Mom & Dad bought a Corvair in 64. I loved that car. But he got rid of it in 66, because he said the back seat wasn't big enough for me and my brother to fight in. He traded it in for a Buick Electra 225. (talk about one extreme to another) That back seat was so big, I had to get up and walk over to my brother to hit him.
Growing up my dad drove an Oldsmobile Delta 88 station wagon... the back luggage area and back bench seat were like two separate rooms for me and my brother...
My Mom had a 1969 Corsa and it was a fun car to ride in and drive. Really responsive and zippy. I used to drive it after I got my license in 1973. Every time I parked it it smoked from oil leaks from the engine. People would come up and say "Your cars on fire" as I walked away. I'd tell them, " I know". Then look at the look on their faces as I kept going. Priceless. Thanks Mom. RIP.
I bought my first car from my mom, 1965 convertible Corvair 110. I got the "Your car is on fire!!!" comment a few times driving down the road. Took apart the engine and replaced the pushrod tube seals with viton "aircraft" seals that fixed the problem. It was a really fun car to drive and a blast with the top down in the summer.
You should be aware that the rear supension of the Corvair was redesigned for the MY1965 thru 1969 years. Solved the problem... didn''t save the product from extinction.
The problem with the infamous youtube video is that they slid the car sideways down a small hill causing it to roll. Pretty much any car will roll under those conditions.
you'd be suprised actually, ive come off a tight road at high speed racing down a hill road, the turn was far too tigh, slid off sideways down a very steep grass/mud bank, car didnt feel like it was going to roll for a second. then again european car are usually far better engineered for such occurrences. My dad had a tire blow out on his volvo 740 wentworth turbo doing 100mph, the car stayed driving perfectly true and didnt wander at all. Then i see some massive american SUV get a blowout at about 60mph and it swerves off the road and hits a tree
Josh Briggs Well from my perspective, of driving, and working on both American, and vehicles from Europe, there is a sizeable difference between the engineering of the American, and European. Which the mindset behind the engineering of both is completely different. When one thinks of how the entire vehicle is designed, engineered, and assembled seem to me to be much different. Items such as steering, suspension, tires, engines, and body parts seem to me, to be view much different from America, vs Europe! For example, I cannot recall off the top of my head, ever seeing the rear tire camber go to the extreme, on a European car, to the point it is rolling so far under the car, that it almost appears to be riding on the outer side wall of the rear tires. When swerving sharply from one side to the other!
soaringtractor Yes, that would be true, if one could get them moving quickly enough in order to roll them over! Moreover, I cannot recall seeing to many of them on the road in Europe. Due to the fact, I don't believe they were extremely popular in Europe! Now I could be completely incorrect on that information. Although, we have seen it go both ways on television shows such as Top Gear, and Grand Tour, with those three guys. Although, I believe it maybe more of where one is in Europe, and how knowledgeable they are at driving as well!
True that. As a VW mechanic in the '60s, we'd regularly roll them on road test. 28 mph on a bend, and over they'd go. Punishment? ...we'd have to inform the car owner of our act. They were truly dangerous, and very sensitive to tire pressures, 16 up front, and 24 on rear.
You forget to mention that on this video demonstration the Corvair was equipped with radial tires that were not available in the 60s. Radial tires make a huge difference in the handling and the safety of any car.
Absolutely....my dad had a few VW bugs in the mid 70's and he would put Michelin Radials on all of them....he said they made a night and day difference....and those radials were not cheap....
@@wildestcowboy2668 I don’t know about a lie. Radial tires and bias-ply tires are two very different things according to the overwhelming majority of people.
I put Bias Mud Tires on my 4x4's that came from the factory with Radials.... Not enough difference to shake a stick at. Nader was a book seller .. his claims supported that goal.
In 1964, I was in the rear seat of a Corvair when it overturned on a sharp curve. The windshield fell out and was collecting gasoline dripping from the fuel tank. I was lucky to survive.
In 1965 GM solved the problem of rear end oversteer by switching to a double jointed rear axle with two constant velocity joints on each axle. This design enabled the rear tires to stay flat on the road instead of undercutting. But by then the damage was done. I had a 1966 model. It got good gas mileage, great acceleration, good handling and never felt unsafe in it.
I think the second generation models looked better too. They were good little cars if you took care of them. My dad was a mechanic and he said the Corvair wasn't as bad as they made them out to be. My dad was a mechanic and also a truck driver.
I understood that the double jointed rear axle was actually part of the original design, but was cut in order to reduce costs. If I recall Nader's book correctly, he also highlighted the danger of the rigid steering column in the corvair, but that problem was common to most cars of the era.
They weren't constant velocity joints, just regular u-joints. The big deal was, 65 and later was no longer a swing axle and had no tendency to tuck under. Also after 62 (or so) they phased in sway bars and other goodies to improve handling.
ToughAncientSpark Always be skeptical when actistist or consumer groups try and sell their proposed legislation by tying it to the safety of children, unless their is a direct link. That's how we ended up with the war on drugs, and all other manner of nanny state bullshit.
Well to be fair there was a link, cars where pretty unsafe prior to all that "bullshit". The general idea at the big three and most car manufactures was "Why would you get in a crash?". These cars were unsafe, solid steering column's, no though of rollover protection, no seat belts, no bracing through the doors for side impacts, no crumple zones, ect. It's a shame that it took someone having to place the blame on just one car and it becoming the scapegoat, especially when it really wasn't any more unsafe then a Falcon or Nova but I can't say that the industry would have made the necessary changes for safety on their own.
It really is, yeah... But that's the same with the Beetle, the VW Bus, and the Porsche 356. They all do this, and the 356 is regarded as a excellent handling sports car. And the car was shamed in a time that any other american sedan had terrible handling, way worse than Corvair's.
@@vitorleite8449 Not to forget the early Triumph Spitfires. I believe if you corner really hard and get the rear up like a stinkbug, then slam on the brakes, the car will flip over.
Vitor Leite VW also complied with US DOT requirements and redesigned their rear suspension with double-jointed axles in 1968 and brought them out for the US market only. After sales of rear-engine VWs stopped in the late 1970s, the remaining rear-engine markets in the world still sold the old swing-axle suspension, all the way up to the final Bugs that were built in Mexico until 2003. Many, many people tried to buy "real" VW Bugs in Mexico, with the intention of equipping them to US DOT standards so they could be legally driven in the US, only to discover that the rear suspension was not legal here in rear-engine cars built after 1969.
The Corvair was similar to VWs in many respects, but the true inspiration to the designs of the VW, the Porsche, the Corvair, and the Tucker Torpedo all came from the Czechoslovakian manufacturer Tatra, who pioneered the rear, air-cooled engine/transaxle, swing axles, and torsion-bar suspension.
I bought my girlfriend, now my wife, a 64 Monza convertible for 125.00 in the early seventies. The Corvair had a tendesey to vibrate due to flywheel delamination. My wife drove that car 68 miles a day from home to college getting close to 30 miles per gallon. A drunk driver pulled in front of her a totaled the Corvair, luckily she was OK. Every time we drive by an early Monza she speaks of how she misses her Corvair. Times were simpler in those days, but cars were more personal.
Cars were more personal back then because you could work on them without a computer science degree, or voiding the warranty. You needed a new part? Go to the shop and get one.
He was talking about the mechanicals. It is perfectly feasible to keep an older car that looks like crap "perfectly maintained." It's just a different set of priorities from those of the image conscious snowflakes, who keep their cars washed and vacuumed but neglect oil changes, belt replacement, etc. And God forbid that they'd replace the struts on an older car. -- In this case, the car has some history, as Ralph Nader's Corvair, and it makes sense to keep the exposed parts of the car as original as possible.
#1 The car is 60 years old. Mechanically is perfect. You see how it performs with aggressive driving for such an old engine, which shows it has been given a full clean up and perfect tune. #2 it is a museum car of important historical value. It cannot be altered by changing bits and parts. A lot of cars are worth more as they sit with original age wear and patina than ones that have been filled with sheetmetal from Home Depot.
@@grizzlygrizzle The corvair was a unit body so the "body" is the chassis and it's condition is part and parcel of the mechanics. If you had a steel tube car with rust on the chassis would you call it perfectly maintained? I think not.
In 1964, I was driving my dad's new Corvair on westbound the NY State Thruway. I was 16 with Mom and Dad allowing me to get some driving experience. We passed over several large high and low dips in the landscape. The highway was built by filling in some low spots and cutting through high spots. We passed one of the cuts, we then drove over a river bridge. A strong wind gust was blowing from right to left across the bridge. We were in the right hand lane doing about 60 MPH. The wind lifted the front of the Corvair. This caused the car to drift uncontrollably to the left two lanes and narrowly missing striking the left gaurdrail. As we left the bridge, and entered the next cut the wind was blocked. We had a terrible scare. My Dad thought I was responsible as I pulled over and stopped. It took a while before he let me drive again
I was driving a company Corvan going down a steep long grade on Hwy 1 in Calif. and the wind pushed me into the guardrail. I had no control. I wasn't speeding, but that thing would not turn! It tore up the passenger side pretty bad. I had a hard time explaining it when I got back to the shop in San Francisco.
One other thing that I remember about the Corvair, was that the automatic transmission was push-button operated rather than by lever. Also, the handling characteristics came from the Bias Ply tires that were common in that era. Radial tires would greatly improve handling.
Corvairs never had pushbuttons for the Powerglide automatic. Instead, a tiny lever under the dash (1960-64) or on the dash (1965-69) was moved up and down to select ranges. Yes, a Corvair with radial tires holds the road much better than the old squirrely bias tires!
@@Brommear You're funny. Just ignored the whole video. Sure, the design isn't perfect, but that's why you've got rear wheels going into positive angle. Decrease traction to prevent rollover. Any live axle car from the time (and decades to follow) used the same trick on front tires. Reason was to avoid oversteer coming from live rear axle.
@@Brommear if you "swerve" a 1965-69 Corvair in good condition you'll stay on the road as well as any modern car. I know, I've owned two Late Corvairs. I'm sure with the appropriate upgrades and suspension settings the same can be said for an Early Corvair as well.
I am a retired Auto Body Shop owner that was in business when the Corvair first came out , two of my accounts were Chevrolet Dealers , so we repaired a fair amount of Corvairs ,my opinion and estimate was that the Corvair was no worse than any of the other small cars out at that time.Even the full size cars of that era were iffy when in a serious accident. Just my opinion.
I loved that little Corvair, it is so fun to drive. Back when I was in high school I worked at a gas station, that was when they all had garages and worked on cars. My boss had a 64 Spider that he kept in great condition and that is were I learned about the Corvair and how to work on them. Basically there were 2 big problems with the Corvair. The first was tire pressure, most mechanics were taught to put 32 PSI in all 4 tires but in the Corvair tire pressure needed to be 15 LBS in the front tires when cold and 18 PSI when hot. If the front tires were at 32or 35 PSI it would reduce the amount of traction and get you in trouble fast. The tire pressure was printed on a sticker in the glove box, but back in the day mechanics rarely check that and just inflate to 32 PSI or whatever the recommended pressure was printed on the side of the tire. My boss Phil told me that the front tire pressure was critical on the Corvair because all the weight was in the back. I know from experience about passing those big Semi Trucks, especially those with the Cab Overs or that have wide flat front ends. They push a lot of air to the sides. Enough to push the front of the Corvair to the side if you pass one on the highway close, like in the next lane. You have to steer into that wind and be quick to let off that steering when you get through that air. I'm sure some of the VW and motorcycle guys will know what I'm talking about. The second big problem was the "O" ring seal on the valve push-rod tubes, GM used standard O rings, Buna N Rubber, that became brittle with heat and would crack. It didn't help that the Push Rod Tubes were close to the exhaust manifold. The cracked O Tongs would let oil drip down on the exhaust manifold and would cause it to smoke. The bad part of that was if you bought it with out the gas heater option. If you got the standard package, the heat came off the engine from the blower that forced air to cool the engine. With dried out, cracked O rings dripping oil, the car interior would fill up with oil smoke. My Boss Phil could change the O rings out without removing the heads and showed me how to do it. Most of the time I could get one year out of the O rings before I had to change them out. I think that was the biggest complaint people had with that car. Ironically, any of the rebuild kits for the engine have real good O rings that have fixed that problem. Last one I rebuilt was 5 years ago and it hasn't leaked a drop of oil. There are also kits out there that remove the carburetors, use an EFI fuel system making the Corvair far more fuel efficant and add power. But what really killed the Corvair was the Ford Mustang and the V8 engine. The V8 could be cast in one piece were as the Corvair engine was a split block and had to be cast in 2 pieces. That split block was $50.00 more to make than the V8 and it had a lot more power. With gas prices at $.25 to $.32 a gallon no one wanted an economy car and opted for the sexier Mustang. But for an economy car, it had far more interior room than any other economy car and more room in the back seat than most V8 cars like the Mustang or Camaro. One other thing, the Corvair had vents down close to the floor just under the back seat that vented hot or air-conditioned air for the back passengers. I do not know of any other car that offered that. I now own 4 Corvairs, 2 1962's (One for parts) 1 1963 with factory AC and one 1965. All but one 62 are 4 speed manual shift. The 1965 is running the others are being restored as I get the money and time to work them.
Yours is the most helpful comment. The cars .were. liable to under steer too much, and sometimes over steer too much (likely the tire pressure wasn't right, but most would not know of the unusual psi requirement, and a street vehicle so precarious is too radical). I know two other young men (then) plus myself who owned Corvairs. The suspension would fold under, as would it on a VW bug and the army Jeeps, but it took extreme driving to get to that point. They were capable in the snow off road, they would go quite well. For most people, I totally agree with Ralph Nader. And the heaters we're so inaffective after a few years, because of rust, the windshield couldn't be defrosted. And about 1964 our 16 yr old dear neighbor girl was killed in one that rolled over in conditions other cars wouldn't have.
You bring back memories of my 63 Corvair. Several people including myself got Carbon Monoxide Poisoning due to the heater drawing air from across the exhaust manifolds. If there were no leaks you were OK. Also almost rolled mine when taking an exit at too fast of a speed in a turn. That was due to my own stupidity. The Corvair was wonderful in the Snow and sleet due to the engine being in the rear. Was great fun during the winter. During Summer it had a tendency to vapor lock due to the fuel vaporizing too soon. I survived it all.
If you drive them correctly, you cannot roll a Reliant three wheeler. I've owned various ones since 1990, never rolled one yet, and yes, I drive them hard to stay up with the traffic.
