General Motors was a very different company in the 1990s. This was the General Motors behind the innovations found at Saturn and baked into the EV1. GM’s brands also emerged from the malaise of the 1980s by putting horses back under power barns and attempting hot and fun compacts. One of the bright spots in GM’s radical 1990s was the Chevrolet Beretta, a car that many have forgotten but is still pretty awesome, even today. Much ink has been spilled about the Beretta itself, but not a whole lot about its name. See, Beretta is also the name of a gun brand, and Chevy naming a car after it caused an interesting lawsuit that was eventually resolved with a symbolic trade of a car for a rifle and a shotgun.
Naming a car is no easy walk in the park. Automakers go through an intense process involving several departments from marketing and design to communications and legal. Massive teams of talented people sift through market research and even consumer-suggested names to find the right feelings and imagery that they want to evoke for their vehicle. These people also go through painstaking work to make sure the names they choose don’t have negative connotations in the markets where the vehicle will be sold.
The naming process of a car is fascinating, and as Consumer Reports once noted, it’s why we got the 1955 Ford Thunderbird and not the Ford Hep Cat, which was really one of 5,000 names under consideration for the personal luxury coupe.
Getting it wrong can be disastrous. Who hasn’t heard the legend about the Chevy Nova failing to sell in Spanish-speaking countries because “no va” means “no go?” Reputable car sites have repeated it, and I still hear prominent YouTubers make the claim today. But here’s the dirty truth. That was always a myth. If you can speak the language, you will know that “nova” and “no va” are not the same. Regardless, the Nova actually sold well in Spanish-speaking countries. So, even if some people did think the Nova “didn’t go,” clearly not enough people actually cared.
Still, that doesn’t mean there aren’t examples of bad names out there. The Studebaker Dictator was a wonderful little ride when it debuted in 1927. As Mac’s Motor City Garage writes, Studebaker marketed the Dictator as a car that would “dictate the standards” of the mid-priced field. By all accounts, the Dictator was also a fine car, and one that would be a sweet classic to own today. I mean, their style was fantastic, and they were built featuring L-head straight-sixes and a straight-eight.
Studebaker discontinued the Dictator name in 1938, and while the automaker didn’t give a reason, automotive historians have pointed out that it’s not too hard to connect the dots given what was happening in the rest of the world at the time.
But even if you make sure you don’t piss off or confuse the public, you still need to make sure you aren’t upsetting other companies. Automaker legal departments take trademarks seriously, and if another company owns the name that the automaker wants to use for its car, action must be taken. An example reported by Consumer Reports is the time when the Ford Mustang was originally sold in West Germany as the Ford T-5 because an industrial equipment company owned the trademark to Mustang in the region.
Some automakers will get around this by giving their cars entirely made-up names or names based on winds, waters, and other natural phenomena. Other times, automakers may find themselves embroiled in a lawsuit after unexpectedly ruffling the feathers of a company serving a completely different market. That’s what happened with the Chevrolet Beretta, and the story is almost as fascinating as the car itself.
Named Like A Gun
Two years ago, I found a perfect, 45-mile Chevrolet Beretta at the Volo Auto Museum here in Illinois. I was shocked because, at the time, I wasn’t even able to remember the last time I had even seen a Beretta, let alone one that still had its paint and bumpers. Truth be told, that 2023 sighting of the Beretta was the first and the last time I had seen one in a while. I don’t even remember a Beretta showing up for last year’s epic Galpin car show.
That’s sad because the Beretta remains an awesome mark in GM history, from my previous coverage:
The Beretta was a product of a struggling General Motors. As I explained in the retrospective on the Lumina Z34, the 1980s were not kind to the General. Ford launched its Taurus in 1986 and GM just didn’t have a worthy competitor. The Taurus looked like it came from the future while the Chevy Monte Carlo and the Chevy Celebrity were stuck firmly in the 1980s. In 1982, GM started development on the GM-10 program. This $7 billion program was intended to replace the Chevrolet Celebrity, Pontiac 6000, Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme, and Buick Century.
