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50 free Chevrolet trivia questions with answers — technology quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Chevrolet was born in 1911 when a Swiss racing driver and an ousted General Motors founder went into business together, and within eight years the car had been used to take GM back. Since then the bowtie has been on the Stovebolt Six, the Bel Air, the small-block V8, the Corvette, the Camaro, the Impala, the Suburban and the Volt, and 'Chevy' has become shorthand for GM itself. This quiz covers the founders and the takeover, the disputed origin of the bowtie logo, the Corvette from Motorama to mid-engine, the Camaro's cat-and-Mustang launch, the Bel Air, Impala, Chevelle, Nova, El Camino and Suburban, the Corvair and Ralph Nader, the plug-in Volt and the Bolt, plus Dinah Shore, baseball, hot dogs and apple pie. There are easy questions any Chevy owner can get and harder ones about engineers, dates and production numbers for the people who own the shop manuals. Every answer is checked against a reference source and each question links to where the fact was confirmed.
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Q 01In what year was the Chevrolet Motor Car Company founded?
1911
Louis and Arthur Chevrolet started it with William C. Durant on November 3, 1911; Durant had founded General Motors in 1908 and been forced out in 1910.
Q 02In which country was Louis Chevrolet born?
Switzerland
He was born on Christmas Day 1878 in La Chaux-de-Fonds, a watchmaking town in French-speaking Switzerland, and moved to France as a boy.
Q 03What was Louis Chevrolet's profession before lending his name to the company?
Racing driver
Durant had hired him to race Buicks and planned to build the new brand on his reputation; Chevrolet drove the Indianapolis 500 four times.
Q 04How did William C. Durant use the Chevrolet company in 1918?
To regain control of General Motors
Durant used Chevrolet's profits to buy GM stock and regain control of General Motors by 1916; on May 2, 1918 GM absorbed Chevrolet in a reverse merger, and he remained president until 1920.
Q 05In which Michigan city did Durant consolidate Chevrolet production in 1913?
Flint
Durant consolidated Chevrolet production in Flint in 1913, alongside his Buick and carriage businesses; the riverside complex known as 'Chevy in the Hole' is today's Chevy Commons.
Q 06What was the first Chevrolet automobile called?
Series C Classic Six
The Series C Classic Six, designed by Etienne Planche with Louis Chevrolet, was a $2,150 tourer capable of 65 mph, far pricier than the mass-market car Durant had in mind.
Q 07According to the most-repeated legend, where did Durant get the idea for the bowtie logo?
From wallpaper in a French hotel room
Durant claimed he copied the bowtie from wallpaper in a French hotel room in Paris in 1908; a rival theory traces it to a newspaper ad for 'Coalettes' fuel, and the logo first appeared on 1914 models.
Q 08In what year did Chevrolet unify all its models under the gold bowtie?
2004
In 2004 Chevrolet put the gold bowtie on every model worldwide; before that passenger cars had worn blue bowties, trucks gold and some performance models a red outline.
Q 09Which GM chief's maxim 'a car for every purse and purpose' made Chevrolet the corporation's volume brand?
Alfred P. Sloan
A 1921 management survey had actually recommended killing the Chevrolet division; Sloan saved it and hired ex-Ford man Knudsen to run operations.
Q 10In which year did Chevrolet first outsell Ford in the United States?
1927
Chevrolet first outsold Ford in 1927, when Ford shut its assembly lines for months to switch from the Model T to the Model A.
Q 11What nickname did Chevrolet's famous 1929 overhead-valve inline six acquire?
Stovebolt
The 'Stovebolt' nickname came from the engine's slotted-head fasteners, which looked like stove bolts; the Blue Flame and Turbo-Thrift were later Chevrolet sixes.
Q 12In what year did the Chevrolet small-block V8 debut?
1955
The small-block V8 debuted for 1955 as a 265-cubic-inch engine in Chevrolet cars and the Corvette; its descendants have powered Pontiacs, Buicks, Hummers, Opels and Holdens.
Q 13The Corvette was named after what?
A small, maneuverable warship
PR assistant director Myron Scott suggested the naval name in 1953; the car debuted as a Motorama show car at New York's Waldorf-Astoria.
Q 21Which Transformers character has taken the form of a Camaro since the 2007 film?
