what is so bad about the corvair?
I was kinda half assed looking around at buying one since I will soon be in the market for another car

right now thinking of
80's mr2
old school early 70's celica hatch/fastback whatever
another rx7
thirdgen camaro
was thikning corvair
and maybe a geo metro

not sure though

 

uhhhh....

obvious choice is a thirdgen camaro so then you can be a "legit" member!! lmao, just kidding. LOL

 

What's his name wrote a book about the Corvair called "Deadly at any speed" about how Chevy chose not to fix a problem that would have cost them like .06 cents a car to fix. There is a bolt too close to the fuel tank or something that ruptures the tank causes fire/explosion if it it rear ended.

 

I am a big fan of corvair's and my dad and I have two of them. They are cheap old school cars to have fun in. Ralph Nader is just another non engineer who thinks he knows it all once in office. Serious lack of maintenance of the owner could cause the rear end to lose control. The Corvair was basically a guinea pig for everything that cars implement today. It served its purpose and we benifit from it everyday when we hop into our cars. The $.06 problem that stu is refering to would be the ford Pinto. What does this have to do with a Del Sol?

 

wondering the same thing, but i guess there all slow cars? lOL

 

I knew that the Pinto blew up, but I thought the .06 cent thing was the Corvair, what was Ralphs complaint about the Corvair?

 

Yea the $.06 was the shorter screw that would not have punctured the Pinto's gas tank in a rear end collision. The problem with the corvair was that the massive weight offset with all the mechanics in the rear made the car tail happy. Now, throw in bad and horrendously underinflated tires and the car could spin out. The trucks and vans could flip whereas the cars would spin. Our truck is unstable but it was never meant for anything above 40mph. Below 40 and it is fine. People used it for what it wasn't desinged for and the liability of cars to basically save you no matter what the miss-use didn't exist back then. Our vert however is quite stable, even at 70mph. Also, the independent rears had a massive negative camber that would only flatten out when the truck/van was loaded. This also contributed to high speed stability problems. The corvair was the birth of unibody desing, independent suspension, and a stand alone manufacturing branch of a large company (ie saturn). It was bound to have problems but needed to be made.

 

Thanks for clearing that up for me. You don't have to defend the car to me though, I just wanted to know what the book was about.

On a side note, I thought most cars with motors in the back tended to be a little tail happy; I know my '73 Super Beetle was.

 

Yea I was trying to help clear some things up for those who mentioned it. I do have a soft spot for them in my heart. You should see them autocross. Wow, so funny.

 

Funny that you mentioned autoX, Shifty. I was going to say how there is one that does real well in my club. A little tweaking and some victoracers and those things rip.

"A little tweaking" may be wrong......With a lot of mods, and some victoracers they rip.

 

My best friend's neighbor has a genuine Yenko Corvair. Blue and white.... Soooo nice. He has a Corvair van too and two other regular Corvairs. Once the Englishtown AutoX is established he's gonna road race the Yenko.

~Matt

 

hey di you guys know that ralph nader has never had a drivers licence? he never drove a corvair! and he complained about the handling, thats why they eventually quit making them. it was naders way of making a name for himself. his 15min is way the f**k past up.