General Motors was reorganized in 1984. The GM-10 program marched forward, and suddenly, its importance grew. As CNN explains, GM held 44.6 percent of the car market in 1984. However, public interest in GM products waned, and by the GM-10 program’s debut in 1987, GM’s share had shrunken to 36.6 percent. As was reported at the time, GM made a bet on the bad times of the 1970s continuing into the 1980s. Thus, its cars were smaller, traded power for fuel efficiency, and relied heavily on front drive platforms. Unfortunately for GM, things got cheap again, and buyers weren’t as interested in GM’s penny-pinching strategies.
GM’s plan to get back on top was to flood the market with new models. My retrospective continues:
As the Chicago Tribune reported in 1987, General Motors was also developing a replacement for the maligned Citation. The N platform was Oldsmobile’s replacement for the X platform while the L platform was Chevrolet’s equivalent of the same. In 1987, Chevy’s L-body Corsica sedan was launched to fight a lengthy list of competitors including the Dodge Aries, Ford Tempo, Honda Accord, Toyota Camry, Nissan Stanza, Mazda 626, Plymouth Reliant, and Mercury Topaz. GM projected sales of 600,000 units over 18 months.
The Corsica would have a platform mate in the form of the sporty Beretta two-door coupe. According to the Chicago Tribune, the Beretta’s foes were fierce and included the Acura Integra, Chrysler LeBaron, Ford Mustang, Toyota Celica, and the Nissan Pulsar NX. The newspaper also saw the Beretta bumping up against GM’s own Pontiac Firebird Trans Am, Chevy Camaro, and Pontiac Grand Am. My mind is a bit blown at the idea of the Beretta being seen on the same level as a Mustang. The Beretta and Corsica also had to convince buyers to step up from smaller compacts while getting people to forget the Citation.
Design of the Beretta was performed in the same GM design house behind the Camaro, Corvette, Monte Carlo, Cavalier, and Corsica. Overseeing the design was Irvin Rybicki, who led GM’s downsizing plans through the 1980s. Rybicki rose from chief designer in the 1960s to eventually taking over vice president of design in 1977, taking the position that was held by Bill Mitchell. From a design perspective, the Beretta was a step forward for GM. The vehicle’s lighting was better integrated with the sleek body and those metal panels were galvanized to help battle rust.
As noted above, the Beretta and the Corsica had a lot sitting on their shoulders. GM desperately needed to get out of its slump, and the only way to achieve that was by getting people into dealerships. Thankfully, GM got its recipe right this time. Buyers and reviewers found the Beretta to be a perfectly fine, affordable sports coupe.
Chevy even produced some actual holy grail-level Berettas with the likes of the performance-minded GTZ, GTU, and Z26. At its hottest, the Beretta was available with a Quad 4 inline four good for 180 HP and 160 lb-ft of torque, which allowed a five-speed manual-equipped Beretta to hit 60 mph in around 7.6 seconds. That was legitimately quick for a cheap coupe back then! The Beretta even came with V6 power if that tickled your fancy better.
What’s In A Name
In 1988, the first full year of Beretta production, Chevy managed to move 275,098 units. The Beretta was a hit, and GM was feeling good about its future. But it wasn’t out of the woods yet.
As the Los Angeles Times reported, in 1986, Fabbrica D’Armi Pietro Beretta S.p.A. caught wind that Chevrolet was launching a car called the Beretta. That year, the arms manufacturer’s legal team warned General Motors that its new car would be in conflict with its trademark. The 500-year-old company had registered its Beretta trademark here in America back in 1954. While it’s unlikely that consumers would confuse shotguns, handguns, and technical vests for a front-wheel-drive Chevy, Beretta took this very seriously.
It’s not explained exactly why GM didn’t heed the warning or how this situation was somehow deemed acceptable in the first place, but GM launched the Beretta anyway. Beretta, the gun manufacturer, followed through on its warning in 1987 and sued General Motors in a U.S. District Court in New York.
