Pete Estes
Chevrolet general manager at launch
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Pete Estes became Chevrolet Division general manager in 1965 and introduced the Camaro publicly in September 1966. At the June 28, 1966 naming press conference he joked that everyone present was a charter member of the “Society for the Elimination of Panthers from the Automotive World” (a jab at the car's code name) before revealing “Camaro.”
Estes gave the name its official meaning: it "suggests the comradeship of good friends as a personal car should be to its owner," and, he added, it meant just what the car would do: "go."
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The line everyone remembers came from his staff, not from Estes on stage. When reporters asked what a Camaro was, Chevrolet product managers answered that it was "a small, vicious animal that eats Mustangs." That bit of briefing-room improvisation outlived every official marketing line written for the car. The full naming story is in what is a Camaro?.
The approval fight before the launch, and Ed Cole's part in forcing the program through, is covered under Ed Cole.
Did you know
- When Ford announced a 390 big-block for the Mustang, Estes pulled strings inside GM to get Chevrolet's 396 approved as the Camaro's top engine. That was no small favor: GM had a corporate rule that no passenger car except the Corvette could carry more than one rated horsepower per 10 pounds of shipping weight.
- The naming stunt was Estes's own show. In June 1966 a telegram invited about 200 members of the press to a meeting of that society, with Estes as its national president. His ask at the event was that reporters help him "scratch the cat once and forever."
- Asked later how he came up with Camaro, Estes laughed and said he had locked himself in a closet and come out with the name. The actual choice was made by others: Chevrolet merchandising manager Bob Lund and GM group vice president Ed Rollert are credited, from a list of more than two thousand C-words.
- An early Camaro convertible test car driven by Estes himself shook so badly that engineers had to fix it with dynamic dampers and heavier-gauge rocker panels, plus springs and shock absorbers dedicated to convertibles.
- He was a Pontiac man before he was a Chevrolet man: chief engineer there from 1956, general manager from November 1961, and the executive behind the Wide Track and Tempest years. Pontiac's registrations climbed from 372,871 in 1961 to 687,902 in 1964 under him.
- Estes took over Chevrolet on July 1, 1965, and that calendar year Chevrolet became the first automaker to build three million cars and trucks in a single year. The Camaro was one of the new cars he pushed into the lineup, along with the Chevelle SS 396.
- Estes left Chevrolet in February 1969, when John DeLorean replaced him, and kept climbing: group executive for cars and trucks, GM executive vice president in October 1972, and president and chief operating officer from September 30, 1974 until he retired on February 1, 1981.
Sources for these details
- Ate Up With Motor - Pontiac Firebird 1967-1969 (The Summer of John Z) Reference
- Chevy Hardcore - In 1965, Chevrolet Was Designing the Panther, But What Became of It? Reference
- Chevy Hardcore - What Exactly Does the Word Camaro Even Mean? Reference
- Old Cars Weekly - Developing the Camaro Reference
- UPI Archives - Former General Motors Corp. president dead at 72 (1988-03-25) Period reporting
- Pontiac Preservation Association - Elliott 'Pete' Estes bio Club/registry
Key beats
- Introduced the production Camaro
- The “SEPAW” naming-conference joke
- Associated with the “eats Mustangs” line