Same thing happened to the Bronco. Anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of physics knows that a short wheelbase 4x4 vehicle, when *very* abruptly turned and the wheels catch, will roll over.
My first car was an 88 Bronco II, rear-wheel drive only. Short wheelbase, top heavy, and RWD... I can only assume my parents were trying to kill me; but it turns out that vehicle taught me incredible car control most people my age don’t have.
Ford told all Bronco purchasers, "By the way, if you turn the wheel abruptly the vehicle will roll over." Or maybe they tested them for knowledge of physics. Either way, if a Bronco flipped, it was the driver's fault.
My dad collected, rebuilt, and sold corvairs his whole life. I spent a great deal of my childhood in and around them as we had at least half a dozen of them at any one time. They are really nice cars. This video was a neat blast from the past, I wish my dad could have seen it.
My dad restored a few, the best one was a 65 Monza Convertible, had no problems with it. There was one issue actually, and it was later he could no longer drive a manual transmission.
love the corvair. Vietnam era us army "mutts", the jeep replacement, haf swing axles, and with that the same handling issues as corvair, porsche, etc. The second generation mutts used trailing arms which solved much of the problem, as I believe so did corvair. What bothered me most about nader was that he painted the corvair as some type of singular case that was designed poorly and sold knowingly as defective, which of course is completely false, he used it to make a name for himself and killed a unique american cat
@@jimk.9493 Ya any fool can tell you car makers only have the buyers best interest in mind and would never sell unsafe cars to YOU ahhhahahahahahahah oh wait how about the shivy with the defective ignition switch that locked the steering wheel and would cost less than a buck to replace shivy decided was cheaper to pay deth suits ...buy buy miss american pie drove my death car to the levy ....
To be fair, watching that rear tire fold up under the body, you gotta say to yourself "that ain't right". If I recall, the point of the Corvair story was that GM fixed the roll over problem by installing a $12 rear sway bar. They knew that car was prone to roll over but deemed the $12 too expensive. Models after '65 were redesigned and didn't have that problem. I had a '66 in the early 80s. It was a great car. I got about 28mpg. And the new styling looked pretty good too.
The tire folding is only part life function of the suspension. My Dodge ram pickup used to do the same thing until I started adding an extra four PSI in the tires. No one ever accused it of being unsafe at any speed, and the higher tire pressures vastly improved the handling...
The issue was remedied in '64 with the rear transverse leaf spring, before nader's book even came out.... but yes the 1965 rear suspension was improved as well
The Beetle did that and so did the early mercedes ...how many people died from that ? ...the fix for the VW was 2 pieces of seatbelt with tabs on the ends to bolt to the axle and stop the axle from dropping ..bet they only cost a couple of bucks
A sway bar isn't a magic fix, it has cons. adding a sway bar to a swing arm suspension will make both wheels move together, so it ruins comfort, reduces traction, increases oversteer. If it's properly engineered it does benefit a lot of cars, but it would probably take re-engineering the whole suspension to make a sway bar work with it and that doesn't cost 12$, that costs thousands and months of R&D time.
Didn't the Corvair switch from a swing axle rear to independent rear suspension in '64 or '65? That probably eliminated most of the instability and oversteer problem (a little bit of oversteer can be a *good* thing for faster turns.) So by the time the book came out, the problem had already been resolved.
My cousins dad had a Corvair. He and three of his friends were driving through New Stanton, PA on route 119, a divided highway. My cousins dad said to his friends "My wife hates when I do this". He was in the left lane next to the median. He drove up on to the median with the two left side tires and then off. He lost control, did a couple sharp turns and the car went over. As it was sliding to a stop on it's roof one of his friends yelled "Now you know why she hates when you do that".
The early Beetles did the same thing (oversteer) until the rear axle was changed to a double jointed affair. I think Nader had a point, though. Unless the salesman was ready to brief a customer on how to properly steer the car the average person could fall into the oversteer trap, just like operators of the early Beetles did, which is why VW did a redesign. I'll bet there wasn't a single Corvair dealership that would brief their customers.
Well you could hear their excuses here: they blamed the driver for rolling over. "Not following the rules", when emergency situations can sometimes call for "rules" to be broken, like suddenly changing lanes or going off the road. Cars have to be able to tolerate emergency situations, and saying "it's a budget car" doesn't cut the mustard. The Corvair was cheap because it was a cheap car, with cheap safety standards. Cars might not be quite a cheap nowadays (the 1960 Corvair would have been just under 20K today) but they are a hell of a lot safer, and I think car companies learned pretty fast that people are willing to pay a bit more for safety.
This was a demonstration on a wide flat runway with a skilled driver expecting the car to misbehave. On an average road with an average driver in a real emergency none of these are likely to be the case. So I have to agree with Nader that the car should never have been released like that, especially in a car designed as cheap family transport.
The 2nd gen Corvair with fully independent suspension was released in model year 1965, same year as Nader's book - the 2nd gen had been in development for three years. A 1971 National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) study concluded that the 1st gen Corvair was no more likely to lose control than contemporary vehicles in its class (Ford Falcon, Plymouth Valiant and VW Beetle). A Texas A&M study in 1972 reached a similar conclusion. As the video stated, the Corvair was the sacrificial lamb to enact safety legislation for the entire automotive industry.
How can you in anyway brief a customer on how to drive? They all believe that deep in their souls lives a Mario Andretti just itching to get out. The reality is that Mario was never there and they all end up wrecking their cars because they don't have the faintest clue on how to drive other than point and shoot. I was rather impressed that when Subaru came out with their STi and Mitsubishi came out with the Lancer Evolutions, you couldn't even test drive them without first signing a contract to buy! Kinda like the ZR-1 Corvettes. Totally unavailable for test driving. Why? The cars were so damned quick that literally anything could happen with an over enthusiastic buyer wanting to "flex" the cars muscle.
My father Doug Roe spent years successfully racing Corvairs. He was an engineer for Chevrolet - testified in court against Ralph Nader - Worked with a team of Chevrolet professionals to win at the pure oil trials in the 60’s with, You guessed it, a Corvair. Great memories Bill Horton - Paul Pryor - Louis Clements
My dad had one and our family of six went everywhere in it. No trouble ever. In fact, it floated like a Beetle. We experienced this first hand once when in town there was a flash flood and while everyone else was stuck on the side of the street we floated on by everyone. It was the funniest thing you ever saw!
lol same here. my dad, instead of driving his Healey to work that day, took my moms corvair and we literally floated across 3 feet of water. i remember him revving the engine to get foreword motion and actually steering the car, albeit slowly. thanks for the memory, i was about 6 or 7 at the time
I love Corvairs. That said, the American public was not ready for such a radical change. was it the fault of the car? not really. was it the fault of GM not understanding their customer? Most definitely. it cannot be denied that the Corvair handled differently than every other American car at the time, which typically plowed through corners with strong understeer. you can see in the video how the swing axles are folding up underneath the car in hard cornering, losing alignment and tire contact. All it takes for the inexperienced driver to flip the car is to clip a curb with such negative camber in strong oversteer in a hard turn...not an uncommon situation. Plus, the Corvair had very specific tire pressure requirements, where the front and rears were quite different, and American mechanics at the time were accustomed to pressurizing tires equally. Yes there were European cars with swing axles, generally driven by people who expected 'eccentricity' (Euro cars at the time were very eccentric!), but typically the Corvair buyer was just an American family wanting to downsize and expecting essentially just a smaller version of what they were already used to. They were not, typically, enthusiast drivers, such as in the video, who enjoyed the oversteer aspects of Corvair handling. Eventually, Chevrolet fixed the camber problem with a camber compensator, but by that time, the damage was already done.
My first car was a Corvair Monza. It was already a bit of a rust-bucket, but I loved it. And I think it saved my life twice. The first time was in the winter and some toughs in a big-block Chevy were sitting next to me a the stoplight, revving away. The light changed, and the Corvair's rear-end traction and 1:1 gears allowed me to slip ahead of them. A block away, I turned into a parking lot surrounded with snowdrifts where, with the help of my suicide-knob on the steering wheel, I was able to quickly u-turn as they were pulling in. I buzzed past them and got away while they tried to get turned around, and never saw them again. The second time, I was driving too fast on an icy road and came to an abrupt turn. I was sure I was going straight down the hill, through a fence, and into a field and I clamped down on the brakes, but the car spun hard and lost its inertia! I was stopped in the middle of the road. So I more carefully puttered away, a bit startled but fine.
I've had a soft spot for Corvairs since owning a '62 Monza 2-dr. for a year in 1970. I needed a cheap ride and bought mine for $150. Who knows how many miles the little car had on it by then. I was young and stupid (I know, an oxymoron). I pushed the little car very hard and it never let me down. Its worst sin was environmental--it left puddles of oil everywhere. It was fun to drive and fairly economical for a lead-foot like me. As with every car I've owned, I fell in love with it. But at the end of that year when I was getting ready to head home, my mother (already storing two cars of mine) said "Don't even think about bringing that car home." So I sold it for what I had paid for it and drove the '65 Olds home with nothing towed behind. The sound of an air-cooler still gives me fits of nostalgia.
I was in the Army when I bought a used 1962 Corvair 2 Door Monza just before Nader's book came out. I loved that car! It was fast, hugged the ground, had no steering problems, it never took me by surprise and the car never rolled (despite the speeds I drove at). In fact, I drove it from Chicago (where I was stationed at a Missile Master site) to Los Angeles where my family was, and back twice. Both times I did it driving solo in less than 30 hours each way using Route 66. I despised Ralph Nader and still do for his cheap shyster book that was - at best - theoretical and misleading.
I had a '63, too, also 4 speed. What was the stock carb, do you recall? Two-barrel or four-barrel? I don't remember. I do recall the vacuum-powered windshield wipers, though. Accelerating, going up a steep hill in the rain would cause the windshield wipers to stop. LOL.
We purchased a new Corvair in 1963 and owned it for 8 years. It was dealer maintained and we routinely checked tire pressure. It spent its first two years in Rochester, NY and the only issue we had was during the heavy snows frequently had there. We often had to stop and help push 'normal' cars out of our way because they were stuck in snow that we easily drove through. We never experienced any sense that the car might be unstable, and always delighted in driving it. Because of Nadar's comments, we installed 3-point seat belts in the front seats. In 1971 we tried to move up in the car world and bought a new Volvo. It proved to be mechanically incompetent in numerous ways, twice eating a cam lobe, and drove like a Russian truck. We really missed the Corvair.
Rust means nothing as long as it isn’t structural to the car. I have a tractor that is 40 something years old and has a lot of rust and some holes but it cuts grass better than anything today
Matty D’s Mower Shop As long as its not eating through the frame or floor pans you should be good. Unless your drving a piece of titannic thats swissed cheesed to death then id be concerned.
This times 1000. Its also the complete opposite logic in a rear engine car if you come into a corner too fast, front engine car, lift off the gas, apply the brakes, instead of under-steering off the road the car will lose some speed, grip and make it through the corner. Do that real abruptly in a rear engine car, its going to spin.
Oh hey, look folks we have someone who generalizes anyone who doesnt fit his category of a good driver and insults them all, AKA everyone but himself and the drivers he knows. Children never grow up
@@sacr3 I bet you can't parallel park. Being able to manage understeer and oversteer are important driving skills to have, even if you're not driving a car at its limits. Road conditions can induce both understeer and oversteer. It should be a mandatory lesson in driving school that you learn how to deal with each. A real life example would be a sweeping curve over a crest while the road is wet. If you're going the speed limit, let's say 65 Km/h, and then you have to give sudden steering input to go around the crest, the front tires might lose traction and cease turning the car. If that happens you should let off the gas quickly, and jab the brakes to try and shift the weight over the front wheels so they get traction and turn the car in. Understeer likely wouldn't happen in a rear wheel drive vehicle in these conditions, and as long as you did not apply throttle as you turn into the curve, it should not oversteer if the weight distribution is fair. A situation that would cause oversteer would be a crest with a vehicle stopped in your lane. When you first turn out into the other lane to evade it, the car would be perfectly happy, when you turn back into your own lane to avoid another car coming towards you, the vehicle would be unhappy, as you just threw the weight of the car back and forth, which would likely break traction with the rear wheels. If the rear wheels lose traction, and you're on a straight, the best thing to do is turn the wheel towards where you want to go, and absolutely do not let off the gas quickly as it will suddenly shift the weight to the front wheels, making the car turn suddenly in the direction you're counter-steering. If I can explain the basics in a paragraph it seems plenty worthy of being in a driving lesson.
I've been driving (inc. under some serious and dangerous conditions) for over 60 years. Only accident I ever experienced (1964) was in a new Corvair. Slight curve at about 30 mph and the rear end spun me off the street and into a cluster of small trees. Fortunately speed was so low there wasn't much damage.
@@8BRInteractive - Maybe you don't know why Chevy shut down the Corvair ... all kinds of problems including very weak pavement grip. Even with new tires it would skid all over the place on perfectly safe roads.
@@charlestemple634 I've heard about it all. And I wanted to rip my engineering degree into confetti when I heard Chevrolet told Corvair drivers to DEFLATE their front tires under the manufacturer's recommended pressure - and Ford imitated this practice with the Explorer, decades later.
So Nader complains about a car he bought being a death trap. Instead of scrapping it, he sells it to be driven on the road some more. That right there says a lot about Mr. Nader.
Nader "owned" the car because it was donated to his museum. It was too ratty for the museum, so they sold it to a collector - the guy in the video - someone who clearly knew what he was buying.
@@craigfreger7958 either way the original comment stands. Nader could have had the museum scrap it or keep it off the streets. He didn’t. Therefore, he sold someone a car he deemed unsafe. By his own standards, he knowingly sold something that would put someone’s life at risk. You or I would never dream of selling someone anything that we believed would harm or kill them. Nadar exposed himself as a hypocrite.
@@mr.k1896 Nader didn't sell it, his museum did. Very few museum owners personally handle all of the items in their museum. That's what curators are for.
@@mr.k1896 unsafe doesn't mean it shouldn't exist, Nader wanted the industry to change so that normal every day buyers weren't being sold cars that were dangerous on a large scale. When I sold my mom's old rusty Nissan truck I made it very clear to the guy that bought it that it wasn't safe, the frame was rusted through badly, he heard and understood me and said he and a friend were going to re frame it for an off road rig, that DOES NOT mean I support Nissan deciding to sell 50,000 brand new trucks every year that are in danger of breaking in half on the road, I oppose thebindustry selling deathtraps to the general public but I support informed selling and purchasing of goods by and to individuals. Those are not conflicting stances.