The Chicago Tribune reported on just how upset Beretta was:
An Italian gunmaker named Beretta sued GM because the automaker markets a car called the Chevrolet Beretta. The Italian firearms maker had the name first, about 460 years before GM decided to use it. Though it`s unlikely that a vehicle used for a special Saturday night might be confused with a Saturday Night Special, Beretta says the issue goes deeper.
Beretta charges GM is ”guilty of unfair competition,” though you`ll be hard-pressed to find too many Chevy dealers who`ve had to turn away disappointed customers looking for a semiautomatic or too many gunshop owners asked to ”Bring out the one with the V-6.”
Of course, you can imagine the dismay among potential buyers of gun or car when they mistakenly go to the wrong store and ask for one ”fully loaded.” The suit also asks Beretta, the gun folks, be compensated for ”related losses, including reputational damage to Beretta.”
Surely, You Can’t Be Serious?
As you saw above, there was a lot of joking around going on as well. Car and Driver even published a mock “road test” comparison between the Beretta car and a Beretta handgun. The Chicago Tribune couldn’t help itself:
Perhaps the Beretta folks think that the next time GM announces a Beretta recall, owners will head for their holsters rather than their garages and bring back the wrong product for repair. In announcing the suit, which was filed last week in federal district court in New York, the Beretta gun people expressed concern ”about potential negative connotations should the GM Beretta car develop a history of quality control problems.”
Beretta seems concerned that baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet have gotten in the way of 9-mm., .45-caliber, double-barreled and repeat-action firing. Forget ”The heartbeat of America” and bring on a target. The Beretta gun crew says it has a reputation to preserve. ”No other gunmaker has won more gold medals and awards in Olympic competition,” argued Robert Bonaventure, general manager of Beretta`s U.S. affiliate when reached by phone.
He does have a point. Beretta couldn`t even win one of those ad campaign awards the buff books disguise as ”car of the year.” And when it comes to Olympic spirit, most U.S. teams usually have Japanese carmakers as their sponsor. Perhaps Beretta fears the problems GM has had to bear will stand in the way of people`s right to bear arms engraved with the Beretta nameplate.
It gets even more hilarious because Bonaventure did explain why he thought people would somehow confuse the two very different Berettas, from a different Chicago Tribune story:
”People like you who don`t know Beretta is a gun will see the ads for the Chevy Beretta and someday go into a shop to purchase a gun, see the name Beretta and say, `When did GM start making guns?` ” he said.
A Beretta For A Beretta
While seemingly everyone was laughing about this, Beretta didn’t think it was funny and wanted $250 million ($703,783,010 today) from General Motors. In the end, the suit settled on positive terms for everyone. General Motors agreed to pay $500,000 ($1,437,945 today) to the Beretta Foundation for Cancer Research. As part of the settlement, GM was allowed to continue using the Beretta name as long as GM acknowledged the gun manufacturer in its documentation on the vehicle.
“We are satisfied that the result of this agreement will be to help fight a disease that causes victims in all countries,” said Pier Giuseppe Beretta – Chairman of Fabbrica d’Armi Pietro Beretta
There was also a symbolic trade as part of the settlement, too. GM Chairman Roger Smith traded a Chevy Beretta GTU in exchange for a Beretta rifle and a shotgun. At the time, the car was worth $15,610 ($44,892 today), and it was reported that Beretta’s arms ran up to $15,000 as well. Sadly, it wasn’t reported what the value of the two guns was, but I suppose it doesn’t matter.
In the end, Chevrolet built just under a million Berettas over a nine-year production run. So, paying off Beretta was probably worth it. This case is also a good example of how just operating in an entirely different market might not be enough to stave off a trademark infringement lawsuit. At the very least, it looks like everyone had a ton of fun in this instance. Though this does make me wonder. Has anyone somehow managed to confuse Beretta guns with General Motors?
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