Did you recently rush to buy a new vehicle before tariff-related price hikes? A reporter is looking to speak with shoppers who felt pressure to act quickly due to expected cost increases; please reach out to PR@Edmunds.com for more details by 4/24.
the almighty corvair
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
The first thing I did was to borrow a UNISYN and balance the carbs. That helped considering it had Powerglide. The gasoline heater was very helpful to defrost the Windshield and heat the interior while we changed from ski boots to street shoes. When going to White Pass and chains were only “Advised”, it made it up and down the road very securely, without hanging iron. A great little car.
2009 BMW 335i, 2003 Corvette cnv. (RIP 2001 Jaguar XK8 cnv and 1985 MB 380SE [the best of the lot])
If i get to the point of a fun car (which would involve more driveway...) I'd love to do a Corvair. We never owned one but I have good memories of them anyway.
He was kind of a nut, in a good way. He bought an early Piper Cub in 1939 and used it through the mid 50s, then bought some other plane I don't know the make of...sadly,he was done with that by the time I was born. He also had an odd fetish for small motorhomes and van conversions. Sadly, his last car was a dustbuster Lumina van.
An old friend of mine used to have a beater 1964 Corvair convertible...it has a brush paintjob and was rode hard and put away wet, but was fun for a ride on a nice day.
I used to live next door to a guy who had an old Willys Jeep with a brush paint job. His kid would tell me about his dad getting it stuck out on the beach which was just three blocks up. I could just picture it.
I'd love a Corvair convertible!
Is there any other example of GM - or anyone - making a whole line of vehicles under a model name? I mean it's not like you could get a Malibu or Nova van....
Corvairs sound very much like VWs, at least the convertible I rode in reminded me of one. Charming little car even as a beater, I can see why they have a little following now.
Ford made oddball Falcon vans and pickups, maybe not as unusual as the Corvairs, but still a good example of early 60s weirdness.
The Corvair had a lot in common with the old VW bugs. Too bad Ralph didn't go after the Beetles instead of the Corvairs....
My dad never bought an import for himself, though before he bought that darn Buick he was talking about a BMW - that would have changed things! - but he bought my mom a few Japanese cars because that's what she liked - basic, stick shift and not too big.
My grandmother on that side always had crappy smaller cars, which she seemed to like. When I was little she had a powder blue Pinto that seemed embarrassing even when I was quite young, and then a string of Cavaliers, one of which was her last car, she drove until she was 93 IIRC.
My favs are the 1965 on up. They are prettier, faster, easier to drive and they corrected many of the Corvair's inherent flaws. GREAT brakes, too.
The early turbo models were badly designed and didn't work very well either. Another engineering disappointment.
The stick shift is very clunky but you can fix that with some mods. In fact, devoted Corvair fans have all kinds of fixes to make the car so much better than the way they came from the factory.
This is the kind of car where you really want to plug into the club network and take advantage of the collected wisdom.
2009 BMW 335i, 2003 Corvette cnv. (RIP 2001 Jaguar XK8 cnv and 1985 MB 380SE [the best of the lot])
Not good.
Some people actually modify them to blow-throughs---way better.
The car rolls over at 5:25, but it was intentionally done. I'm sure they wouldn't have included that in the 1960 film if the Nader business had already come out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybxkgUkE3hI
Makes me want to go out and buy one--LOL!
I watched a guy do this to go round a farmer who turned out of his driveway right in front of the Corvair. He cut the wheel left, Corvair starts to spin, as the driver cuts right to 'catch' it, he moves to the passing lane, and reverses the 'toss & catch' as he goes past the truck. It was beautiful! A big car would have rearended the truck.
Mine rusted. After my kids threw their toys out a hole in the back seat floor, I sold it. Loved to drive it, though!
http://dallas.craigslist.org/dal/cto/1361752590.html
WVK
Of course, that would have severely threatened the rather bestial Corvette of that era. Undoubtedly, production costs for an engine like that would have sent the MSRP into, and perhaps beyond, Corvette territory.
And I don't think it could have been built at a price to compete with the Porsche 914, because that Porsche sourced a common VW engine and VW hardware off the shelf.
Perhaps GM could have revamped the Corvair engine into a sturdy 4-cylinder ohv unit, presuming they could have overcome the chronic oil leaks.
Corvair braking and handling was already pretty darn good by the late 60s.
The reason GM eliminated the gasoline heater(1961) is that it cut the MPG figure when compared to the competition's puddle jumpers.
It really needed a gas heater, as did the VW. And even when the regular heater worked on the Corvair, the inefficient engine sealing sometimes caused oil to drip into the heater boxes, filling the passenger compartment with acrid smoke. Nice.
Corvair purists will insist that all of the Corvair's "issues" (they dare not call them problems) are correctable, and they are right.
The "issue" with that is that the American car buyer did not want such a fussy car, that required precise tire inflation, and a higher level of maintenance, and various "upgrades".
