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.