Bumblebee
Bumblebee first appears as a battered 1970s second-generation Camaro, then a 2006 Camaro Concept; Age of Extinction switched him to a customized 1967 model.
Q 22When did production of the sixth-generation Camaro end?
December 2023
The last sixth-generation Camaro, a 2024 model, left the Lansing Grand River plant in December 2023; an earlier hiatus had run from 2002 to the fifth generation's 2010 return.
Q 23The Bel Air was named after a wealthy neighborhood in which city?
Los Angeles
The name came from Bel Air, the wealthy Los Angeles enclave; from 1950 to 1952 it was used only on two-door hardtops, before the mid-1950s 'Tri-Five' Bel Airs became icons.
Q 14What color were all 300 hand-built 1953 Corvettes?
Polo White
Every 1953 Corvette was Polo White with a red interior, a Blue Flame six and a two-speed Powerglide automatic; just 300 were hand-assembled that first year.
Q 15In which Kentucky city has the Corvette been built since 1981?
Bowling Green
Corvette assembly moved to Bowling Green, Kentucky, in June 1981 from St. Louis, which had built the car since 1954; the National Corvette Museum opened across the road in 1994.
Q 16Which Corvette generation was the first to move the engine behind the driver?
C8
Seven generations kept a front mid-engine layout through 2019; the C8 finally went rear mid-engined, an idea the car's chief engineer had pushed for decades.
Q 17Which engineer is nicknamed the 'Father of the Corvette', though Harley Earl created the car?
Zora Arkus-Duntov
Zora Arkus-Duntov, a Belgian-born engineer who raced at Le Mans and joined GM in 1953 after seeing the Motorama car, spent two decades turning Earl's show car into a true sports car.
Q 18The Camaro was launched in 1966 to compete with which car?
Ford Mustang
The Camaro answered the Ford Mustang, which had sold a million cars within two years of its 1964 launch; the Camaro and its Pontiac Firebird twin arrived for 1967.
Q 19What was the Camaro's codename during development, before GM staged a mock 'society' to eradicate it?
Panther
Journalists got telegrams about the 'Society for the Eradication of Panthers from the Automotive World' before the June 1966 unveiling.
Q 20When reporters asked 'What is a Camaro?', what did Chevrolet product managers famously answer?
A small, vicious animal that eats Mustangs
Product managers told reporters a Camaro was 'a small, vicious animal that eats Mustangs'; merchandising manager Bob Lund and GM VP Ed Rollett had found the name in a French-English dictionary.
Q 24The Impala is named after what?
An African antelope
The leaping African antelope became the car's badge; the debut Impala stood out with symmetrical triple taillights that became a marque signature.
Q 25In what year did the Impala debut, as part of GM's 50th-anniversary lineup?
1958
The Impala debuted for 1958, GM's golden-anniversary year, as the top Bel Air trim; the Caprice grew out of it in 1965.
Q 26Which Chevrolet holds the record as the longest-produced automobile nameplate in the world?
Suburban
The Suburban nameplate dates from 1935, the longest continuous run of any automobile nameplate; GMC sells the same vehicle as the Yukon XL and Cadillac as the Escalade ESV.
Q 27What was unusual about the Corvair's engine layout when it launched for 1960?
Rear-mounted and air-cooled
The Corvair's rear-mounted and air-cooled flat-six sat behind the rear axle, Beetle-style, making it Chevrolet's answer to imports; its early swing-axle rear suspension drew Ralph Nader's criticism.
Q 28Which 1965 book by Ralph Nader attacked the early Corvair's handling?
Unsafe at Any Speed
Unsafe at Any Speed devoted its first chapter to the 1960–63 Corvair; a 1972 NHTSA study by Texas A&M later found its handling no worse than its contemporaries'.
Q 29The El Camino was introduced in 1959 in response to which rival's success?
Ford Ranchero
The Ford Ranchero, launched for 1957, sold well enough that Chevrolet answered with the 1959 El Camino; after a two-year run it returned in 1964 on the Chevelle platform.
Q 30Which top-of-the-line Chevelle model fully replaced the Chevelle name in 1978?
Malibu
Malibu, the Chevelle's top trim since 1964, became the model name when Chevrolet downsized the A-body for 1978 and dropped 'Chevelle' altogether.