I learned to drive in a sluggish, 4-door, 2-speed automatic 1962 Corvair on dirt roads. I'm pretty sure a VW bug, which was it's competitor, would pull it in a drag race. It's main enduring feature was being able to hang the rear wheels out going around corners and teaching me to countersteer, a skill which has saved my life several times since.
I heard it was more that Ford left out a reinforcement for the tank than its location. What about those Chevy trucks that Dan Rather faked an explosion on?
"they"? VW has gas high in front, Corvair has between front crossmember and firewall. That location is pretty safe. Most American cars had gas tanks behind the rear axle where it was vulnerable in a rear-ender. Pinto had a suspension piece that could puncture the gas tank too easily in a rear-ender. Ford finally added a shield to protect the tank from that suspension piece.
I never saw a VW in a salvage yard where the front end was burned from a fuel tank fire, and I saw a few where the fuel tank was flattened and rounded like a 20" dia tree; shoved back to the windshield, Yeah that one was missing the spare tire when the driver hit the tree. Until I saw that wrecked VW I was worried about a flaming fuel tank fire.
I thank God for Ralph Nader. Putting the argument as to the safety of the Corvair to one side, we all have much for which to thank Ralph Nader. Now we drive cars with airbags, crumple zones, side impact bars in the doors, electronic brake disribution, anti-skid technology, and so forth. Safety has become a major consideration for car buyers - and rightly so. I myself drive a car with a 5-star safety rating from Euro NCAP. Had it not been for Mr Nader, car manufacturers would have continued to build death-traps. It was thought that the huge expense in R&D into safety features was not worth the investment, and that therefore - as always - the bottom line was how much profit each company made. And, as always, profit comes before all other considerations, even the safety of occupants, or of life itself. Where governments around the world failed to address the issue of car safety, Ralph Nader took on the role which ALL governments from EVERY country in the world failed to do. Governments are very susceptible to corruption and it was cheaper for car manufacturers to lobby politicians than it was to invest in R&D. And when I say lobby I mean giving 'donations' - and when I say 'donations' I mean bribes. Far cheaper to bribe politicians than to invest in R&D - so nothing was ever done and thousands upon thousands died in car crashes, or were seriously injured, all around the world. Nader took on Corporate America, which required bravery and determination. Not many people have been successful in doing that. Nader, by his tireless campaigning, has saved millions of lives, despite being as a major pain in the derrriere by the major shareholders of Ford, General Motors, Chrysler, Peugot, BMC, Rootes Group, Mercedes, BMW, Fiat, Toyota, Nissan or indeed any and all other manufacturers. Even now, many cars are very poor in terms of safety - but at least cars are tested so we have reliable information upon which to base our choice of vehicle. Should Ralph Nader have singled out the Corvair? Maybe not. But Ralph Nader was a hero - not a pretend hero like John Wayne or Sylvester Stallone, but a real-life hero.
Yep, the corvair was a scapegoat but the result has been hundreds of thousands of lives saved. A good trade. I love my 68 corvair, and it's way safer than my other ride, a motorcycle.
I once saw one flip on the highway. Driver went off the curb and the car flipped. Driver was dead. It was an early one. I owned a 1966 and it was very stable. A semi truck ran me off the road once and I hit the median strip going 70, bottoming out several times. After sitting and shaking for a while, enveloped in a cloud of coffee spray that formerly was a fresh new cup, I turned the key, it restarted and I drove out of the deep muddy ruts, got on the highway and went more than a thousand miles. Loved that car.
@@carlsmith4767 As he said above, it was an early model. Pre-'66. The erly ones were scary if you were only used to a conventional car and didn't have the factory recommended tire pressure which was maybe 35 in the rear and 32 in the front (just guessing). After '65 or so, like it says in the video, they re-engeneered the whole rear suspension.
...I think Pete stole that line from me... LOL I was quoted in a publication many years ago following an interview where I mentioned it, my favorite Corvair catch-phrase. :)
ha! funny! but the truth is that all cars are safer now because of Ralph Nader. so instead of saying "thank god" when you walk away from a mangled mess of a car accident (without a scratch!) you should say "Praise Ralph Nader!" ask me how I know...
When I was 15, I grabbed a Corvair and went for a joyride on a winding, gravel road. As it began to roll over in a curve (I was most certainly pushing it), I remember everything went into slow-motion. I leaned in and grabbed the steering column tightly. The car rolled once and back up onto the wheels. I walked (ran) away. I'm 71 now, hoping that the statute of limitations has run out!
I hear ya !! When I was 18 I bought a '62 Corvair because my friend had one ... We just HAD to race them on the way home of course !! It was the first time I had driven a Corvair.... We went over a hill on a dirt road and I "got some air" (LOL) yeah I know ...STUPID .....BUT BEER WAS INVOLVED, I knew I'd get air because we had done it many times) !! Anyways, when the car left the ground the rear wheels dropped under me (which I didn't know they would do... yup, 18 and insanely crazy) I got into a bad slide (which was fun) but the rear suspension was giving me a challenge !! LOL !! I went from one side of the road to the other 3 times and was getting it under control when I slide off to the right side of the road a hit a huge rock with the right rear wheel. long story shorter... I rolled 4 times over sideways and 3 times end for end !! TA DAAAA !!! LOL!! We never found the RED drivers door. My buddy said he remembered it flipping in the air and out into the woods/swamp. Was that the cars fault ?? absolutely not. I would drive a Corvair today without hesitation. Wonderful little car IMHO. I'm 70 now and would certainly know better than to race ....ANY CAR !! LOL !! Oh, by the way, I won the race ...sorta ...LOL !!
@@steveamos3726 God protects drunks and fools and I'm living proof !! NO, I did NOT get hurt. AMAZING that I didn't. I finally learned that alcohol is not my friend MANY years ago...LOL
My mother bought a 61 Monza Corvair in 1962 just after getting her driver's license when I was 10 years old.and she was in her early 30s. We had moved to NJ from Manhattan and all our relatives were left behind. She drove us everywhere even as far as Bay Ridge Brooklyn to visit grandma an hour and half away. We would then go back to Manhattan to the zoo or Radio City or even the Jersey shore with me, my two siblings and grandma (5 total) and she even said as recently as last year before she passed 12months ago at 92 that she loved the car. 💖 If she had been able to see this video,I'm sure she would have enjoyed this. THANK YOU for posting this video.
A guy on my old mail route had a Corvair. In the 90's. He once drove past a group of kids, parked in front of his house, opened the front hood (trunk) and went in the house. When the kids walked past the car, they all looked in disbelief at "no engine". Their reaction was priceless
I have 2014 Boxster S. I open a front hood and a trunk and "no engine". The car handles like a go-kart on rails. Now GM is a Chinese company. Isn't it "great"?
Most didn't have enough HP on pavement unless you bought the turbo charged version but the base model with two speed turboglide transmission could be a lot of fun on dirt roads. It was easy to get the rear end loose and hang it out but it was even easier to have it go all the way around on you once you got all the weight of the engine & transaxle swinging. I remember scary moments in a friends 1960 with nearly bald tires and hydroplaning in a heavy rain.
In the 60's I had three Corvairs and a VW Bug, and three of these had semi-independant rear suspensions, and THIS is the weak link in the car. I bought a new Corvair in 1963, and in Yellowstone Park one rainy night, I was driving too fast in the mountains, and on a sharp curve, the rear end gave way as the wheels tucked under, and I was going sideways. Luckilly, I was able to fight it back and forth until it straightened out, and I didn't even leave the road. A miracle! The same happened in the Park in a friend's Corvair as we headed down a sweeping, steep hill to Fishing Bridge. The rear end broke loose, and we were going sideways, back and forth as I told the driver "Left, right, left, right, etc." We straightened out just before we got to the Bridge, else we'd have hit the bridge abutment or gone into the freezing Yellowstone River. Another miracle! I cured my new Corvair's problem by purchasing a "Fitch Sprint" kit for $200 ... new springs and shocks and a nice set of mellow dual exhausts. With this change, the rear wheels simply COULD NOT tuck under, and this became the best handling car I had in the 60's, including a '63 Stingray and the new Corvair ('66 Corvair Corsa with FULLY INDEPENDANT rear suspension). My VW bug blew a tire on a hilly curve in '66 and immediately turned sideways. I was able to straighten it out, but soon got rid of that car due to it's dangerous nature (semi-independant rear end again) with no fixes available for it. The Corsa was a convertible with a turbo engine. It was a dog to 60mph, but after that it pinned you to your seat and scared hell out of you. It handled great and looked great, but it was years before the world figured out how to design a turbocharged car that accelerated smoothly and safely. I got rid of it for a '68 Pontiac Tempest LeMans convertible.
The first Corvairs, like earlier VW’s, had a swing axle. Both vehicles had a limit if driven very hard into corners. The 1964 model was a definite improvement. By 1965, the suspension and general configuration resembled the contemporary Porsche with full independent suspension. It handled so well that they were slalom racing winners until the arrival of a BMW model. The Corvair ‘Yenko Stinger’ was developed for racing and employed the stock configuration. (See Jay Leno’s Garage on this site.) I owned two Corvairs - a ’65 Monza and a ’66 Corsa. Both had the optional 4 carburetor 140 HP engine. It was an amazing car. Fun to drive and fast. I could oversteer into a corner and the purposely break out the back-end. A calm application of opposite lock and the car would effortlessly obey and track around the corner. I have driven Jaguars, BMW, Citroen SM, Ferrari and others that draw no outrageous criticism. The ’65-’69 Corvair compares very favourably with the best. Enthusiasts have nicknamed the later Corvairs “the poor man’s Porsche”. (Leno agrees!) Moreover, the ’65-’69 body was designed by Ghia - YUM! When Ralph Nader published his book in 1965, he included line drawings representing an earlier model thereby tarnishing the reputation of one of the best handling cars in American automotive history. The engines were very robust and efficient … excellent brakes, and comfortable. The Corvair represented progress and engineering elegance. Its demise was a regrettable step in reverse. Remember the Tucker!
I bought a 1960 model and my Father had one as well. We installed an after market sway bar on both to solve the collapse of a rear wheel. I loved driving it in all types of conditions.
That was probably a "Z-bar". Those look like a sway bar, but actually limit bump and droop motions rather than body roll. Limiting body roll would help, too, but Z bar was the standard fix for swing axle Corvairs, Triumphs, Fiats, Renaults, etc.
look at the grip and turn in, that must have been the best handling car in the 60's, i know for a fact a c1 corvette oversteers like crazy and it was sold as a sports car, the corvair was sold as a low speed daily.
The Ford made 'Jeeps' we used in Vietnam also had swing arm rear axles... and a warning not to go over 20 MPH... and a decal showing what the rear tires would do on a fast turn... produce a narrower 'track'... (most Jeep Wranglers have solid rear axle and made by Willys/Kaiser/AMC/Chrysler/Fiat)
I think this was spot on. Ability of driver and driving the car for its intended purpose. I saw a guy come into a mechanics workshop and wanted to have a 500+ hp engine built for a Nissan Silvia (If my memory serves), the mechanic suggested it was too much power for that car in stock and dangerous if you don't know what you're doing. The young guys response was "I've driven 500 hp Porsche before " He didn't grasp the concept of the Porsche being a different beast and differently designed to use that 500 hp. Same here. Every car has its limits and compromises if you go outside those things happen.
I actually read Nader's book in the 1990s. It really made a lot of sense. Prior to his book, controls weren't standardized. The way you engaged "park" on an automatic transmission car was different amongst makes. Thanks to Nader's book, that is now standardized. Regarding cars with swing axles, one of the scariest (and funniest) experiences I had was in a 60s Type 1 VW Bug. I was 16 and going as fast as I dared on a long sweeping left hand curve. When I finally chicken out and lifted off of the throttle, I discovered rear engine "lift off throttle oversteer". The VW snap spun on me and I thought I was going to roll the car. Luckily, the passenger door swung open and it hit the ground preventing the car from rolling over. But I 💩 my pants.
Learning about physics when driving a car should be a fundamental practice in driving schools. Im sure it would prevent 40% of crashes in tricky conditions, or in tricky, more demanding cars to drive. Lift-off oversteer is especially dangerous when driving an old FWD car with a live axle in the back, with 65% of the total mass on the front. Braking or sudden lift off may cause the rear to go sideways, and its all in stepping back on the throttle in order to correct the slide. Most often, people tend to brake, tighten up the spin in result and crash. Just the basic knowledge about maintaing control can save your car, or life. Nader had a point about the overall safety of cars, but Yates accurately pointed out, that most often crashes happened because of the drivers lack of knowledge and - therefore - skill. Just look at the Finnish driving school. Two years of learning before you're even allowed to take the final exam. I'm not saying that should be the common standard around the world, but boy Finns are great rally drivers.
@@8BRInteractive even if the car isn't properly engineered (like a Corvair, a Type 1 VW, or a Ford Bronco 2), if you drive them within the posted speed limits or within the conditions, they operate safely and predictably. It is when you push the boundaries that you get into trouble.
@@DucatiPaso750 like when a ball rolls into the street? Or when you're on the highway and, in the middle of a bend, a moron cuts you off and you need to brake? Sorry to break it to you, but there has never been an excuse for crap handling.
I’ve had four Corvairs in the last 30 years. They all ran good. I’m now on a 65 sedan , my first four door, which has never been taken apart. The original engine is still in the car with the original carbs distributor etc and it runs good. I had a C5 and it was a nice car but you can’t find many of my Vair. The Vette was more headache for me so it’s gone and I kept the Vair which I have never worked on much. It just keeps running and I love it. This is a great video and thank you for making it
Just like honda atc in the 80s, people crash becauss they dont know how to ride them and sue honda for selling a so called deathtrap and ruin the fun for people who know what they are doing
In 1965, Chevrolet changed the rear suspension to trailing arms which removed the 60-64 handling problems. I owned a 65 Corsa 140 hp. Drove like a dream.
I wonder how many of the people who are critical of Ralph Nader's book have actually read it. He blamed the handling problems on the early Corvairs on a number of factors, among which were the cheap, unreliable tubeless tires and unconventional tire pressures. At the time tubeless tires hadn't been perfected, and were prone to sudden deflation when the bead holding it to the wheel broke under some circumstances (such as hitting a pothole while executing a sharp turn). Tires have improved since 1959. It's impossible to accurately test the original Corvair's handling when the original equipment tires are no longer available. I like Corvairs, but I understand that they require a different driving technique, and (thankfully) they are now equipped with modern tires.
