In addition to naming an iconic car, Scott also invented the All-American Soap Box Derby, which Chevrolet sponsored from 1935 through 1972.
Let’s go back to 1933 to tell the story of Myron Scott, who at that time was the chief photographer and art director of the Dayton Daily News.
Scott was looking for a Sunday picture page and found some boys racing homemade cars down a street in Oakwood. Scott thought this looked like a great idea for kids to build their own gravity-powered cars so he organized an event to be held in Dayton in 1934 on Burkhardt Hill.
The race was a huge success, 330 entries and over 40,000 spectators jammed the area. Scott had wisely already copyrighted the name and concept. Looking for national help, Scott proposed the idea to Chevrolet, who not only decided to sponsor it nationally, but also hired Scott to run the event. He spent the next two years in Akron, where the Soap Box Derby has been continuously held since 1935. His drawing of Dayton’s Bobby Gravett in the No. 7 soapbox racer was also the logo for the derby for more than 35 years.
Scottie, as he was known, returned to Dayton in 1937 to be art director at the Daily News again, but was wooed away by Chevrolet in 1939 to join its advertising team as a manager and photographer.
There, Scott worked on various advertising campaigns and led a team of photographers who shot the photos for advertising and sales brochures. Soap Box Derby archives also indicate that he was involved in operations there as a liaison with Chevrolet for many more years.
In 1953, Chevrolet was busy finishing its latest project, a two-seat sports cars with a fiberglass body. Chevrolet General Manager Ed Cole had 15 executives in his office for a round table to find a name for the car. The name had to start with “C”, and 300 were submitted, names like Champion, Citation and Challenger, but Cole was unimpressed. He said, “I don’t like any of them.”
That evening, Scott picked up the dictionary and started through the section on C.
He stopped for some reason at corvette, which is defined as a speedy pursuit ship in the British Navy, smaller than a destroyer.
The next day he dropped a note to Cole asking, “How would you like to go for ride in my Corvette today?” Cole phoned Scott later that day with the news, “Yours is the name for the new car.” Scott later said he didn’t get a bonus or a day off for his selection of the name, but was proud just to be part of the project.
Interestingly, Scott told the Daily News years later that he wasn’t a fan of the car.
“I’ve only driven a Corvette once. My God, this things drives tough. I don’t like sitting on the road,” he said in a 1993 interview.
Fortunately for Chevrolet, 1,443,281 others didn’t agree. That is the number of Corvettes that have been built through 2010. In 1953, only 300 of the first Corvette were built, all of them white with a red interior and black top. Scott also named a Chevrolet van, the Beauville, and after retiring, he returned to Dayton.
Scott passed away in 1998, but in that 1993 interview he also said he chuckles to himself when he pulls up behind a Corvette at a traffic light. “I always say to myself. ‘I bet that guy doesn’t know the old guy sitting in the Olds behind him named his car.’”
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