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.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
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
Profits from the cheap Series 490 let Durant buy GM stock; after a reverse merger on May 2, 1918, he was GM president again — briefly.
Q 05In which Michigan city was Chevrolet's first factory located?
Flint
The site at Wilcox and Kearsley streets is now 'Chevy Commons'; Durant's Buick and carriage businesses were also Flint-based.
Q 06What was the first Chevrolet automobile called?
Series C Classic Six
Designed by Etienne Planche under Louis Chevrolet's direction, it could do 65 mph and was pricier than Durant wanted; the 1913 model was the first sold.
Q 07According to the most-repeated legend, where did Durant get the idea for the bowtie logo?
From wallpaper in a French hotel room
A rival theory traces it to a 1911 newspaper ad for 'Coalettes' fuel; others say it is a stylized Swiss cross. It first appeared on 1914 models.
Q 08In what year did Chevrolet unify all its models under the gold bowtie?
2004
Before that, cars used blue bowties, trucks gold and performance models a red outline; gold set Chevy apart from Ford's blue oval and Dodge's red.
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 10By what year had Chevrolet overtaken Ford as America's best-selling car?
1929
The Chevrolet International did it, helped by a new overhead-valve six sold as 'A Six at the price of a Four' while Ford still offered a flathead four.
Q 11What nickname did Chevrolet's famous 1929 overhead-valve inline six acquire?
Stovebolt
It gave Chevy a marketing edge over Ford's four; the Blue Flame and Turbo-Thrift were later Chevrolet sixes.
Q 12In what year did the Chevrolet small-block V8 debut?
1955
Descendants are still built in displacements from 4.3 to 9.4 litres, and the design has 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
He starts as a beat-up 1976 Camaro, then a fifth-generation concept; Age of Extinction switched him to a modified 1967 model.
Q 22When did production of the sixth-generation Camaro end?
December 2023
Four generations ran to 2002, then a fifth (2010) and sixth revived it; the last one was a 2024 model year car.
Q 23The Bel Air was named after a wealthy neighborhood in which city?
Los Angeles
From 1950 to 1952 only two-door hardtops carried the name; the 1955–57 'Tri-Five' Bel Airs became the icons.
Q 14What color were all 300 hand-built 1953 Corvettes?
Polo White
All were six-cylinder convertibles with red interiors and hand-laid fiberglass bodies; the V8 did not arrive until 1955.
Q 15In which Kentucky city has the Corvette been built since 1981?
Bowling Green
The National Corvette Museum is next door; earlier Corvettes were built in Flint and St. Louis.
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
The Belgian-born racer took class wins at Le Mans in 1954 and 1955 and spent decades turning Earl's show car into a genuine sports car.
Q 18The Camaro was launched in 1966 to compete with which car?
Ford Mustang
It shared its platform with Pontiac's Firebird; the pony-car pair both arrived for the 1967 model year.
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
The name was reportedly found in a 1936 French-English dictionary by merchandising manager Bob Lund and GM VP Ed Rollett.
Q 24The Impala is named after what?
An African antelope
The graceful antelope became the car's logo; the 1958 debut model stood out with symmetrical triple taillights.
Q 25In what year did the Impala debut, as part of GM's 50th-anniversary lineup?
1958
It began as a top-line Bel Air and became one of America's best-selling car lines in the 1960s; the Caprice grew out of it in 1965.
Q 26Which Chevrolet holds the record as the longest-produced automobile nameplate in the world?
Suburban
It is now in its twelfth generation; GMC sells it 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 compact was Chevy's answer to imports like the VW Beetle, and its early swing-axle handling made it a target for Ralph Nader.
Q 28Which 1965 book by Ralph Nader attacked the early Corvair's handling?
Unsafe at Any Speed
A 1972 Texas A&M report for the highway safety agency later tempered the criticism, but the Corvair's reputation never recovered.
Q 29The El Camino was introduced in 1959 in response to which rival's success?
Ford Ranchero
The first run lasted just two years; it returned in 1964 on the Chevelle platform and ran through 1987.
Q 30Which top-of-the-line Chevelle model fully replaced the Chevelle name in 1978?
Malibu
The Chevelle ran from 1964 to 1977 on GM's A-body and was one of Chevy's most successful nameplates.