I owned a 1964 Corvair in 1969. GM added a rear stabilizer bar to the Corvair in 1964 to counteract the serious oversteer tendency. The Corvair had excellent fuel economy and snow traction compared to the typical American land barge of the day. It is interesting how many enthusiasts make apologies for the oversteer tendencies which also plagued Porsche 911 and VW beetles at the time. Speed shops and auto accessory shops did a brisk business in “anti sway bar sales”. I imagine the people who engineered the rear suspension had an awareness of a handling tendency that was well known in Porsche and VW of the time. It could well have been the bean counters at GM that didn’t want to spend the extra $14.98 per Corvair to prevent or tame oversteer. Another plus for the Corvair is that it had a heater that really worked in cold weather. Ask a VW owner who lived in cold weather states. You carried an ice scraper in the VW to scrape frost from inside the windshield in below zero temperatures.
Almost guaranteed that the engineers told management that the anti sway bar was needed on the car and were shot down. GM has a long history of cutting corners to the detriment of safety. They have good engineers who are capable of designing excellent vehicles, but the bean counters won't let them.
If my memory serves me well, Jay Leno did an episode of 'Jay Leno's Garage' where he discussed the corvair and he mentioned that the owner's manual suggested that the tires be inflated to 18 lbs. but many drivers insisted on 32 or more ppi because that's what big hot rods would run. The result was a serious increase in the issue of over steering.
DUSTY PENDLETON my thinking is that because most cars had the same tire inflation on all four tires people did the same with the Corvair. Most people never read the owners manual.
My first was was a '64. loved it but it too went through oil and fan belts. Most of the oil was left on the road because the O-rings on the push rod tubes would burn up when the fan belt would break. I always thought the engines was too big and heavy for the car that was designed as an economy car not a sports car. Should have had a 4 cylinder.
The STOCK CORVAIR STRAIGHT FROM THE DEALERSHIP WON THE 1963 CANADIAN winter rally. Considered one of the toughest rallys. My friend had a pure stock 1960 ( first year ) was a delight to drive. With the gasoline heater could defrost all the windows quickly. Great car and handled well.
The day after I watched this video, after finishing our morning Masters Swim I asked Herb, a buddy who drives a late model Corvette what vehicle was the most fun to drive in all of his years. Without prompting, Herb said a 1965 Corvair that he used to race (?) at rallies. And he mentioned the oversteer helping in the slalom. With the help of this video, Herb's comment made a lot of sense to me.
My dad bought a corvair (4 door) back in 1961 (when I was in 6th grade) and we drove it cross country (in the middle of winter) with the only problem being vapor locks in sub freezing climate. I learned to drive with it and continued to use it throughout college. I never experienced any situation that worried me or was dangerous in any way.
Same argument for three wheelers in the '80's. All it takes to make a recipe for disaster is the dumb ass who has no knowledge of what they're doing who tries to drive something like they're a pro racer. The point that this car was fun to push in corners could may well have been the cause of more 'accidents'.
I was going to make that exact point til I read your post..as an avid 3wheeler I ride a large ATV event in the spring and am approached regularly with the comment.."isn't that thing dangerous? weren't they banned?" Yes they are, but so is your quad..but in the hands of an experienced 3wheeler operator they can do things a Quad can't and safely!! But it didn't stop the media from going on a torch & pitchfork rampage back in the 80s and having the 3wheeler banned from manufacturing!! So the moral is hold em if you got em. History repeats itself again and again..and hey, whatever happened lawndarts?? I love those things!!!
Actually GM started recommending lower air pressure only in the front tires to address the oversteer issue. The rear tires they recommended more pressure than the front.
Most (probably all) tail-heavy rear-engine cars specify much lower front tire pressures and higher rear pressures. Some, like Porsches, even use bigger tires on the back. I owned a 64 Renault R8 that called for some ridiculously low front tire pressure, about 20 psi as I recall, and about 36 in the rear. That sounded strange, but that little rear-engine car actually handled really well with those pressures, WAY better than my 61 Corvair. But even my 72 VW Microbus handled better than my Corvair. Working as an auto mechanic for 40 years I know for a fact that most drivers pay no attention to their tire pressures, which can really bite you when you aren't expecting it in a tail-heavy car.
I think there is some half-trues here. For starts, the part of Nader’s that dealt with the Corvair was not with the model itself, but to its first generation (1960-1963). This has a reason. The design of the car was supposed to include an anti-sway bar, which would shifted weight transfer, preventing from oversteer, but the company’s management voted against it to save costs. In 1964 it was offered as an option, and from 1965 it was a standard feature. But in between a 100 lawsuits concerning incidents with the Corvair (from where Nader started his own investigation), hurt the trust of the public by the time the problem was resolved. And no, a car that is not a sport car it’s no supposed to be always driven by expert drivers. The 1965 Corvair of the video wasn’t goin to roll, but its predecessors did...
OK. Nobody will see this comment since the video came out four years ago. I don't care. Just want to get it off my chest. 1) Nader, right or wrong with respect to the Corvair, had a hugely positive impact on the engineering of safer cars. We should be thankful for that. 2) I owned two Corvairs in my younger years. The first was a '65 two door that I paid $150 for. I could never get the rear wheels from splaying out and as a consequence I went through tires really quickly. It also leaked oil. However, I got run off a two lane road by a truck and slid broadside into the end of a guard rail. Maybe going 40 mph when I hit. I was shaken up but I didn't get hurt. My second was a '64 Spyder convertable with a turbo engine (1964!). It was a great car except that it, like my first, leaked oil pretty badly. The car was beautiful inside and out. I really liked it. To me, the leaky engine was the big problem, not the roll over. I'm not much of a fan of GM these days but I have to credit the company with its willingness to take risks and think outside the box: rear engine, air cooled, four-wheel independent suspension, turbo. Corvairs were leagues above Ford's Pinto.
In my senior year in high school, around 1977, while my older brother was in the Navy, I drove his 1969 Corvair convertible around. Late one night, while out with my buddies on the weekend, being bored and aware of Nader's comment, I decided to test the suspension. I performed a sharp turn and the tail end of the vehicle started fish-tailing. There was no recovering from it. The only random event that saved our lives was that the back end struck a tree after leaving the road and straightened the car right out. Broke the bell housing on the transmission and dented up one of the rear side panels but thank God we didn't roll. I believe Nader was right.
Mark Gramm maybe you weren’t old enough to know how to handle it. I had a 1964 in 1968 and tried it a number of times and just let it do its thing and recovery was easy, that’s why it was called oversteer. Most cars were designed to have understeer but there were a few that still had some oversteer.
@@kenswitzer4133 maybe but I doubt it. The '69 had these heavy milk bottle-sized canisters filled with some kind of fluid bolted into the 4 corners of the vehicle to aid in stability. An indication Chevy recognized a problem I think. But who knows?
Mark Gramm I understand. Guess my real problem is the VW had the same rear suspension and no one ever said a thing about the problems it had. With it being top heavy it was more prone to roll. I think nader killed a good idea. Rear engine and air cooled sports cars like the VW was a great idea. Much better gas mileage than traditional cars of the day. As for the dampers, they were used on the early Camaro convertibles also. Thanks for the reply.👍🇺🇸🤙😃
@@kenswitzer4133 having had many VWs, a Karman Ghia, a Transporter and a Fast Back, (I had the transaxle rebuilt on the Transporter) I quite agree they were awesome and I wish I still had them. One principle difference of note with the Corvair is that the driveshafts were terminated with Universal joints which are not true constant velocity joints which in my opinion was a failing in the design. But yes, rear engine is awesome! Thanks for bringing back the memory!
Being a air-cooled Porsche fanatic, the Corvair is simply amazing, flat-6 with horizontal fan and coil spring! If fact, when I owned a air-cooled Porsche I found it less likely to roll-over, simply because its lower center of gravity. And yes, when handle it wrong it do spin. It is funny that the air-cooled, flat/rear-engine, rear-wheel-drive layout has the world's most sold car, one of the best sport car series, and one of the 'worst' car in the world. And their basic design is almost identical.
Ive driven a good few cars, but a 1964 Corvair was the first one I've ever bought, which was about half a year ago now. I love the car, I feel like I'm actually handling a vehicle rather than just sitting in a box and turning the wheel for what feels like every few minutes. Every second driving that car just feels right, it feels American.
Interesting. With an air-cooled rear engine, I can't think of a less-"American" car. And, in the '60s (and up until possibly the mid-'80s), driving a car that "feels American" - from a modern perspective - was far from a complement, but I think I know what you mean: a soft and isolated ride.
If you call this thing a "car! its an insult to all real cars.Of course a lot of people will claim it was the best car the ever had and all other drivers simply can`t drive! if the corvair was their best car im`asking them "why did you sell your model T ?
My brother had a Corvair and he carried two 80 lb sacks of concrete in the front trunk. He also mounted an aircraft landing light in the middle of the front grille….for those oncoming drivers who refuse to dim their headlights. He became a mechanical engineer.
Great video! VERY INFORMATIVE AND OBJECTIVE. We NEED MORE JOURNALISTS LIKE YOU. We had a 1965 two-door burgundy Corvair. My brother and I decided to impress our dad by washing and waxing the vehicle. My know it all bro (who was 12 at the time) told me, after we applied the wax, that we had to leave it on in the sun for an hour. When we rubbed off the stuff, the paint came with it. Thank God my old man (RIP) was a reasonable guy.
"If you know what you're doing, it isn't unsafe". How many people out there with their license have an understanding of automotive physics and have won the Formula One World Championship? Cars need to be somewhat idiot proof, until they stop giving licenses to idiots.
That's how I feel about the Corvair. I think it would be a scary handler with a full load.. Just looking at the way it dips and swings with one person in the car. Slingggg shot city! Kinda like the first time I drove a minivan with 7 people in it ...certainly had to do some quick learning on how the car would react with the weight.
True. That’s why I tell my kids when they start driving that ‘ It’s not about just not panicking when you can’t stop for the car in front of you, it’s not just about avoiding hitting them by going for the ditch, it’s about being able to avoid a wreck, go for the ditch, go between the sign and the telephone pole to get to the ditch and hit the ditch so that you can use the banks of the ditch to come back onto the road. In other words, learn how to do more than just push the gas pedal and play with the radio.
I totally agree with you there are a lot of idiots that do not know their vehicle handling limitations and also to if you own a Corvair you have to read the tire inflation section but not many people followed the recommended tire pressures in the owner's manual I've driven one of these cars before when I was a teenager and follow the strict prudent Tire recommendations and also to it is not a car to Hot Rod with now if you want the Corvair to handle really good there was an old trick that we used to do was to put 2 50 lb weights up forward in the trunk and I guarantee you the Corvair will handle like anything you've never seen before but keep in mind of your driving ability and handling ability of this car.
I've owned 2 verts and had only one accident when the idiot friend of mine wouldn't slow down and he found how the steering swapped. We hit a dirt berm right next to a telephone pole, went up 45 degrees onto 2 wheels, and then settled down. No damage, but he never drove another one of my vehicles. LOL. One of my closest near-death exp.
Love all these comments. Growing up, we had both the turbo with the 4-speed and the Greenbriar van, also 4-speed. I think people make a fair point when they say you have to learn to drive them. Trouble is, when you buy a used car nobody's going to tell you stuff like that. Dad learned the hard way when he hit some railroad tracks on a curve and the car started to roll. Lucky for him, the bounce broke the motor mounts and changed the balance in his favor, though it left the motor and transaxle sitting on the railroad crossing. He came home that day with a 5-speed Datsun 510 -- the first brand-new car he ever owned and one of the most fun I've ever driven.
Great little car. I've owned several. Yes. The early corvairs had an inherent rear suspension issue. This was fixed on the 1965/66 model year with the addition of a true independent rear suspension. I've owned a couple of early monzas and corsas. They were a bit different to drive as opposed to the later models.
Understeer is considered safer handling for the general public, with some reason, but it seems to me that the way to reduce oversteer is with a front sway bar. It seems to me that if my 390 Mustang came with a pretty big front sway bar and no rear sway bar, (which I added partly because it would wear out the front tires in normal driving) that the Corvair should have come the same way, and if it had come with a big front sway bar, it could have kept the swing axles.
@@alan6832 A front sway bar does indeed induce more understeer tendencies, and GM did indeed leave it off to cut costs, which was a very bad move on their part, but the Bug DID have a front sway bar and STILL rolled over. Swing-axle rear suspension combined with a rear engine, just like the Corvair, but the Corvair is much faster than the Bug, 80 horsepower minimum vs 40 horsepower, so more likely to get in trouble.
@@michaelbenardo5695 Was the front sway bar big enough? or stiff enough? because in some cases short arms can replace fat diameters. Anyway, I feel that the right front sway bar could have replaced the double jointed axle better and cheaper, especially since swing axles have the advantage of maintaining better camber during hard corners. The Mier rear sway bar, and tires, were the only major performance upgrade I made to my 390 Mustang and it was the right one, since I bought it with posi, a cam and big carb already. though I planned rear battery and electric fan. I thought a bit about fiberglass hood and aluminum radiator and intake, all for weight balance. That does explain why Nader picked on Corvair and not bug though, bug had the sway bar.
@@alan6832 It was very small, probably too small to do much. The 64 did have a sway bar and a rear compensating spring, and it did not have the problems of the 60 - 63 cars, even though it still had swing axles.
@@michaelbenardo5695 Do they make aftermarket sway bars stiff enough to make it understeer like it should? though I suppose if one failed to combine it with softer springs, it would have a harsh ride in front. Is battery in front at least?
I had a 4 door Corvair in the early 60's and did a 180 4x in that and also rolled it down a steep grassy slope once. ...In all cases heavy rain was a factor and not speed ... the car was unstable to say the least. I was not hurt and surprisingly the car was not damaged in the slow roll over...amazing!.
It seems to me that, in slick road conditions, you'd want most of the weight over the steering tires. In slick conditions, wouldn't the weighted end always try to move ahead of the light end? But I'm no engineer.
We had several Corvairs around the time that I got my driver's license in 1976. They were fun to drive. I did have one spin completely around on me one day on dry pavement. I was just going around a corner in a small neighborhood. Kinda freaked me out. One day, while pulling out of a small parking lot, I missed the d/way and drove off the curb. The engine slammed down on the curb. It developed a small oil leak soon after that my father could not fix. I think he was broken hearted. He eventually sold it to a parts counter salesman at a Chevy dealer in Silver Spring, MD (or NW DC). He was able to fix the oil leak and was very happy.
