VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - 1945 AND EARLIER 1929-1932 Chevrolet series namesakes

Well ,It took awhile and was not without effort from the good people at Chevrolet! This was the best they could do but was good enough for me and may shed some light on the subject.
The following are the letters I recieved from them after my inquiry about the Chevrolet namesakes.
Thank you for contacting the Chevrolet Customer Assistance Center. We appreciate you taking the time to write us in regards to your question about the names of previous GM automobiles.

We do apologize for this taking so much time, but we are still investigating this issue for you. We have documented your comments with the Customer Assistance Center under request number 1-175973611 and are investigating your concern. We will follow-up with you on Thursday January 15, 2004 with an update or the final resolution.


We appreciate you taking the time to write to us about the handling of your concern pertaining to who came up with the names "International" and "Confederate". Unfortunately we are not able to find out this information. We are continually making improvements in ways to assist the needs of our customers.


The following is some information that we were able to find. We apologize for this delay. We continued looking for you and again the following is your answers to your questions:

I was unable to find too much on the Independence, Confederate, and Eagle nameplates. Before 1931, there waere no series nameplates, just alpha-numerical designations.

Then, for 1931, the complete line was named the Independence Series. The 1932 line was called the Confederate Series. The 1933 line was called the Eagle series. In 1934, Chevy introduced the Master and Delux Series, and used these names continuously through the 1940s.

I did find hte following quote fromt he book, Chevrolet 1911-1985 by the auto editors of Consumer Guide...

"One has to wonder how industry heads picked names for their cars and models. At a time when South American colonels were terrorizing their subjects and Hitler and Mussoloini were beginning to show their true colors, Studebaker was happily selling a car called Dictator to Americans. Chevrolet came up with a strange one for 1932, turning away from the patriotic theme of 1931. The new BA series for 1932 was merchandised as the Confederate line. Klinger and Kdudson approved the unlikely name, even though, with only 66 years having passed since the end of the Civil War, there may have been some Yankee aversion to

such an appellation."

Quote: "Before 1931, there were no series nameplates, just alpha-numerical designations."

Not correct. In 1927 the series was called "Capitol". In 1928 the series was known as "National". For 1929 the series was called "International" and in 1930 the series was known as "Universal".

And that is not the only bad information. 1925/26 was SUPERIOR. Master was used in 1933 in addition to the Eagle. Also Four Ninety.

Several years ago I made a concerted effort to define some dates for radios. The information from Chevrolet was just slightly less accurate than no information at all.

I find that your local library will go to great effort to do research for you and the data is much more reliable.

Well maybe
the problem with getting good information is because a bunch of folks that were educated within the last 15 years are doing the Chevrolet research, just letem' try to best them old historical buffs of the WWII, the Great Society and The War on Poverty eras!

Sickum! Junkyard Dawg!

However, all of this is way after my time of interest, I am "The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union -- 1777" . buff myself! and specially the Confederate Roadster car!

Let me add that the '23-'24 model years were also known as "Superior." Of course, we had the '16-'22 "490." Seemes to me I remember mention of a "Classic Six" "Baby Grand" and "Royal Mail" in there somewhere too.