Ralph Nader's favorite.

Corvairs weren't one of the better cars of that era.

Had a classmate in HS that had a red coupe that we used to ride around in sometimes. Early 60's: bucket seats, floor shift, don't remember the model name or year. He spun it off the interstate in Laurel one night. Wasn't hurt, but car was totaled. Glad I wasn't in it.

quote:

Originally posted by arfmel:
Corvairs weren't one of the better cars of that era.

Says who? Have you owned one? I did, a '62.
It was Awesome. Very fun to drive, slow car fast theory LOL! 0 to 60 was roughly 2 days... more or less.
Between My Grandfather, me and my brothers we put ~300k miles on it.

I even lost my virginity in it, OK maybe that's partly why I remember it so fondly!

Drove my friends Corvair in the '70's.

It was fun, very rear heavy and a pain to drive in the winter without several sandbags in the front/trunck it was like a shuttle-cock at times in deep snow banks on both sides of the road.

It tried to go in the ditch, the front would get nudged by the high snow banks and the rear would follow, sorta like a spoon.

Fun, great experience... no-thanks wouldn't want one.

And it was told to me, the sandbags were not good for the front end bearings.

Weird beast.

quote:

I would be shocked if the pictured '65 or '66 Corvair 'Corsa' with four single bbl carbs got 30 mpg.
The two carb Monzas only topped out at around 23~24 mpg.

no, no, no,
not a re done old car.

same body style but todays tech tires, suspension, motor trans and knobs dials, buttons, gauges, lights bells and whistles.

I had 2 friends in High School that had one.
I would not be interested in having one myself.

As long as there are no seat belts, and the floor is rotted out in several places so you can watch the asphalt fly under you just a couple inches away, heck yeah! Just like childhood again!

Back in the day, my brother got a Corvair engine swap for his Volkswagen Beetle. It would bolt up with an adapter plate to mate it to the bellhousing and a few other parts, including a fiberglass hood to accommodate the engine's extra length. The car would scoot, all right, but he had problems with, IIRC, the timing gears and valve seats.

GM was trying all kinds of new technologies back then, including a turbo Oldsmobile, Buick/Olds all-aluminum V8, and the Pontiac Tempest. This was an odd one, with a 195 four-cylinder that was half of a 389 and a flexible wire rope drive shaft. The Buick version of the aluminum V8 was bought by Rover, who used a derivation of it in Land Rovers up to 2004.

While in High School I was on the gymnastics team. One day, the Team left our school and drove to another school to practice with their team. I was in my friend's Corvair with four other guys stuffed into the rear seat. As we raced the other guys up a windy road we came to a hairpin turn. The Corvair did multiple 360's and then stopped, perched on the edge of the road (the hill sloped away from us).

We had just caught our breath when the car toppled off the edge of the road and rolled over 1.5 times. We were wedged into the car, upside down. One of the guys in another car stopped and ran down to us and shouted, "The car is on fire!" (It wasn't, but the dust was pretty thick and he was a bit of a knucklehead)

The guy in the passenger seat kicked out the front window and the six of us scrambled out of the car.

The guy driving the car was really worried about what his Dad would say. One of the guys on the team said, "Bring it to my Dad, let him see if he can fix it".

We picked up the front window drove the car downhill until we intercepted the road. The other guy's Dad surveyed the damage and brought out a Plumber's Friend. He wet the side of the car and stuck the plunger onto it and popped out the dent on the side and the roof. He then reinstalled the winshield. We washed and waxed the car and you'd have to look hard to see any damage.

The guy who was driving the Corvair went home and told his Dad what had happened. His Dad and Mom were aghast. When they looked at the car they weren't sure if they could believe the story.

The Coach, was ahead of us and missed the accident. When we told him what had happened he went to the school principal. From that time going forward we had no problem scheduling a school bus when we wanted to visit another school for practice.

The earlier posts re oversteer were correct. Most people didn't know how to drive a car with oversteer. Ralph Nader's book "Unsafe at Any Speed" killed it. It wasn't unsafe, one just had to know how to drive it. I drove rear engined VW Beetles and found them to handle better than front engined cars which were subject to understeer. Most cars today, being front wheel drive imho suffer from excessive understeer, which when combined with powered front wheels present a combination I'd rather avoid.

I had a '65. Great handling car after I put some Michelins on it.