THE CORVAIR WAS MY EDUCATION. WENT ON TO WORKED FOR G.M. WASNT A DEFECTED DESIGN. MUST HAVE THE CORRECT AIR PRESSURE IN ALL TIRES. 32 REAR 25 FRONT. AND MUST USE GOOD HIGH TEST FUEL. VERY NICE CAR. LOVED IT.
I had a lot of fun with the 65 standard engine, 3 speed. I was never aware of the need for high octane fuel. Is that something that came up years later. I never knew what the compression ratio was. 19 years old at the time!
I owned 4 corvairs. Great little cars. Better than my camaro. My 65 turned 16s in quarter mile and out ran a 440 cruiser for 35 miles. Thats another story.
My family took one with us to Costa Rica in the mid 80s. With all the missing man hole covers, pot holes, driving up and down mountains, we're still alive.
I love the Corvair. 😍 When I grew up we had a car much like the Corvair. Four doors, engine in the rear, questionable reputation: an old Škoda. But that Škoda made me the car geek I am today. Funny how ONE car can do that. 🤗
I have owned two Corvairs. They were excellent cars. They handled well, and were very fuel efficient. The only fault I found was they tended to leak oil at the front (rear of the car) main seal..I always thought it to be the way the cooling fan belt was designed. Other than that, If I could find a decent one, I'd consider buying one today.
I owned two as a young man, a 62 2 door and a 64 convertible and as a typical kid, drove them spiritedly. At 70 I am still here today and wish I owned another.
Another big issue was that the Corvair had unique tire pressure requirements to help with its bouncy back end and extra weight in the rear versus the front - which buyers just kinda didn't acknowledge.
I love Corvairs. My dad bought a 1960 Corvair on the first day they were put on sale, in the fall of 1959. It was AT and all of 88 HP, but it was a great car to learn to drive in. I drove it, sometimes hard, on the highways and gravel roads of eastern Indiana and it never gave me a bit of uncertainty about how it was going to respond. :Yes, driven hard in corners, it would oversteer, and that was a good thing once you understood how to deal with it and what that could do for you. I loved driving that Corvair. I give Ralph Nader credit for getting our legislators and automakers to start thinking about safety. I thank Hagerty for making this thoughtful video.
You conveniently forgot to include that it was Ralph Nader that is mostly responsible for that drop in fatalities because his actions led to seat belts being mandatory in cars.
Chevrolet management had already decided to kill off the Corvair a year before Nader’s book came out. A memo to Chevrolet Engineering in 1965 said “No new development work. Just do enough to keep up with the safety standards.” Also, the Corvair’s biggest problem had been fixed by 1964. Still, Chevrolet’s three biggest failures, the Corvair, Vega and Citation do show that Chevrolet was willing to push the envelope. The Citation did lead to the Oldsmobile Ciera, so it wasn’t a total loss.
08:08, 08:28~08:31 | The rear wheels of the Corvair can clearly be seen bending toward a positive camber position and almost lifting off from the road. This indeed could result in a roll over in the most extreme cases. However, this can be corrected - at least partially, by having an extreme negative camber alignment for all 4 wheels while using very wide low offset wheels (et -25) coupled with low profile tires. A good rollbar coupled with topline coilovers should also help in minimizing the risk of a rollover.
I remember people talking about dropping a small V8 in the back seat and making it a mid-engine car. Always thought the Monza body style looked ahead of its time.
Great video - thank you. I grew up in that era and a friend's brother bought a few Corvairs, hopping them up. We all thought they were great cars. I too think that Mr Nader exploited the Corvair for sakes of a book. "Sacrificial Lamb" describes it perfectly. Economical to own and purchase, being so good on gas consumption, it was ahead of its time for green conservation. And Nader killed it.
Actually, as much as anything else, it was GM's own Camaro that was responsible for killing the Corvair, seeing as how muscular pony cars had been coming into their own since 1964... Dart-GT, Barracuda, Mustang... all built by somebody ELSE. And, GM needed something to compete with the other makers. And quick. Ever notice how much a first generation Camaro resembles a '65 and up Corvair? Everyone keeps saying the Mustang killed the Corvair. Nope. GM themselves did it to put their eggs in the Camaro which owes its existence to the late model Corvair which unfortunately was occupying the same niche that the Camaro was being aimed at, and GM wasn't interested in Corvairs anymore after '66 and would have cancelled the Corvair in '67 if not for the hoopla with Nader's book, thus Corvair production continued through May of 1969 just to show everyone that they weren't running away... and to be able to say "In your face, Nader!"
That was my first car - the 1964 version. Went through a quart of oil every 10 miles. "Fill 'er her up with oil and check the gas," I would say at every service station. My high school buddy had the turbocharged 150 hp Monza convertible version while mine only had 84 hp. He was always working on his too.
Andy, Dad was married to his 3rd wife in the early 1970's and that was a trip. She would put us all in the car 2 boys a 3 girls (hers) and off to town we would go. She would pull into a gas station and the attendent would come running out and ask what she needed. That's where the fun began as the look on his face and the shock when she said " I need some oral." So it went on like that with us kids laughing until she told us to tell him what she said " She said she needed oil." She always put an "R" in oil when she said it. LOL
@@oldscout80 No I was just usually running late for work. These roads were very curvy because they followed property lines, many ducks and guinea hens lost their lives in those days sorry to say.
My dad bought a 1967 4-door Corvair as our family car. In 1974, I took it over and drove it until 1982; gave it to a friend of mine with 225,000 miles on the OD. My friend fixed it up and the old Corvair became a show car. It was an awesome car. There were two things tho: the fan belt and the oil seal rings on the pusher rod tubes. Every 2,500 miles or so, the fan belt would break. And about every 3,500 miles, I had to replace the oil-seal rings (24 rings total) or just keep filling the car with oil. After a few years, I got it down to where I could replace the fan belt in about 10-15 minutes, and all 24 oil seal rings in about an hour. And thinking back, it wasn't all that bad. Never felt more in touch with a car since.
Back in the day, my buddy's dad had a gen 1 Corvair with the swing axles. We found out that if we floored the gas in a turn, and that thing would tuck its' outside rear axle, and if the forces were great enough, the tire would fold under far enough that the RIM would dig in to the pavement. When that happened, the rear end steered the car and if you got scared and let off the gas, the weight transfer would let the rear end rise. Then the front wheel would suddenly have too much weight to support with only 16lbs air pressure and things got ugly really quickly. He found out how to do it by waiting to turn left at a light, and when it was ok to go, he floored it while making his turn. Ended up almost crapping himself, but then just had to show us what it could do.
To the best of my recollection, the actual "over steer" crashes that I heard about as the result of publication, involved over inflation of the Corvair's front tires. The 1965 Corvair switched to a semi-trailing rear suspension, which VW subsequently did in 1968.
...and under inflated rear tyres. Course a "camber compesator" would have fixed the whole issue. Porsche, Mercedes and Renault all used them. VW used a Z-bar in the late 60s-70s.
I had a '64 Corvair in High School (70's) for a while and never had a problem with cornering... loved sliding that thing around corners every chance I could get!!! Update to now.... am building a '65 Corvair with an LS4 in the back seat. When done it should be about 400hp in a 2400# car. Rack & pinion steering, modest street splitter up front and , small wing and defuser in back, ... looking forward to embarrassing a few Porches on track days!!!
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Mom & Dad bought a Corvair in 64. I loved that car. But he got rid of it in 66, because he said the back seat wasn't big enough for me and my brother to fight in.
He traded it in for a Buick Electra 225. (talk about one extreme to another) That back seat was so big, I had to get up and walk over to my brother to hit him.
Growing up my dad drove an Oldsmobile Delta 88 station wagon... the back luggage area and back bench seat were like two separate rooms for me and my brother...
Splendid story
Now that's funny!!!
Funny very funny!
Love this. So funny and when I was a kid those backseats seemed almost that big.
My Mom had a 1969 Corsa and it was a fun car to ride in and drive. Really responsive and zippy. I used to drive it after I got my license in 1973. Every time I parked it it smoked from oil leaks from the engine. People would come up and say "Your cars on fire" as I walked away. I'd tell them, " I know". Then look at the look on their faces as I kept going. Priceless. Thanks Mom. RIP.
I bought my first car from my mom, 1965 convertible Corvair 110. I got the "Your car is on fire!!!" comment a few times driving down the road. Took apart the engine and replaced the pushrod tube seals with viton "aircraft" seals that fixed the problem. It was a really fun car to drive and a blast with the top down in the summer.
Last year for the corsa was 66, so it was a monza or an earlier year.
I owned a 1986 GM Corsa (zippy and fun to drive) and I didn't know that there was a 1960s Corsa... now the name makes sense to me.
@@f.d.6667 Corvair Corsas were 65-66 Before that were the spyders 62-64.
You should be aware that the rear supension of the Corvair was redesigned for the MY1965 thru 1969 years. Solved the problem... didn''t save the product from extinction.
The problem with the infamous youtube video is that they slid the car sideways down a small hill causing it to roll. Pretty much any car will roll under those conditions.
blanchae I was thinking the same thing!
you'd be suprised actually, ive come off a tight road at high speed racing down a hill road, the turn was far too tigh, slid off sideways down a very steep grass/mud bank, car didnt feel like it was going to roll for a second. then again european car are usually far better engineered for such occurrences.
My dad had a tire blow out on his volvo 740 wentworth turbo doing 100mph, the car stayed driving perfectly true and didnt wander at all. Then i see some massive american SUV get a blowout at about 60mph and it swerves off the road and hits a tree
Josh Briggs Well from my perspective, of driving, and working on both American, and vehicles from Europe, there is a sizeable difference between the engineering of the American, and European.
Which the mindset behind the engineering of both is completely different. When one thinks of how the entire vehicle is designed, engineered, and assembled seem to me to be much different. Items such as steering, suspension, tires, engines, and body parts seem to me, to be view much different from America, vs Europe!
For example, I cannot recall off the top of my head, ever seeing the rear tire camber go to the extreme, on a European car, to the point it is rolling so far under the car, that it almost appears to be riding on the outer side wall of the rear tires. When swerving sharply from one side to the other!
soaringtractor Yes, that would be true, if one could get them moving quickly enough in order to roll them over!
Moreover, I cannot recall seeing to many of them on the road in Europe. Due to the fact, I don't believe they were extremely popular in Europe!
Now I could be completely incorrect on that information. Although, we have seen it go both ways on television shows such as Top Gear, and Grand Tour, with those three guys.
Although, I believe it maybe more of where one is in Europe, and how knowledgeable they are at driving as well!
True that. As a VW mechanic in the '60s, we'd regularly roll them on road test. 28 mph on a bend, and over they'd go. Punishment? ...we'd have to inform the car owner of our act. They were truly dangerous, and very sensitive to tire pressures, 16 up front, and 24 on rear.
You forget to mention that on this video demonstration the Corvair was equipped with radial tires that were not available in the 60s. Radial tires make a huge difference in the handling and the safety of any car.
Absolutely....my dad had a few VW bugs in the mid 70's and he would put Michelin Radials on all of them....he said they made a night and day difference....and those radials were not cheap....
That's a BLOODY lie mate.....
Any vehicle will kill you you if you try hard enough.
@@wildestcowboy2668 I don’t know about a lie. Radial tires and bias-ply tires are two very different things according to the overwhelming majority of people.
I put Bias Mud Tires on my 4x4's that came from the factory with Radials.... Not enough difference to shake a stick at. Nader was a book seller .. his claims supported that goal.
In 1964, I was in the rear seat of a Corvair when it overturned on a sharp curve. The windshield fell out and was collecting gasoline dripping from the fuel tank. I was lucky to survive.
In 1965 GM solved the problem of rear end oversteer by switching to a double jointed rear axle with two constant velocity joints on each axle. This design enabled the rear tires to stay flat on the road instead of undercutting. But by then the damage was done. I had a 1966 model. It got good gas mileage, great acceleration, good handling and never felt unsafe in it.
I think the second generation models looked better too. They were good little cars if you took care of them. My dad was a mechanic and he said the Corvair wasn't as bad as they made them out to be. My dad was a mechanic and also a truck driver.
I understood that the double jointed rear axle was actually part of the original design, but was cut in order to reduce costs. If I recall Nader's book correctly, he also highlighted the danger of the rigid steering column in the corvair, but that problem was common to most cars of the era.
They weren't constant velocity joints, just regular u-joints. The big deal was, 65 and later was no longer a swing axle and had no tendency to tuck under. Also after 62 (or so) they phased in sway bars and other goodies to improve handling.
ToughAncientSpark Always be skeptical when actistist or consumer groups try and sell their proposed legislation by tying it to the safety of children, unless their is a direct link. That's how we ended up with the war on drugs, and all other manner of nanny state bullshit.
Well to be fair there was a link, cars where pretty unsafe prior to all that "bullshit". The general idea at the big three and most car manufactures was "Why would you get in a crash?". These cars were unsafe, solid steering column's, no though of rollover protection, no seat belts, no bracing through the doors for side impacts, no crumple zones, ect. It's a shame that it took someone having to place the blame on just one car and it becoming the scapegoat, especially when it really wasn't any more unsafe then a Falcon or Nova but I can't say that the industry would have made the necessary changes for safety on their own.
Watching the rear tires crab in on those sharp turns is very disconcerting.
It really is, yeah... But that's the same with the Beetle, the VW Bus, and the Porsche 356. They all do this, and the 356 is regarded as a excellent handling sports car. And the car was shamed in a time that any other american sedan had terrible handling, way worse than Corvair's.
@@vitorleite8449 Not to forget the early Triumph Spitfires. I believe if you corner really hard and get the rear up like a stinkbug, then slam on the brakes, the car will flip over.
I had a triumph spitfire for a while. Fun but crappy really. Always thought it was about to leave the ground on highways.
Vitor Leite
VW also complied with US DOT requirements and redesigned their rear suspension with double-jointed axles in 1968 and brought them out for the US market only. After sales of rear-engine VWs stopped in the late 1970s, the remaining rear-engine markets in the world still sold the old swing-axle suspension, all the way up to the final Bugs that were built in Mexico until 2003. Many, many people tried to buy "real" VW Bugs in Mexico, with the intention of equipping them to US DOT standards so they could be legally driven in the US, only to discover that the rear suspension was not legal here in rear-engine cars built after 1969.
The Corvair was similar to VWs in many respects, but the true inspiration to the designs of the VW, the Porsche, the Corvair, and the Tucker Torpedo all came from the Czechoslovakian manufacturer Tatra, who pioneered the rear, air-cooled engine/transaxle, swing axles, and torsion-bar suspension.
