#Chevrolet Chevelle

[wheelsgoroundincircles]

1971 Chevrolet Chevelle

[en-wheelz-me]

[mensfactory]

1972 Chevrolet Chevelle Malibu Sport Coupe,

Courtesy: BringATrailer

[cherocarofficial]

1964 Chevrolet Impala SS Convertible

[superoversteer]

[ss396chevelle1968]

Chevrolet Chevelle

[nade2308]

He was so happy when he saw the car

@thethistlegirl @malewifebillcage

[things-about-cars-in-posts]

recently discovered the beautiful vehicle that is the Chevrolet Opala, do you have any good facts on that car?

Yet again I'm introduced to new cars through this inbox!

Perhaps the most interesting thing to discuss about the Opala is why I didn't know of it: while based on the Rekord, a car built and sold in Europe by Opel (like Chevrolet part of General Motors), the Opala was only made in and for Brazil. It's common for brands with a global presence to have market-exclusive cars: Ford's American, European and Australian lineups have almost no cars in common, and Fiat has a long and illustrious tradition of powering other countries -including Brazil- with whatever it's tired of producing at home. And then, looking it up, I saw the SS version, and thought "Hwow were they ever going for the Chevelle SS's styling there!"

You know, the Chevelle SS. A car of the same vintage, whose sales were just as confined to a single American country I have never even seen, that looked like that for about one year. Which I absolutely knew of.

And that made me think about why that is for a bit - and about how stark of a difference that reason makes (because I could not confidently tell you a dozen Brazil-only cars, but could confidently list a hundred reserved to US and Canada).

Look at Italian music.

No, really - back in the days many of the biggest hits were translated English songs, there were people that sang with fake English accents, hell, it was damn near custom to get a stage name made up of an English name and Italian surname (Fred Buscaglione, Jimmy Fontana, Bobby Solo, Patty Bravo, on for days). Who was out there brazilianifying their name?

Sure, Italy may have been an outlier, but trust me, the cultural foothold America has in much of the Earth is virtually unmatched. And with that cultural hegemony comes a rose-tinted spotlight shone to its history (especially the one we were there to learn about live), such that to the rest of the world even US-exclusive models like 60s muscle cars are not just known, but iconic - even simply through other things like movies, shows, or music. On the other hand, Brazilian cars (how many again?) are at most a curiosity that is sometimes tangentially mentioned to fill space - mostly because that's our treatment of Brazilian culture.

Rather than an awkward attempt to detail the sociopoliticoeconomical reasons for that, though, what I want to end on is a more positive note: there's always outliers. Whatever population you look at, whatever culture you're thinking of, there will always be someone obsessed with it. And that's one thing I love about cars - each model, somewhere, somehow, has someone loving it. Each topic is a topic of interest to someone. And you can always be that outlier if you want - being interested in one thing never excludes being interested in another.

And in fact, in amongst all those fake-English stage names, an Italian duo chose a brazilianified last name - Michael and Johnson 'Righeira', seen here proving that 21st century "80s style" stuff can never be more exaggerated a caricature than some of the real thing.

Yes, that's Spanish. Don't worry about it.

Links in blue are posts of mine explaining the words in question - if you liked this post, you might like those!

[crownmoto]

[wheelsgoroundincircles]

1969 Chevrolet Chevelle

[en-wheelz-me]

[sidonius5]

[triumphonlyfan]

CHEVROLET Chevelle avec Christina Lindberg, Catherine Bach et Stevie Nicks 💖

[duranduratulsa]

Die Cast Car of the day: 1967 Chevrolet Chevelle SS 396 by Hot Wheels #toy #toys #cars #diecastcars #chevrolet #chevelle #chevroletchevelle #1967chevroletchevelless396 #hotwheels

[ss396chevelle1968]

Chevrolet Chevelle

[optimabatteries]

Nathan Peard's 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle finished 64th overall in the 2023 OPTIMA Ultimate Street Car Invitational, presented by @advanceautoparts. See the full results here.