Ugh. I'm slogging through months of posts here in Q&A, and I'm trying to be good and not float a thread back up to the top that's been dead since May... but a little something intrigued me.

In Bingley's "browned off" thread (http://wordsmith.org/board/showflat.pl?Cat=&Board=words&Number=71115), Geoff brings up the naming of two particular cars... the Corvette and the Chevette. I always had assumed that they were stylistic modifications to the Corvair and the Chevelle respectively, and were so named - but that was never a *founded* assumption. Anyone care to set me straight?

Also, I used to work for someone who in her previous life had worked for Ford Motor Co. She told the story of the marketing meetings where the new cars were named - thinking that the design would appeal to a young read: testosterone-filled male audience, the Probe was named to connote (ahem) penetration. Backfire alert: The demographic that ended up actually *buying* the Probe tended to be professional females in their 30s.

>The demographic that ended up actually *buying* the Probe tended to be professional females in their 30s.


All of them right after having been abducted by aliens.

I can tell you that since the Corvair came out 7 years after the Corvette was introduced, chances are that your theory on that pairing is wrong.

In a thread about six months ago someone, I think it was tsuwm, had a URL that had very fascinating stories about the issuing of model names by makers of automobiles. I will try to find it and report back.

You might find this link with alll the Vette history interesting FB:
http://www.vettefever.com/index_003.htm

The Corvette was of course named after a small, maneuverable, and lightly armed vessel, which not only made sense because it is a sports car. After all, which man wouldn't want to ride around in something named after a war ship, right? Here's an image of one type of Corvette:
http://www.ku.edu/~kansite/ww_one/naval/images/asar-i-tevfik_as-completed.jpg

>All of them right after having been abducted by aliens.

the same aliens that were responsible for those marketing meetings (heh, it was an Alien Probe).

-ron