WHAT’S IN A NAME? How the Chevrolet Camaro came to be
August 1, 2017
Posted by Barrett-Jackson
Just like every person, place and thing, cars must have names in order to be identified. Without this fact … well, chaos would rule. When it comes to automobile names, carmakers ponder long and hard before betting their fortunes on the final decision. Here’s the story of how the Camaro got its name.
This 1969 Chevrolet Camaro COPO (Lot #2015) crossed the block at the 2015 Scottsdale Auction as part of the Ron Pratte Collection and sold for $330,000.
The Chevrolet Camaro went on sale September 29, 1966, for the 1967 model year. Chevy’s answer to the Mustang came close to being named “Panther,” which in fact was the code name assigned to the project. Early test cars even wore Panther nameplates and displayed leaping cat emblems. Turned out it was a “bait-and-switch” technique that succeeded in getting the attention of the automotive press. Chevrolet instead wanted to keep to its tradition of giving its cars names beginning with the letter C, as it had with Corvair, Chevelle, Chevy II and Corvette. According to “The Complete Book of Camaro: Every Model Since 1967,” the name Camaro was conceived by Chevrolet merchandising manager Bob Lund and GM vice president Ed Rollett, who came across the word in a French-English dictionary as a slang term for friend, pal or comrade. At a June 28, 1966, press conference held to unveil the car, Chevy general manager Pete Estes told journalists the name “suggests the comradeship of good friends, as a personal car should be to its owner.” When the press asked Chevrolet product managers what a Camaro was, they were simply told “Camaro is a small, viscous animal that eats Mustangs.”