One could argue that the 1960 VW was no winner in the comfort or reliability department either, but it was simple to fix and it had a sort of cult status that the Corvair never did achieve.
Yeah, but 1961 was also in the wake of a recession, one that had a lasting impact on cars. The economy wasn't so hot yet, and people were becoming more concerned with fuel economy. Witness the success of the Rambler. And the simple fact that suddenly cars like the Falcon, Corvair, Valiant, and Lancer even existed!
Even with bigger cars, they were cutting compression and making feeble attempts at downsizing. One example I can think of, off the top of my head, is that Chrysler cut the output of their 361-2bbl from 295 to 265 hp that year. The '61 Pontiacs, Oldsmobiles, Buicks, and even Cadillacs were a bit smaller and lighter than the year before. Dodge was relying mainly on Plymouth-sized cars for their volume sellers, while Chrysler and the remnants of DeSoto were depending on what had traditionally been Dodge-sized cars. The '61 Lincolns were downsized, although probably not much lighter or fuel efficient, than their mammoth '58-60 forbears. And Mercury went from being a big, beefy monster to a glammed-up Ford.
Of course, it wouldn't be long before nobody cared about fuel economy anymore, and the weight, length, and cubic inches would start piling on. But for one brief moment, say 1958-61, I think people did start caring about fuel economy and thrift again.
As the Corvair was born a-dying, GM shoved the Chevy II into the mix.
In 1950, I remember Regular Mobil was 5 gallons for $1 on Saturday mornings. Funny how first time experiences make an impression, fueling my '39 Chev 4 door.
Yes, very nice. On my commute I used to know exactly when, by location, to roll down the windows to ventilate the blue smoke that was about to billow out of the heater. (1964 Spyder convert). I seem to recall that the heater boxes covered both the block and headers so that a gasket leak would vent carbon monoxide into the interior There were stories of unconscious drivers running off the road.
WVK
My favorite GM defect was defective motor mounts on the Impala V8s. They'd break, causing the engine to fall to one side on the steering, thereby locking it. Furthermore, as the engine fell, it would pull the throttle wide open; then as a final touch, the moving engine would pull the vacuum line out of the power brake.
An assassin couldn't have planned it better, no?
I'm no defender of very early Corvairs. I think they really did flip over pretty easily, and in fact I eye-witnessed one.
It had a small knob on the floor that operated the heater. You had to turn it about 40 turns to full open the heater which took hot air off the manifolds.
Same as with a Corvair. Any exhaust leaks would suck fumes right into the cabin.
And, weak? After driving 20 minutes, you might be able to feel something.
Funny you'd mention that. I saw "Capricorn One" the other night, and NASA pretty much did the same thing to Elliott Gould's Mustang in order to shut him up! As for that '65 Chevy motor mount issue, am I just imagining things, or when the engine shifted over, couldn't it jam the shift linkage to the transmission as well, possibly keeping you from being able to shift it into neutral? Or is that just a little TOO consipracy-theoristic of me?
I've heard that the 1961-63 Pontiac Tempest, which also used swing axles, was actually worse than the Corvair, but somehow Ralph Nader missed that little scandal-in-the-making. I wonder what about the Tempest made it worse, though? Was it simply because it was more powerful, especially with a V-8, and that would make it much more catastrophic if you lost control?
Corvairs were low cars, with normal, for their day, 13' wheels and tires. The Tempest featured 15" wheels and relatively skinny tires. Normally, 15" is preferable to 13", but when the rear wheels tend to buckle under, when driving in a spirited manned (way less than recklessly), the greater diameter of the larger wheels and tires tend to exaggerate this aberrant behavior. Conversely, the lesser distance from the road to the axle in the Corvair, worked in the Corvair's favor vs. the Tempest.
Quite aside from the handling, that 4 cylinder in the Tempest belonged in a farm tractor, not a car.
For those of you who aren't familiar with the Tempest's driveshaft design, it consisted of a tunnel that spanned almost the length of the car. This tunnel housed a flexible steel driveshaft running on bearings residing inside a steel box. This unusual design forced it into a curve. This driveshaft became known as "rope drive." It connected the engine to a rear mounted unified differential and transmission in the rear. This combination of front-mounted engine and rear-mounted transaxle gave the Tempest a nearly-ideal 50/50 weight distribution. This was years before BMW made a big deal of this weight distribution. Another advantage of this driveshaft is that it eliminated the floor hump for front seat passengers.
While Pontiac deserves credit for trying to make its compact better than Olds' and Buick's, it made the mistake of introducing this car before the bugs had been ironed out. The result was the handling problems covered in my previous message, plus the rope drive was prone to early failure. It lacked sufficient strength.
It makes me think of how different automotive history would be if GM had learned from these mistakes.
Geez, how many times did GM do THAT !? :sick:
And, that "rope drive" axle made the BEST prybar in the world! If you were lucky enough to get your hands on one in a junkyard you really made a score!
Once in awhile in an old time shop you can see one in a corner somewhere.