Chevrolet has maintained a main place in the car world for over a century, and it doesn’t show any sign of disappearing in the foreseeable future. It won various drivers over with a strong lineup of passenger vehicles, and it has kept itself in the conversations of car enthusiasts everywhere thanks to its most exceptional models. Sure, there are numerous used Chevy models you should steer clear of at all costs, but there are undoubtedly plenty of great Chevrolet models worth giving a shot as well. Meanwhile, there are some, like the Chevrolet Beretta, that fall somewhere in the middle.
In the pantheon of Chevy models, the Beretta is a widely-forgotten coupe among the general driving public. Introduced in 1988, this Chevy offering initially cost around $9,555, and performed decently enough to warrant a good few years of production and evolution. Most notably, it was available in several different trims throughout its run, including the GT, GTU, and Indy models, to name a few. Unfortunately, the Beretta didn’t turn many heads or revolutionize the automobile industry by the time it left the market in 1996, becoming an often-overlooked relic of late 20th-century cars. Much like some of Chevy’s coolest concept cars, you might not know the Beretta even existed.
As established, the Beretta didn’t quite make a splash in its time, and is now far from an enduring icon, but what exactly led to its disappearance from the car market?
Factors that likely led to the end of the Beretta
The Chevrolet Beretta has been off the market for nearly 30 years as of this writing, and there’s yet to be any indication that a comeback is planned or possible. The brand hasn’t been direct about its cancelation rationale, so we’re left to make educated guesses on the matter. According to the Los Angeles Times in 1993, despite being hyped up by Chevy upon release, both the Beretta and Corsica hadn’t impressed in terms of sales and had both seen their share of recalls. Evidently, the road to discontinuation was being paved years before 1996. It’s also worth highlighting the matter of the Beretta name itself, which sent Chevrolet’s parent company, General Motors, to the courtroom in 1988.
Publications such as the Chicago Tribune at the time reported that Italian firearm manufacturer Beretta sued GM over the “Beretta” name, claiming that the car juggernaut was “guilty of unfair competition.” The two companies eventually settled the dispute out of court the following year, with a public exchange taking place. GM donated $500,000 to the Beretta Foundation, dedicated to funding cancer research, and gifted Beretta a Chevy Beretta GTU — while Beretta gave GM a commemorative Beretta-brand rifle and shotgun. Though the two parties seemingly cleared the air, it’s entirely possible there’s more to the story unknown to the public that contributed to the demise of the Beretta coupe.
For one reason or another, the time of the Chevy Beretta is well and truly over. It’s not an underrated classic, nor is it one of Chevy’s biggest car flops of all time. It’s simply another entry in the brand’s extensive historical catalogue.
[Featured image by Dante93GTZ via Wikimedia Commons | Cropped and scaled | CC BY-SA 4.0]
