I got a call from the dealer....

Interesting, especially since neither has been in production for quite a long time.

That isn't exactly true. The Chevrolet Express/GMC Savana full sized vans had a Chevy small block 350 available through 2003, (vortec 5700 L3) and GM still produces Chevy 350's for the aftermarket in the Toluca Mexico plant. This engine is also used in non-automotive applications, Generac uses it in some of their natural gas fired generators for example.

Ted

That engine and its predecessors ceased being a "Chevy" engine when GM decided to slap a 'Olds Rocket' label on it back in

There are no "Chevy" engines anymore, there are no "Pontiac" engines anymore, here are no "Oldsmobile" engines anymore, just GM corporate engines.

No, not true - GM got sued because of trying to do this. And lost. Paid a lot of money for it too. Millios of dollars in fact. The courts agreed that there was indeed such a thing as a "chevy engine" and an "old engine" and the two were separate engines, not "GM corporate engines"

And later on in the 80's they had the "buick 3.8L" and the "chevy 3.8L" engine. Distributors on opposite sides of the engine. And a lot of other differences too.

Ted

But I think that was only true at that time because they were advertising the heck out of the "Olds Rocket V-8" as something special/different. Now, however many years later, I don't think they advertise a distinction, so might they not interchange them - and might there now only be one version of a given engine used across divisions?

Bill Putney (To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my address with the letter 'x')

Exactly!

The question is more does GM have different gasoline engine designs of the same displacement?

Well, thats a given, surely, since almost every GM V6, for instance, is made at the Vauxhall Engline plant in EllesMere Port, north west England.