I bought my girlfriend, now my wife, a 64 Monza convertible for 125.00 in the early seventies. The Corvair had a tendesey to vibrate due to flywheel delamination. My wife drove that car 68 miles a day from home to college getting close to 30 miles per gallon. A drunk driver pulled in front of her a totaled the Corvair, luckily she was OK. Every time we drive by an early Monza she speaks of how she misses her Corvair. Times were simpler in those days, but cars were more personal.
Cars were more personal back then because you could work on them without a computer science degree, or voiding the warranty. You needed a new part? Go to the shop and get one.
@@randomuser8945 I hope we get some strong “right to repair” legislation someday…especially for farming equipment.
Get her a Miata, she'll not miss the Corvair at all.
"perfectly maintained car" Aaaa... I can see through the bumper! lol
Lol
"I have a perfectly swiss cheese car".
He was talking about the mechanicals. It is perfectly feasible to keep an older car that looks like crap "perfectly maintained." It's just a different set of priorities from those of the image conscious snowflakes, who keep their cars washed and vacuumed but neglect oil changes, belt replacement, etc. And God forbid that they'd replace the struts on an older car.
-- In this case, the car has some history, as Ralph Nader's Corvair, and it makes sense to keep the exposed parts of the car as original as possible.
#1 The car is 60 years old. Mechanically is perfect. You see how it performs with aggressive driving for such an old engine, which shows it has been given a full clean up and perfect tune. #2 it is a museum car of important historical value. It cannot be altered by changing bits and parts. A lot of cars are worth more as they sit with original age wear and patina than ones that have been filled with sheetmetal from Home Depot.
@@grizzlygrizzle The corvair was a unit body so the "body" is the chassis and it's condition is part and parcel of the mechanics. If you had a steel tube car with rust on the chassis would you call it perfectly maintained? I think not.
In 1964, I was driving my dad's new Corvair on westbound the NY State Thruway. I was 16 with Mom and Dad allowing me to get some driving experience. We passed over several large high and low dips in the landscape. The highway was built by filling in some low spots and cutting through high spots.
We passed one of the cuts, we then drove over a river bridge. A strong wind gust was blowing from right to left across the bridge. We were in the right hand lane doing about 60 MPH. The wind lifted the front of the Corvair. This caused the car to drift uncontrollably to the left two lanes and narrowly missing striking the left gaurdrail. As we left the bridge, and entered the next cut the wind was blocked.
We had a terrible scare. My Dad thought I was responsible as I pulled over and stopped. It took a while before he let me drive again
I was driving a company Corvan going down a steep long grade on Hwy 1 in Calif. and the wind pushed me into the guardrail. I had no control. I wasn't speeding, but that thing would not turn! It tore up the passenger side pretty bad. I had a hard time explaining it when I got back to the shop in San Francisco.
One other thing that I remember about the Corvair, was that the automatic transmission was push-button operated rather than by lever. Also, the handling characteristics came from the Bias Ply tires that were common in that era. Radial tires would greatly improve handling.
Corvairs never had pushbuttons for the Powerglide automatic. Instead, a tiny lever under the dash (1960-64) or on the dash (1965-69) was moved up and down to select ranges.
Yes, a Corvair with radial tires holds the road much better than the old squirrely bias tires!
Radial ply tires just make you crash at a higher speed. Swing axles are bad. Just try swerve a Beetle and see what happens.
@@Brommear You're funny. Just ignored the whole video.
Sure, the design isn't perfect, but that's why you've got rear wheels going into positive angle. Decrease traction to prevent rollover.
Any live axle car from the time (and decades to follow) used the same trick on front tires. Reason was to avoid oversteer coming from live rear axle.
@@piotrmalewski8178 Oh I see, that's why Porsche did not dump the system when they designed the 911. Ditto Mercedes on the S-class in the 60s.
@@Brommear if you "swerve" a 1965-69 Corvair in good condition you'll stay on the road as well as any modern car. I know, I've owned two Late Corvairs. I'm sure with the appropriate upgrades and suspension settings the same can be said for an Early Corvair as well.
I am a retired Auto Body Shop owner that was in business when the Corvair first came out , two of my accounts were Chevrolet Dealers , so we repaired a fair amount of Corvairs ,my opinion and estimate was that the Corvair was no worse than any of the other small cars out at that time.Even the full size cars of that era were iffy when in a serious accident. Just my opinion.
I loved that little Corvair, it is so fun to drive. Back when I was in high school I worked at a gas station, that was when they all had garages and worked on cars. My boss had a 64 Spider that he kept in great condition and that is were I learned about the Corvair and how to work on them. Basically there were 2 big problems with the Corvair. The first was tire pressure, most mechanics were taught to put 32 PSI in all 4 tires but in the Corvair tire pressure needed to be 15 LBS in the front tires when cold and 18 PSI when hot. If the front tires were at 32or 35 PSI it would reduce the amount of traction and get you in trouble fast. The tire pressure was printed on a sticker in the glove box, but back in the day mechanics rarely check that and just inflate to 32 PSI or whatever the recommended pressure was printed on the side of the tire. My boss Phil told me that the front tire pressure was critical on the Corvair because all the weight was in the back. I know from experience about passing those big Semi Trucks, especially those with the Cab Overs or that have wide flat front ends. They push a lot of air to the sides. Enough to push the front of the Corvair to the side if you pass one on the highway close, like in the next lane. You have to steer into that wind and be quick to let off that steering when you get through that air. I'm sure some of the VW and motorcycle guys will know what I'm talking about.
The second big problem was the "O" ring seal on the valve push-rod tubes, GM used standard O rings, Buna N Rubber, that became brittle with heat and would crack. It didn't help that the Push Rod Tubes were close to the exhaust manifold. The cracked O Tongs would let oil drip down on the exhaust manifold and would cause it to smoke. The bad part of that was if you bought it with out the gas heater option. If you got the standard package, the heat came off the engine from the blower that forced air to cool the engine. With dried out, cracked O rings dripping oil, the car interior would fill up with oil smoke.
My Boss Phil could change the O rings out without removing the heads and showed me how to do it. Most of the time I could get one year out of the O rings before I had to change them out. I think that was the biggest complaint people had with that car. Ironically, any of the rebuild kits for the engine have real good O rings that have fixed that problem. Last one I rebuilt was 5 years ago and it hasn't leaked a drop of oil. There are also kits out there that remove the carburetors, use an EFI fuel system making the Corvair far more fuel efficant and add power.
But what really killed the Corvair was the Ford Mustang and the V8 engine. The V8 could be cast in one piece were as the Corvair engine was a split block and had to be cast in 2 pieces. That split block was $50.00 more to make than the V8 and it had a lot more power. With gas prices at $.25 to $.32 a gallon no one wanted an economy car and opted for the sexier Mustang.
But for an economy car, it had far more interior room than any other economy car and more room in the back seat than most V8 cars like the Mustang or Camaro. One other thing, the Corvair had vents down close to the floor just under the back seat that vented hot or air-conditioned air for the back passengers. I do not know of any other car that offered that.
I now own 4 Corvairs, 2 1962's (One for parts) 1 1963 with factory AC and one 1965. All but one 62 are 4 speed manual shift. The 1965 is running the others are being restored as I get the money and time to work them.
EIBBOR2654 very interesting information thanks brother
Yours is the most helpful comment. The cars .were. liable to under steer too much, and sometimes over steer too much (likely the tire pressure wasn't right, but most would not know of the unusual psi requirement, and a street vehicle so precarious is too radical). I know two other young men (then) plus myself who owned Corvairs. The suspension would fold under, as would it on a VW bug and the army Jeeps, but it took extreme driving to get to that point. They were capable in the snow off road, they would go quite well. For most people, I totally agree with Ralph Nader. And the heaters we're so inaffective after a few years, because of rust, the windshield couldn't be defrosted. And about 1964 our 16 yr old dear neighbor girl was killed in one that rolled over in conditions other cars wouldn't have.
You bring back memories of my 63 Corvair. Several people including myself got Carbon Monoxide Poisoning due to the heater drawing air from across the exhaust manifolds. If there were no leaks you were OK. Also almost rolled mine when taking an exit at too fast of a speed in a turn. That was due to my own stupidity. The Corvair was wonderful in the Snow and sleet due to the engine being in the rear. Was great fun during the winter. During Summer it had a tendency to vapor lock due to the fuel vaporizing too soon. I survived it all.
Jay Leno says that the owners or maybe the service station attendant over-inflated the front tires which exaggerated the oversteer.
Imagine the carnage that the Robin Reliant would have caused here!
[enter camera shot sliding sideways on roof] Hello and welcome to Top Gear
*Reliant Robin
@@mowenreal Yeah, I know that and for some reason I reversed it as so many do. Mea culpa.
@@chuckschillingvideos oh okay tnx for telling me. :)
If you drive them correctly, you cannot roll a Reliant three wheeler. I've owned various ones since 1990, never rolled one yet, and yes, I drive them hard to stay up with the traffic.
Same thing happened to the Bronco. Anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of physics knows that a short wheelbase 4x4 vehicle, when *very* abruptly turned and the wheels catch, will roll over.
Same to the mid-late 90's Explorer, almost rollovered in one of those.
My first car was an 88 Bronco II, rear-wheel drive only. Short wheelbase, top heavy, and RWD... I can only assume my parents were trying to kill me; but it turns out that vehicle taught me incredible car control most people my age don’t have.
Lots of Jeeps from the 60's-70's have that issue too.
range rovers were the same, extremely prone to roll over
Ford told all Bronco purchasers, "By the way, if you turn the wheel abruptly the vehicle will roll over." Or maybe they tested them for knowledge of physics. Either way, if a Bronco flipped, it was the driver's fault.
My dad collected, rebuilt, and sold corvairs his whole life. I spent a great deal of my childhood in and around them as we had at least half a dozen of them at any one time. They are really nice cars. This video was a neat blast from the past, I wish my dad could have seen it.
My dad restored a few, the best one was a 65 Monza Convertible, had no problems with it. There was one issue actually, and it was later he could no longer drive a manual transmission.
love the corvair. Vietnam era us army "mutts", the jeep replacement, haf swing axles, and with that the same handling issues as corvair, porsche, etc. The second generation mutts used trailing arms which solved much of the problem, as I believe so did corvair. What bothered me most about nader was that he painted the corvair as some type of singular case that was designed poorly and sold knowingly as defective, which of course is completely false, he used it to make a name for himself and killed a unique american cat
@@jimk.9493 Ya any fool can tell you car makers only have the buyers best interest in mind and would never sell unsafe cars to YOU ahhhahahahahahahah oh wait how about the shivy with the defective ignition switch that locked the steering wheel and would cost less than a buck to replace shivy decided was cheaper to pay deth suits ...buy buy miss american pie drove my death car to the levy ....
Jim Battenhouse
Fairview Park, Ohio
Corvair & VW repair
shop. CB
@@ar1701sick
To be fair, watching that rear tire fold up under the body, you gotta say to yourself "that ain't right".
If I recall, the point of the Corvair story was that GM fixed the roll over problem by installing a $12 rear sway bar. They knew that car was prone to roll over but deemed the $12 too expensive.
Models after '65 were redesigned and didn't have that problem.
I had a '66 in the early 80s. It was a great car. I got about 28mpg. And the new styling looked pretty good too.
I agree. You can't build a death trap and sell it to the public. Why would they think that was alright? No economy is worth a death in the family.
The tire folding is only part life function of the suspension. My Dodge ram pickup used to do the same thing until I started adding an extra four PSI in the tires. No one ever accused it of being unsafe at any speed, and the higher tire pressures vastly improved the handling...
The issue was remedied in '64 with the rear transverse leaf spring, before nader's book even came out.... but yes the 1965 rear suspension was improved as well
The Beetle did that and so did the early mercedes ...how many people died from that ? ...the fix for the VW was 2 pieces of seatbelt with tabs on the ends to bolt to the axle and stop the axle from dropping ..bet they only cost a couple of bucks
A sway bar isn't a magic fix, it has cons. adding a sway bar to a swing arm suspension will make both wheels move together, so it ruins comfort, reduces traction, increases oversteer.
If it's properly engineered it does benefit a lot of cars, but it would probably take re-engineering the whole suspension to make a sway bar work with it and that doesn't cost 12$, that costs thousands and months of R&D time.
Didn't the Corvair switch from a swing axle rear to independent rear suspension in '64 or '65? That probably eliminated most of the instability and oversteer problem (a little bit of oversteer can be a *good* thing for faster turns.) So by the time the book came out, the problem had already been resolved.
Check out how many autos "Why New Cars Keep FAILING the Moose Test". Any auto can Fail any test if you make the test "made to Fail".
Yes it did just like the beetle eventually did for the exact same bad handling issue......
but American car bad must promote the people's car
I had a 66 Corvair Corsa and it was great. A really nice little car. Wish I still had it.
It was '65 thru '69 (independent).
The only reason Chevrolet didn't sue Ralph for everything he had is bc he didn't have anything.
My cousins dad had a Corvair. He and three of his friends were driving through New Stanton, PA on route 119, a divided highway. My cousins dad said to his friends "My wife hates when I do this". He was in the left lane next to the median. He drove up on to the median with the two left side tires and then off. He lost control, did a couple sharp turns and the car went over. As it was sliding to a stop on it's roof one of his friends yelled "Now you know why she hates when you do that".
The early Beetles did the same thing (oversteer) until the rear axle was changed to a double jointed affair. I think Nader had a point, though. Unless the salesman was ready to brief a customer on how to properly steer the car the average person could fall into the oversteer trap, just like operators of the early Beetles did, which is why VW did a redesign. I'll bet there wasn't a single Corvair dealership that would brief their customers.
Well you could hear their excuses here: they blamed the driver for rolling over. "Not following the rules", when emergency situations can sometimes call for "rules" to be broken, like suddenly changing lanes or going off the road. Cars have to be able to tolerate emergency situations, and saying "it's a budget car" doesn't cut the mustard. The Corvair was cheap because it was a cheap car, with cheap safety standards. Cars might not be quite a cheap nowadays (the 1960 Corvair would have been just under 20K today) but they are a hell of a lot safer, and I think car companies learned pretty fast that people are willing to pay a bit more for safety.
This was a demonstration on a wide flat runway with a skilled driver expecting the car to misbehave. On an average road with an average driver in a real emergency none of these are likely to be the case. So I have to agree with Nader that the car should never have been released like that, especially in a car designed as cheap family transport.