Three friends & I took a college road trip and stopped for gas at about 300 miles. Stuckey's where we stopped had a sign that said "Free peanut brittle with 10 gallon fill up". Gas pump kicked out at about 9 1/2 gallons. I guess we did a little show of disappointment at the gas pump. Proprietor came out to see what was the matter. When we told him, he gave us the peanut brittle, anyway!

My first car was a '65 Corvair in dark turquoise with a white interior. It was a fun car - I wish I still had it.

quote:

Originally posted by maxdog:
...Most cars today, being front wheel drive imho suffer from excessive understeer, which when combined with powered front wheels present a combination I'd rather avoid.

I'm with you on this. I despise Front Wheel Drive, but it's ubiquitous until you're into the most expensive stuff -- BMW, Mercedes, then the all-out performance cars that I refuse to even dream about. I haven't tried any fancy driving since my last Mercedes went away, a 2001 C320.

quote:

Originally posted by maxdog:
The earlier posts re oversteer were correct. Most people didn't know how to drive a car with oversteer. Ralph Nader's book "Unsafe at Any Speed" killed it. It wasn't unsafe, one just had to know how to drive it. I drove rear engined VW Beetles and found them to handle better than front engined cars which were subject to understeer. Most cars today, being front wheel drive imho suffer from excessive understeer, which when combined with powered front wheels present a combination I'd rather avoid.

I learned to drove in a 1970 VW Beetle and if you drove one properly they were quite safe and capable of a rather starting level of handling. The key to driving a rear engined car is to Trail Brake to the apex of each corner and then roll into the throttle and use the throttle to control the drift. BTW, the reason for Trail Braking to the apex was quite simple, the weight transfer helped to "plant" the front tires and get the turn initiated cleanly.

Where folks got themselves into trouble is they would try to simply "stuff" the car into a corner and when they found the front end didn't have any grip they would panic, slam on the brakes, and then find out what happened with a rear engine car that you just "unweighted" the rear tires on. BTW, when you do this the front end gets a good bite real fast while you have just locked up the rear tires and the result is a rapid end for end spin.

quote:

Originally posted by egregore:
Back in the day, my brother got a Corvair engine swap for his Volkswagen Beetle. It would bolt up with an adapter plate to mate it to the bellhousing and a few other parts, including a fiberglass hood to accommodate the engine's extra length. The car would scoot, all right, but he had problems with, IIRC, the timing gears and valve seats.

GM was trying all kinds of new technologies back then, including a turbo Oldsmobile, Buick/Olds all-aluminum V8, and the Pontiac Tempest. This was an odd one, with a 195 four-cylinder that was half of a 389 and a flexible wire rope drive shaft. The Buick version of the aluminum V8 was bought by Rover, who used a derivation of it in Land Rovers up to 2004.

I believe the 4 cyl 1/2 389 tempest had a powerglide in the back. Maybe the only car I've ever driven that was slower than my Corvair. The buddy who owned it knew how to drive it which meant doing everything possible to not slow down. It was a real POS. My brother had an Olds F85 with the aluminum V8. That was a cool car except for the cylinder head bolts pulling threads.

quote:

Originally posted by GWbiker:Tell me about it. I spun out a "61 VW Bug (1500cc motor) one morning on the way to work. Scared the crap out of me.

A bit of a nit-pick but unless someone did an engine swap for a later motor, the '61 Beatles had a 1200cc motor. We had one and it had the first 40 HP motor and with an all-syncro 4-speed trans.

quote:

Originally posted by cparktd:

quote:

Originally posted by arfmel:
Corvairs weren't one of the better cars of that era.

Says who? Have you owned one? I did, a '62.
It was Awesome. Very fun to drive, slow car fast theory LOL! 0 to 60 was roughly 2 days... more or less.
Between My Grandfather, me and my brothers we put ~300k miles on it.

I even lost my virginity in it, OK maybe that's partly why I remember it so fondly!

That was the opinion of a friend who had a shop that specialized in them. He thought the first series Corvairs were built better than the later models, and preferred them except for their quirky handling characteristics.

My first car was a silver 66 with Fitch Sprint modifications.
They were pretty fast and handled well up to a point, then watch out.
Being young and having faster reflexes helped but I'm still amazed I survived some of the things I did in that car.