Origins of GM "Dex" naming convention?

[SZR48207]

Dex-Cool
Dexron
Dexos

You can see a pattern here. Anyone know why they chose DEX?

 

[KrisZ]

IDK, somebody named Dexter was involved? Who cares anyways?

 

[DBMaster]

As far as I can tell, Dexron is a brand owned by GM that originated in the early 70's when whale oil transmission fluids were replaced by other materials. So, I guess they just decided the use the "Dex" part to brand other automotive chemicals from that division.

Correction: It is a brand name for a group of technical specifications.

 

[CapitalTruck]

A lot of it I believe had to do with the early tie-in with Texaco lubricants and products. Texaco used Dex prefixes with their products and GM used them for their OEM products. Dexron, Dex-Cool, etc. were all Texaco products.

 

[Kira]

AC Delco + Texaco perhaps?

 

[MolaKule]

Here is a possible derivation, somewhat tongue-in-cheek?

Quote:
Potential Origin of Dexron name:

Dex is a contraction for decimal exponent or 10^x, implying orders of magnitude,

ron is a currency of Romania based on the decimal system. ron literally means “lion.”

With this information, Dexron may potentially mean, “A Bigger or Better Lion?”

 

[Nate1979]

According to Wiki GM introduced the Dexron ATF in 1968.

Here is a history of the trademark. It was filed originally by GM in 1967.
https://trademarks.justia.com/722/67/dexron-72267296.html

Dex-cool originally filed in 1997:
https://trademarks.justia.com/746/29/dex-cool-74629932.html

 

[AirgunSavant]

Maybe easier to INDEX that way