The 2nd gen Corvair with fully independent suspension was released in model year 1965, same year as Nader's book - the 2nd gen had been in development for three years. A 1971 National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) study concluded that the 1st gen Corvair was no more likely to lose control than contemporary vehicles in its class (Ford Falcon, Plymouth Valiant and VW Beetle). A Texas A&M study in 1972 reached a similar conclusion. As the video stated, the Corvair was the sacrificial lamb to enact safety legislation for the entire automotive industry.
Check out how many autos "Why New Cars Keep FAILING the Moose Test". Any auto can Fail any test if you make the test "made to Fail".
How can you in anyway brief a customer on how to drive? They all believe that deep in their souls lives a Mario Andretti just itching to get out.
The reality is that Mario was never there and they all end up wrecking their cars because they don't have the faintest clue on how to drive other than point and shoot.
I was rather impressed that when Subaru came out with their STi and Mitsubishi came out with the Lancer Evolutions, you couldn't even test drive them without first signing a contract to buy! Kinda like the ZR-1 Corvettes. Totally unavailable for test driving. Why?
The cars were so damned quick that literally anything could happen with an over enthusiastic buyer wanting to "flex" the cars muscle.
My father Doug Roe spent years successfully racing Corvairs. He was an engineer for Chevrolet - testified in court against Ralph Nader - Worked with a team of Chevrolet professionals to win at the pure oil trials in the 60’s with, You guessed it, a Corvair. Great memories Bill Horton - Paul Pryor - Louis Clements
Awesome!
The Corvair definitely got a bad rap!
I read Doug's book on the Quadrajet. Great book!
WOW! Doug was your dad? I autocrossed 'Vairs for eight years (and I still have 4! It's an addiction!). I am IMPRESSED!
@@jayrowe6473 Q Jet wasn't a bad carb. I have fixed a lot of them. Many guys were scared of them. HAH!
My dad had one and our family of six went everywhere in it. No trouble ever. In fact, it floated like a Beetle. We experienced this first hand once when in town there was a flash flood and while everyone else was stuck on the side of the street we floated on by everyone. It was the funniest thing you ever saw!
lol same here. my dad, instead of driving his Healey to work that day, took my moms corvair and we literally floated across 3 feet of water. i remember him revving the engine to get foreword motion and actually steering the car, albeit slowly.
thanks for the memory, i was about 6 or 7 at the time
I love Corvairs. That said, the American public was not ready for such a radical change. was it the fault of the car? not really. was it the fault of GM not understanding their customer? Most definitely. it cannot be denied that the Corvair handled differently than every other American car at the time, which typically plowed through corners with strong understeer. you can see in the video how the swing axles are folding up underneath the car in hard cornering, losing alignment and tire contact. All it takes for the inexperienced driver to flip the car is to clip a curb with such negative camber in strong oversteer in a hard turn...not an uncommon situation. Plus, the Corvair had very specific tire pressure requirements, where the front and rears were quite different, and American mechanics at the time were accustomed to pressurizing tires equally. Yes there were European cars with swing axles, generally driven by people who expected 'eccentricity' (Euro cars at the time were very eccentric!), but typically the Corvair buyer was just an American family wanting to downsize and expecting essentially just a smaller version of what they were already used to. They were not, typically, enthusiast drivers, such as in the video, who enjoyed the oversteer aspects of Corvair handling. Eventually, Chevrolet fixed the camber problem with a camber compensator, but by that time, the damage was already done.
My first car was a Corvair Monza. It was already a bit of a rust-bucket, but I loved it. And I think it saved my life twice. The first time was in the winter and some toughs in a big-block Chevy were sitting next to me a the stoplight, revving away. The light changed, and the Corvair's rear-end traction and 1:1 gears allowed me to slip ahead of them. A block away, I turned into a parking lot surrounded with snowdrifts where, with the help of my suicide-knob on the steering wheel, I was able to quickly u-turn as they were pulling in. I buzzed past them and got away while they tried to get turned around, and never saw them again. The second time, I was driving too fast on an icy road and came to an abrupt turn. I was sure I was going straight down the hill, through a fence, and into a field and I clamped down on the brakes, but the car spun hard and lost its inertia! I was stopped in the middle of the road. So I more carefully puttered away, a bit startled but fine.
I've had a soft spot for Corvairs since owning a '62 Monza 2-dr. for a year in 1970. I needed a cheap ride and bought mine for $150. Who knows how many miles the little car had on it by then. I was young and stupid (I know, an oxymoron). I pushed the little car very hard and it never let me down. Its worst sin was environmental--it left puddles of oil everywhere. It was fun to drive and fairly economical for a lead-foot like me. As with every car I've owned, I fell in love with it. But at the end of that year when I was getting ready to head home, my mother (already storing two cars of mine) said "Don't even think about bringing that car home." So I sold it for what I had paid for it and drove the '65 Olds home with nothing towed behind. The sound of an air-cooler still gives me fits of nostalgia.
I was in the Army when I bought a used 1962 Corvair 2 Door Monza just before Nader's book came out. I loved that car! It was fast, hugged the ground, had no steering problems, it never took me by surprise and the car never rolled (despite the speeds I drove at). In fact, I drove it from Chicago (where I was stationed at a Missile Master site) to Los Angeles where my family was, and back twice. Both times I did it driving solo in less than 30 hours each way using Route 66. I despised Ralph Nader and still do for his cheap shyster book that was - at best - theoretical and misleading.
I used to have a '63 coupe ... white with red interior, 4 speed and dual carbs. One of those cars I should never have sold.
Zundfolge ya they are so cool
Me too, it was my 1st car. And try as I might, never got mine to roll either! Wish I'd kept it too.
I had a '63, too, also 4 speed. What was the stock carb, do you recall? Two-barrel or four-barrel? I don't remember.
I do recall the vacuum-powered windshield wipers, though. Accelerating, going up a steep hill in the rain would cause the windshield wipers to stop. LOL.
Mine had dual carbs, I believe they were both single barrel.
2 single barrel Rochester’s
We purchased a new Corvair in 1963 and owned it for 8 years. It was dealer maintained and we routinely checked tire pressure. It spent its first two years in Rochester, NY and the only issue we had was during the heavy snows frequently had there. We often had to stop and help push 'normal' cars out of our way because they were stuck in snow that we easily drove through. We never experienced any sense that the car might be unstable, and always delighted in driving it. Because of Nadar's comments, we installed 3-point seat belts in the front seats. In 1971 we tried to move up in the car world and bought a new Volvo. It proved to be mechanically incompetent in numerous ways, twice eating a cam lobe, and drove like a Russian truck. We really missed the Corvair.
8:57 "Perfectly maintained car" he says as rust holes are clearly visible both in that exact shot and all over the car lol.
He meant mechanically! Plus you cannot alter something like that! It was Nader's Corvair so you must keep as many parts original!
Mechanically maintained. The rust was too pervasive it looks like to restore and not lose money.
Rust means nothing as long as it isn’t structural to the car. I have a tractor that is 40 something years old and has a lot of rust and some holes but it cuts grass better than anything today
Matty D’s Mower Shop As long as its not eating through the frame or floor pans you should be good. Unless your drving a piece of titannic thats swissed cheesed to death then id be concerned.
Mister Buklau agreed 100%!
Title reads 'will the corvair kill you?'
My first thought- not before my wife kills me for pulling up another project car😅
You never want to put a oversteering car in the hands of the general public, they can't drive.
This times 1000. Its also the complete opposite logic in a rear engine car if you come into a corner too fast, front engine car, lift off the gas, apply the brakes, instead of under-steering off the road the car will lose some speed, grip and make it through the corner. Do that real abruptly in a rear engine car, its going to spin.
Oh hey, look folks we have someone who generalizes anyone who doesnt fit his category of a good driver and insults them all, AKA everyone but himself and the drivers he knows.
Children never grow up
@@sacr3 I bet you can't parallel park. Being able to manage understeer and oversteer are important driving skills to have, even if you're not driving a car at its limits. Road conditions can induce both understeer and oversteer. It should be a mandatory lesson in driving school that you learn how to deal with each. A real life example would be a sweeping curve over a crest while the road is wet. If you're going the speed limit, let's say 65 Km/h, and then you have to give sudden steering input to go around the crest, the front tires might lose traction and cease turning the car. If that happens you should let off the gas quickly, and jab the brakes to try and shift the weight over the front wheels so they get traction and turn the car in. Understeer likely wouldn't happen in a rear wheel drive vehicle in these conditions, and as long as you did not apply throttle as you turn into the curve, it should not oversteer if the weight distribution is fair. A situation that would cause oversteer would be a crest with a vehicle stopped in your lane. When you first turn out into the other lane to evade it, the car would be perfectly happy, when you turn back into your own lane to avoid another car coming towards you, the vehicle would be unhappy, as you just threw the weight of the car back and forth, which would likely break traction with the rear wheels. If the rear wheels lose traction, and you're on a straight, the best thing to do is turn the wheel towards where you want to go, and absolutely do not let off the gas quickly as it will suddenly shift the weight to the front wheels, making the car turn suddenly in the direction you're counter-steering. If I can explain the basics in a paragraph it seems plenty worthy of being in a driving lesson.
Aaaand that would include you.
and nader never bitched about Beetles
I've been driving (inc. under some serious and dangerous conditions) for over 60 years. Only accident I ever experienced (1964) was in a new Corvair. Slight curve at about 30 mph and the rear end spun me off the street and into a cluster of small trees. Fortunately speed was so low there wasn't much damage.
Maybe you "didn't know what you were doing."
@@8BRInteractive - Maybe you don't know why Chevy shut down the Corvair ... all kinds of problems including very weak pavement grip. Even with new tires it would skid all over the place on perfectly safe roads.
@@charlestemple634 I've heard about it all. And I wanted to rip my engineering degree into confetti when I heard Chevrolet told Corvair drivers to DEFLATE their front tires under the manufacturer's recommended pressure - and Ford imitated this practice with the Explorer, decades later.
So Nader complains about a car he bought being a death trap. Instead of scrapping it, he sells it to be driven on the road some more. That right there says a lot about Mr. Nader.
Nader "owned" the car because it was donated to his museum. It was too ratty for the museum, so they sold it to a collector - the guy in the video - someone who clearly knew what he was buying.
@@craigfreger7958 either way the original comment stands. Nader could have had the museum scrap it or keep it off the streets. He didn’t. Therefore, he sold someone a car he deemed unsafe. By his own standards, he knowingly sold something that would put someone’s life at risk. You or I would never dream of selling someone anything that we believed would harm or kill them. Nadar exposed himself as a hypocrite.
@@mr.k1896 Nader didn't sell it, his museum did. Very few museum owners personally handle all of the items in their museum. That's what curators are for.
He didn't even know how to drive!
@@mr.k1896 unsafe doesn't mean it shouldn't exist, Nader wanted the industry to change so that normal every day buyers weren't being sold cars that were dangerous on a large scale.
When I sold my mom's old rusty Nissan truck I made it very clear to the guy that bought it that it wasn't safe, the frame was rusted through badly, he heard and understood me and said he and a friend were going to re frame it for an off road rig, that DOES NOT mean I support Nissan deciding to sell 50,000 brand new trucks every year that are in danger of breaking in half on the road, I oppose thebindustry selling deathtraps to the general public but I support informed selling and purchasing of goods by and to individuals. Those are not conflicting stances.
I learned to drive in a sluggish, 4-door, 2-speed automatic 1962 Corvair on dirt roads. I'm pretty sure a VW bug, which was it's competitor, would pull it in a drag race. It's main enduring feature was being able to hang the rear wheels out going around corners and teaching me to countersteer, a skill which has saved my life several times since.
At least they didn't put the gas Tank right behind the bumper where it would explode in a rear end accident
I heard it was more that Ford left out a reinforcement for the tank than its location. What about those Chevy trucks that Dan Rather faked an explosion on?
No, they put the gas tank right behind the bumper where it would explode in a front-end accident.
"they"? VW has gas high in front, Corvair has between front crossmember and firewall. That location is pretty safe. Most American cars had gas tanks behind the rear axle where it was vulnerable in a rear-ender. Pinto had a suspension piece that could puncture the gas tank too easily in a rear-ender. Ford finally added a shield to protect the tank from that suspension piece.
Didn't the fiero also have an issue like that?
I never saw a VW in a salvage yard where the front end was burned from a fuel tank fire, and I saw a few where the fuel tank was flattened and rounded like a 20" dia tree; shoved back to the windshield, Yeah that one was missing the spare tire when the driver hit the tree. Until I saw that wrecked VW I was worried about a flaming fuel tank fire.
I thank God for Ralph Nader.
Putting the argument as to the safety of the Corvair to one side, we all have much for which to thank Ralph Nader. Now we drive cars with airbags, crumple zones, side impact bars in the doors, electronic brake disribution, anti-skid technology, and so forth. Safety has become a major consideration for car buyers - and rightly so. I myself drive a car with a 5-star safety rating from Euro NCAP.
Had it not been for Mr Nader, car manufacturers would have continued to build death-traps. It was thought that the huge expense in R&D into safety features was not worth the investment, and that therefore - as always - the bottom line was how much profit each company made. And, as always, profit comes before all other considerations, even the safety of occupants, or of life itself.
Where governments around the world failed to address the issue of car safety, Ralph Nader took on the role which ALL governments from EVERY country in the world failed to do. Governments are very susceptible to corruption and it was cheaper for car manufacturers to lobby politicians than it was to invest in R&D. And when I say lobby I mean giving 'donations' - and when I say 'donations' I mean bribes.
Far cheaper to bribe politicians than to invest in R&D - so nothing was ever done and thousands upon thousands died in car crashes, or were seriously injured, all around the world. Nader took on Corporate America, which required bravery and determination. Not many people have been successful in doing that.
Nader, by his tireless campaigning, has saved millions of lives, despite being as a major pain in the derrriere by the major shareholders of Ford, General Motors, Chrysler, Peugot, BMC, Rootes Group, Mercedes, BMW, Fiat, Toyota, Nissan or indeed any and all other manufacturers.
Even now, many cars are very poor in terms of safety - but at least cars are tested so we have reliable information upon which to base our choice of vehicle.
Should Ralph Nader have singled out the Corvair? Maybe not. But Ralph Nader was a hero - not a pretend hero like John Wayne or Sylvester Stallone, but a real-life hero.
Yep, the corvair was a scapegoat but the result has been hundreds of thousands of lives saved. A good trade. I love my 68 corvair, and it's way safer than my other ride, a motorcycle.
