrolet's factories were located at Flint, Michigan; branch assembly locations were sited in Tarrytown, N.Y., Norwood, Ohio, St. Louis, Missouri, Oakland, California, Ft. Worth, Texas, and Oshawa, Ontario General Motors of Canada Limited. In the 1918 model year, Chevrolet introduced the Series D, a V8-powered model in four-passenger roadster and five-passenger tourer models. Sales were poor and it was dropped in 1919.
Chevrolet enters a variety of cars in sporting events around the world and is particularly well known in NASCAR, IndyCar, and the FIA World Touring Car Championship.
Major teams include Hendrick Motorsports, Richard Childress Racing, and Trackhouse Racing Team, who all drive Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE-branded cars. Hendrick has twelve championships, Childress has six championships, and former Chevrolet team Stewart–Haas Racing has two. Chevrolet is the most successful manufacturer to be involved in NASCAR with thirty-nine manufacturer's titles and the most recorded wins by a manufacturer. Previously, the Lumina, Monte Carlo, Impala, and the SS were used in both the NASCAR Cup Series and NASCAR O'Reilly Auto Parts Series.
Chevrolet teams in the NASCAR Cup Series currently use the Camaro ZL1 1LE, while Xfinity teams run the Camaro SS and NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series organizations race with the Silverado.
Chevrolet claimed six consecutive Indianapolis 500 wins from 1988 to 1993 and five consecutive CART Series championships from 1988 to 1992, with notable drivers such as Rick Mears, Al Unser Jr., Michael Andretti, Danny Sullivan, Arie Luyendyk, Emerson Fittipaldi, and Bobby Rahal.
Chevrolet replaced Oldsmobile as the General Motor brand at the IndyCar Series from 2002 to 2005. Hélio Castroneves won the Indianapolis 500 and Sam Hornish Jr. the championship, but the American brand had little success the next years.
Chevrolet returned to IndyCar in 2012. After several years of Honda being the only engine provider, Chevrolet rejoined the series in 2012. Major teams include Team Penske, KV Racing, Chip Ganassi Racing and CFH Racing who all use Chevy engines. Chevrolet won several races including the Indianapolis 500 in 2013, 2015, 2018–2019, 2023–2024, as well as seven drivers championships.
The Corvette runs in the GT LeMans class for Tudor United SportsCar Championship, which was, until 2014, the American Le Mans Series in the GT class, when ALMS merged with Grand-Am to form Tudor United SportsCar Championship. Corvette Racing started in 1999 at the Daytona 24-hour race and has since won eight consecutive ALMS GT1 manufacturers and team championships and seven ALMS GT1 drivers' titles. The Corvette also takes part in the French 24 Hours of Le Mans race.
In 2005, when the Chevrolet brand was re-launched in Europe, Chevrolet took part in the WTCC with a version of the Lacetti, developed by the UK-based Ray Mallock Ltd (RML). In 2009 the Cruze replaced the Lacetti and won the Drivers' and Manufacturers' championship from 2010 to 2012.
Chevrolet participated in the British Touring Car Championship with the Cruze between 2010 and 2011.
This article is based solely on the supplied corpus. No external sources were consulted; claims that could not be substantiated against the corpus were omitted under the drop-the-claim rule.