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Chevrolet Corvair
by
Bill Vance
GM's
import fighter
The
most unusual and technically interesting car to come out of Detroit in
the 1960s was the Chevrolet Corvair. When the domestic industry staple
was a large, front-engine, rear-drive, usually V-8 powered sedan with a
solid rear axle, Chevrolet general manager, Edward Cole, who would later
rise to become a General Motors president, took a daringly innovative
approach with the Corvair.
The
Corvair's engine was an aluminum, horizontally-opposed (flat),
air-cooled six-cylinder located in the rear. Unit construction was used
for the body/chassis, and suspension was independent all around via coil
springs.
If
these features sound amazingly similar to a certain German economy car,
they were. It was the Volkswagen that inspired the Corvair; the Corvair
was in fact to be an "American Volkswagen."
In
the late 1950s the Big Three, GM, Ford and Chrysler, had become
increasingly alarmed over the rising penetration of small foreign cars,
particularly the Volkswagen, into the North American market. They also
noted the strong sales of the 100-inch wheelbase American Motors Rambler
American model.
Chevrolet's Cole was convinced that he could build a bigger and better
VW. Thus, although the Corvair had the same general layout as the VW,
the Corvair's 2743 mm (108 in.) wheelbase was 342 mm (13.5 in.) longer,
and at 1111 kg (2450 lb), it weighed 363 kg (800 lb) more. And the
Corvair's 2.3 litre (140 cu in.) six developed 80 horsepower, versus
just 36 from the VW's 1.2 litre 72.7 four.
The
Big Three's answer to this small-car challenge took distinctly different
approaches. While Chevrolet unabashedly copied the Volkswagen's layout,
Ford and Chrysler chose a conventional route for their import fighter.
The Ford Falcon and Chrysler (soon to be Plymouth) Valiant had
water-cooled, six-cylinder engines mounted in the front driving the rear
wheels. Neither had independent rear suspension.
The
Chevrolet Corvair, in spite of its technical novelty, or perhaps because
of it, didn't sell as well as its main rival, the Ford Falcon. Buyers of
domestic economy cars apparently weren't as technically daring as import
buyers. The Corvair did, however, appeal to the sporty car set, and when
the Monza version appeared in mid-1960, it sent Corvair off in a whole
new market direction.
The
Monza was nothing more than a Corvair Deluxe 700 coupe fitted with such
items as bucket seats, special wheel covers, chrome rocker mouldings and
vinyl upholstery. But these seemingly minor styling changes were enough
to alter the Corvair's personality. The Monza stood apart from mundane
workaday Corvairs, and sales took off.
Chevrolet knew it was on to something, and set out to really exploit the
sporty car segment. For 1961 it introduced a four-speed manual
transmission, and then for 1962 it became even more exotic with the
debut of the Corvair Monza Spyder. It came in coupe or convertible form,
and its most outstanding feature was an exhaust-driven supercharger
known as a turbocharger.
Chevrolet, therefore, along with Oldsmobile, which had introduced its
turbocharged F-85 "Jetfire" model just a month earlier, made General
Motors the world's first manufacturer to offer turbocharging on
production cars.
Along with the Monza for 1961, Chevrolet also introduced a Corvair
station wagon, and a slick Greenbrier minivan and pickup based on the
Corvair's rear engine layout; they looked amazingly like their VW
counterparts.
In
1965 the Corvair underwent a big change. It got a beautiful new body and
an improved rear suspension in which the swing axles were replaced by a
fully articulated system much like the Corvette's. This corrected a
major design criticism of the Corvair.
Along with the new styling and better suspension for 1965 came something
else: a nasty surprise in the form of a book entitled Unsafe At Any
Speed. In it a Washington, D.C., consumer advocate lawyer by the name of
Ralph Nader excoriated the auto industry with the allegation that it was
building unsafe cars.
He
singled out the Corvair for a particularly scathing attack, saying,
among other things, that its swing-axle suspension (used on '60 to '64
models, although the '64 had a lateral leaf spring "camber compensator")
caused the rear wheels to "tuck under." Nader alleged that this caused
the Corvair to flip over during even relatively low-speed cornering.
Nader's book brought a rash of lawsuits against General Motors from
Corvair owners injured in accidents. General Motors would compound the
problem by getting caught investigating Nader in an unsuccessful attempt
to find something derogatory in his background. When this reached the
media GM had to make a humiliating public apology to Nader.
Unsafe also intensified government interest in automobile safety,
resulting in far-reaching safety legislation. The industry would never
be the same. The book, plus stiff competition from Ford's sporty new
Mustang introduced in 1964, sent Corvair production into rapid decline.
From 235,000 sales in 1965, it slid to only 15,400 in 1968.
When
sales declined to only 6,000 in 1969, General Motors discontinued the
Corvair. The Corvair's handling would later be exonerated, but the
damage had been done. Although one of America's boldest technical
experiments slid quietly into history, it left behind a legislative
legacy.
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