Otto Explains — Iconic Cars
10 Iconic Cars From Chevrolet
Short Answer
Otto’s ten iconic Chevrolets are the 1957 Bel Air, the Impala, the El Camino, the Corvair, the 1963 Corvette Sting Ray, the Caprice, the Camaro, the Chevelle SS 454, the Tahoe and the mid-engined C8 Corvette. They run from 1950s family cars to a modern supercar, and each is remembered for something specific: a sales record, a design, an engineering first or its place in Gulf life.
How did Otto choose these ten Chevrolets?
Each is a model in its own right with a defining fact from Chevrolet’s or General Motors’ own records, and together they run from 1957 to 2020 across family cars, a car-based pickup, an SUV and sports cars. Most come from the names Chevrolet itself groups as its icons, the Bel Air, Impala, Camaro, Chevelle and Corvette, and two reflect the Gulf, where the Caprice and the Tahoe became familiar sights. Cars that changed Chevrolet as a company, such as the Suburban, the first Corvette of 1953, the 1955 Task Force pickups, the C/K and Silverado pickups, the Chevette and the Bolt, are covered in Otto’s article on the cars that defined Chevrolet.
Why is the 1957 Bel Air so famous?
General Motors calls it one of the most desirable and collectable post-war cars of all and an icon for a generation. Chevrolet built 47,000 Bel Air convertibles for 1957, the year the Bel Air and the Corvette offered Ramjet fuel injection, which Chevrolet calls a first among American brands; buyers could also choose a 283-cubic-inch small-block V8 with 245 hp. By 1962 the Bel Air was Chevrolet’s mid-priced line, available with the 409-hp engine celebrated in the Beach Boys’ song.
What made the Impala Chevrolet’s best seller?
It began at the top of Chevrolet’s range and helped make Chevrolet the sales champion in 1958, with triple tail lights that became its signature. The Super Sport (SS) version arrived in 1961, and in 1965 annual Impala sales passed a million, making it America’s best-selling car. The 1964 Impala SS became an icon of lowrider culture, and Chevrolet counts the Impala in more than 900 hip-hop songs. The last one was built on 27 February 2020, after 62 years.
Why is the El Camino remembered?
Because it sat between a car and a truck. 1959 was its first year, and Chevrolet presented it as “more than a car — more than a truck”: a pickup with the styling of that year’s Chevrolet cars and room for 1,150 pounds of cargo.
What was different about the Corvair?
Almost everything. Built for the 1960 to 1969 model years, it carried an air-cooled, horizontally opposed six-cylinder engine at the rear, Chevrolet’s first air-cooled rear-engined car, conceived as an American answer to the Volkswagen Beetle. Its sales slipped after Ralph Nader’s 1965 book Unsafe at Any Speed questioned its handling, and the last Corvair was built on 14 May 1969.
Why is the 1963 Corvette Sting Ray an icon?
It was the first complete restyling of the Corvette in 10 years and the first Corvette coupe, with a new chassis and independent rear suspension, and its split rear window appeared only in 1963. General Motors refers to it as the C2, the second-generation Corvette, which ran until 1967, and the Z06 racing package was born the same year.
Why is the Caprice so familiar in the Gulf?
Chevrolet built the full-size Caprice in North America until 1996, and its body was even used for the Impala SS of 1994. In the Gulf it lived on as an Australian-built car under the Chevrolet badge, and in 2009 DriveArabia described it as a staple of police forces in places such as Abu Dhabi and Riyadh. General Motors calls the Caprice “a staple of Gulf life for generations”.
Why was the 1967 Camaro important to Chevrolet?
It was Chevrolet’s entry into the pony-car market and its answer to the Ford Mustang. Code-named Panther during development, it launched with 15 colours and 8 engines and paced the Indianapolis 500 in 1967 and again in 1969. Its six generations ran until 2024, including the ZL1 of 2012, the first supercharged Camaro, and the 650-hp sixth-generation ZL1, the most powerful of all; when GM announced its retirement in 2023, Chevrolet said it was “not the end of Camaro’s story”.
Why is the 1970 Chevelle SS 454 called the king of the muscle cars?
Chevrolet itself uses the phrase. In 1970 a change in General Motors policy allowed engines larger than 400 cubic inches in mid-size cars, and the Chevelle SS-454’s big block was rated at 450 hp, the highest power rating of the era. It came at the peak of the muscle-car years that General Motors traces back to the mid-1960s.
How did the Tahoe become an icon?
It joined the Suburban in Chevrolet’s full-size SUV range in 1995. The third generation arrived in 2007 and a Tahoe Hybrid in 2008, and a self-driving 2007 Tahoe named “Boss” won the DARPA Urban Challenge for Carnegie Mellon University, with General Motors engineers on the team. The Tahoe is built at Arlington, Texas, and in Oman in 2026 every version comes with a V8 engine.
Why is the C8 Corvette on the list?
The 2020 Corvette Stingray was the first Corvette with its engine in the middle, a layout General Motors had explored with research cars since the 1960s. It places a naturally aspirated V8 behind the driver with an eight-speed dual-clutch gearbox, and the generation grew into the Z06 with the 670-hp LT6, the electrified all-wheel-drive E-Ray, the 1,064-hp ZR1 and the 1,250-hp ZR1X. Otto explains how a dual-clutch gearbox works and why horsepower and torque are different.
Common Questions
- Was the Impala ever America’s best-selling car? Yes. In 1965 Impala sales passed a million a year, which made it America’s best-selling car, according to Chevrolet.
- Which Chevrolet was the first with a mid-mounted engine? The 2020 Corvette Stingray, the first car of the eighth Corvette generation.
- Why isn’t the Suburban on this list? Because Otto covers it among the cars that changed Chevrolet as a company: General Motors’ heritage collection says the Suburban began the SUV in 1936.
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