I once saw one flip on the highway. Driver went off the curb and the car flipped. Driver was dead. It was an early one. I owned a 1966 and it was very stable. A semi truck ran me off the road once and I hit the median strip going 70, bottoming out several times. After sitting and shaking for a while, enveloped in a cloud of coffee spray that formerly was a fresh new cup, I turned the key, it restarted and I drove out of the deep muddy ruts, got on the highway and went more than a thousand miles. Loved that car.
Who would drive one 70 mph after seeing one flip and someone die.
@@carlsmith4767 As he said above, it was an early model. Pre-'66. The erly ones were scary if you were only used to a conventional car and didn't have the factory recommended tire pressure which was maybe 35 in the rear and 32 in the front (just guessing). After '65 or so, like it says in the video, they re-engeneered the whole rear suspension.
Try re-reading the whole comment, dummy.
@@carlsmith4767 so if you saw a honda civic flip would you never drive one at 70 again?
Lester Prosser
Are you sure it was coffee?...lol
"I don't have any grass stains on the roof of my Corvair's" lol love that quote!!
...I think Pete stole that line from me... LOL I was quoted in a publication many years ago following an interview where I mentioned it, my favorite Corvair catch-phrase. :)
Never had one on any of mine. I had one of every model made. One of which was highly modified for racing.
ha! funny! but the truth is that all cars are safer now because of Ralph Nader.
so instead of saying "thank god" when you walk away from a mangled mess of a car accident (without a scratch!) you should say "Praise Ralph Nader!"
ask me how I know...
RRocr how do you know?
@@oldrrocr Koolaid is strong with you. I'm betting you watch CNN also.
When I was 15, I grabbed a Corvair and went for a joyride on a winding, gravel road. As it began to roll over in a curve (I was most certainly pushing it), I remember everything went into slow-motion. I leaned in and grabbed the steering column tightly. The car rolled once and back up onto the wheels. I walked (ran) away. I'm 71 now, hoping that the statute of limitations has run out!
I hear ya !! When I was 18 I bought a '62 Corvair because my friend had one ... We just HAD to race them on the way home of course !! It was the first time I had driven a Corvair.... We went over a hill on a dirt road and I "got some air" (LOL) yeah I know ...STUPID .....BUT BEER WAS INVOLVED, I knew I'd get air because we had done it many times) !! Anyways, when the car left the ground the rear wheels dropped under me (which I didn't know they would do... yup, 18 and insanely crazy) I got into a bad slide (which was fun) but the rear suspension was giving me a challenge !! LOL !! I went from one side of the road to the other 3 times and was getting it under control when I slide off to the right side of the road a hit a huge rock with the right rear wheel. long story shorter... I rolled 4 times over sideways and 3 times end for end !! TA DAAAA !!! LOL!! We never found the RED drivers door. My buddy said he remembered it flipping in the air and out into the woods/swamp. Was that the cars fault ?? absolutely not. I would drive a Corvair today without hesitation. Wonderful little car IMHO. I'm 70 now and would certainly know better than to race ....ANY CAR !! LOL !! Oh, by the way, I won the race ...sorta ...LOL !!
@@arthilliker3721 Great story, Art! Were you hurt? Too bad we didn't have video back then...or maybe just as well?!
@@steveamos3726 God protects drunks and fools and I'm living proof !! NO, I did NOT get hurt. AMAZING that I didn't. I finally learned that alcohol is not my friend MANY years ago...LOL
Cool story. Glad you made it out.
My mother bought a 61 Monza Corvair in 1962 just after getting her driver's license when I was 10 years old.and she was in her early 30s.
We had moved to NJ from Manhattan and all our relatives were left behind.
She drove us everywhere even as far as Bay Ridge Brooklyn to visit grandma an hour and half away.
We would then go back to Manhattan to the zoo or Radio City or even the Jersey shore with me, my two siblings and grandma
(5 total) and she even said as recently as last year before she passed 12months ago at 92 that she loved the car. 💖 If she had been able to see this video,I'm sure she would have enjoyed this.
THANK YOU for posting this video.
A guy on my old mail route had a Corvair. In the 90's. He once drove past a group of kids, parked in front of his house, opened the front hood (trunk) and went in the house. When the kids walked past the car, they all looked in disbelief at "no engine". Their reaction was priceless
I have 2014 Boxster S. I open a front hood and a trunk and "no engine". The car handles like a go-kart on rails. Now GM is a Chinese company. Isn't it "great"?
“The most controversial car in history”
Ford Pinto: *are you sure about that*
Dont forget the beetle
Edsel says hi
so, the perfect drift car out of the factory?
engineered to drift before drifting was even invented/discovered
Justin Noker I doubt that
Jimmy Grant it was a joke dude
Most didn't have enough HP on pavement unless you bought the turbo charged version but the base model with two speed turboglide transmission could be a lot of fun on dirt roads. It was easy to get the rear end loose and hang it out but it was even easier to have it go all the way around on you once you got all the weight of the engine & transaxle swinging. I remember scary moments in a friends 1960 with nearly bald tires and hydroplaning in a heavy rain.
VetteKid
Ls swap it 😂
In the 60's I had three Corvairs and a VW Bug, and three of these had semi-independant rear suspensions, and THIS is the weak link in the car. I bought a new Corvair in 1963, and in Yellowstone Park one rainy night, I was driving too fast in the mountains, and on a sharp curve, the rear end gave way as the wheels tucked under, and I was going sideways. Luckilly, I was able to fight it back and forth until it straightened out, and I didn't even leave the road. A miracle!
The same happened in the Park in a friend's Corvair as we headed down a sweeping, steep hill to Fishing Bridge. The rear end broke loose, and we were going sideways, back and forth as I told the driver "Left, right, left, right, etc." We straightened out just before we got to the Bridge, else we'd have hit the bridge abutment or gone into the freezing Yellowstone River. Another miracle!
I cured my new Corvair's problem by purchasing a "Fitch Sprint" kit for $200 ... new springs and shocks and a nice set of mellow dual exhausts. With this change, the rear wheels simply COULD NOT tuck under, and this became the best handling car I had in the 60's, including a '63 Stingray and the new Corvair ('66 Corvair Corsa with FULLY INDEPENDANT rear suspension).
My VW bug blew a tire on a hilly curve in '66 and immediately turned sideways. I was able to straighten it out, but soon got rid of that car due to it's dangerous nature (semi-independant rear end again) with no fixes available for it.
The Corsa was a convertible with a turbo engine. It was a dog to 60mph, but after that it pinned you to your seat and scared hell out of you. It handled great and looked great, but it was years before the world figured out how to design a turbocharged car that accelerated smoothly and safely. I got rid of it for a '68 Pontiac Tempest LeMans convertible.
The first Corvairs, like earlier VW’s, had a swing axle. Both vehicles had a limit if driven very hard into corners. The 1964 model was a definite improvement. By 1965, the suspension and general configuration resembled the contemporary Porsche with full independent suspension. It handled so well that they were slalom racing winners until the arrival of a BMW model. The Corvair ‘Yenko Stinger’ was developed for racing and employed the stock configuration. (See Jay Leno’s Garage on this site.)
I owned two Corvairs - a ’65 Monza and a ’66 Corsa. Both had the optional 4 carburetor 140 HP engine. It was an amazing car. Fun to drive and fast. I could oversteer into a corner and the purposely break out the back-end. A calm application of opposite lock and the car would effortlessly obey and track around the corner. I have driven Jaguars, BMW, Citroen SM, Ferrari and others that draw no outrageous criticism. The ’65-’69 Corvair compares very favourably with the best. Enthusiasts have nicknamed the later Corvairs “the poor man’s Porsche”. (Leno agrees!) Moreover, the ’65-’69 body was designed by Ghia - YUM!
When Ralph Nader published his book in 1965, he included line drawings representing an earlier model thereby tarnishing the reputation of one of the best handling cars in American automotive history. The engines were very robust and efficient … excellent brakes, and comfortable. The Corvair represented progress and engineering elegance. Its demise was a regrettable step in reverse. Remember the Tucker!
I bought a 1960 model and my Father had one as well. We installed an after market sway bar on both to solve the collapse of a rear wheel. I loved driving it in all types of conditions.
That was probably a "Z-bar". Those look like a sway bar, but actually limit bump and droop motions rather than body roll. Limiting body roll would help, too, but Z bar was the standard fix for swing axle Corvairs, Triumphs, Fiats, Renaults, etc.
Look at that positive camber though! Nerve racking!
the rear arms were plenty strong enough to take that punishment. Plus those super skinny tires would simply break loose.
look at the grip and turn in, that must have been the best handling car in the 60's, i know for a fact a c1 corvette oversteers like crazy and it was sold as a sports car, the corvair was sold as a low speed daily.
No different than the front axle on a 1980-1996 Ford F150 or E series , lol
The Ford made 'Jeeps' we used in Vietnam also had swing arm rear axles... and a warning not to go over 20 MPH... and a decal showing what the rear tires would do on a fast turn... produce a narrower 'track'... (most Jeep Wranglers have solid rear axle and made by Willys/Kaiser/AMC/Chrysler/Fiat)
I think this was spot on.
Ability of driver and driving the car for its intended purpose.
I saw a guy come into a mechanics workshop and wanted to have a 500+ hp engine built for a Nissan Silvia (If my memory serves), the mechanic suggested it was too much power for that car in stock and dangerous if you don't know what you're doing. The young guys response was "I've driven 500 hp Porsche before "
He didn't grasp the concept of the Porsche being a different beast and differently designed to use that 500 hp. Same here. Every car has its limits and compromises if you go outside those things happen.
My friend just bought a working Corvair last month. He paid about 2000 bucks. Same price as when it was new!
Factoring in inflation, that means it's appreciated in value quite a bit!
@@godchi1dvonsteuben770 lol
That's actually a great deal.
I'll give ya 2100 in ' 65 dollars.
@@godchi1dvonsteuben770 that would be depreciation wouldn't it? $2k back then is like $10k or something
"Unsafe at Any Speed" by Nader
was ACTUALLY about manufacturing & business practices that were subpar. Read the book please...
I actually read Nader's book in the 1990s. It really made a lot of sense. Prior to his book, controls weren't standardized. The way you engaged "park" on an automatic transmission car was different amongst makes. Thanks to Nader's book, that is now standardized. Regarding cars with swing axles, one of the scariest (and funniest) experiences I had was in a 60s Type 1 VW Bug. I was 16 and going as fast as I dared on a long sweeping left hand curve. When I finally chicken out and lifted off of the throttle, I discovered rear engine "lift off throttle oversteer". The VW snap spun on me and I thought I was going to roll the car. Luckily, the passenger door swung open and it hit the ground preventing the car from rolling over. But I 💩 my pants.
Learning about physics when driving a car should be a fundamental practice in driving schools.
Im sure it would prevent 40% of crashes in tricky conditions, or in tricky, more demanding cars to drive. Lift-off oversteer is especially dangerous when driving an old FWD car with a live axle in the back, with 65% of the total mass on the front. Braking or sudden lift off may cause the rear to go sideways, and its all in stepping back on the throttle in order to correct the slide.
Most often, people tend to brake, tighten up the spin in result and crash.
Just the basic knowledge about maintaing control can save your car, or life.
Nader had a point about the overall safety of cars, but Yates accurately pointed out, that most often crashes happened because of the drivers lack of knowledge and - therefore - skill.
Just look at the Finnish driving school. Two years of learning before you're even allowed to take the final exam. I'm not saying that should be the common standard around the world, but boy Finns are great rally drivers.
@@Michael_Shoemakerin reality, you often need to brake while you're in a bend (for instance, an idiot enters your lane and cuts you off).
You do realize that this was NOT what a properly-engineered car would do, right?
@@8BRInteractive even if the car isn't properly engineered (like a Corvair, a Type 1 VW, or a Ford Bronco 2), if you drive them within the posted speed limits or within the conditions, they operate safely and predictably. It is when you push the boundaries that you get into trouble.
@@DucatiPaso750 like when a ball rolls into the street? Or when you're on the highway and, in the middle of a bend, a moron cuts you off and you need to brake? Sorry to break it to you, but there has never been an excuse for crap handling.
I’ve had four Corvairs in the last 30 years. They all ran good. I’m now on a 65 sedan , my first four door, which has never been taken apart. The original engine is still in the car with the original carbs distributor etc and it runs good. I had a C5 and it was a nice car but you can’t find many of my Vair. The Vette was more headache for me so it’s gone and I kept the Vair which I have never worked on much. It just keeps running and I love it. This is a great video and thank you for making it
It’s kinda funny how 90% of the comments are about rust holes
“We wanted to make a cheap car that everyone could use daily....but also if you crash it’s because you just didn’t know how to drive it right”
Just like honda atc in the 80s, people crash becauss they dont know how to ride them and sue honda for selling a so called deathtrap and ruin the fun for people who know what they are doing
In 1965, Chevrolet changed the rear suspension to trailing arms which removed the 60-64 handling problems. I owned a 65 Corsa 140 hp. Drove like a dream.
I wonder how many of the people who are critical of Ralph Nader's book have actually read it.
He blamed the handling problems on the early Corvairs on a number of factors, among which were the cheap, unreliable tubeless tires and unconventional tire pressures.
At the time tubeless tires hadn't been perfected, and were prone to sudden deflation when the bead holding it to the wheel broke under some circumstances (such as hitting a pothole while executing a sharp turn).
Tires have improved since 1959. It's impossible to accurately test the original Corvair's handling when the original equipment tires are no longer available.
I like Corvairs, but I understand that they require a different driving technique, and (thankfully) they are now equipped with modern tires.
I owned a 1964 Corvair in 1969. GM added a rear stabilizer bar to the Corvair in 1964 to counteract the serious oversteer tendency. The Corvair had excellent fuel economy and snow traction compared to the typical American land barge of the day. It is interesting how many enthusiasts make apologies for the oversteer tendencies which also plagued Porsche 911 and VW beetles at the time. Speed shops and auto accessory shops did a brisk business in “anti sway bar sales”. I imagine the people who engineered the rear suspension had an awareness of a handling tendency that was well known in Porsche and VW of the time. It could well have been the bean counters at GM that didn’t want to spend the extra $14.98 per Corvair to prevent or tame oversteer.
Another plus for the Corvair is that it had a heater that really worked in cold weather. Ask a VW owner who lived in cold weather states. You carried an ice scraper in the VW to scrape frost from inside the windshield in below zero temperatures.
Almost guaranteed that the engineers told management that the anti sway bar was needed on the car and were shot down. GM has a long history of cutting corners to the detriment of safety. They have good engineers who are capable of designing excellent vehicles, but the bean counters won't let them.
If my memory serves me well, Jay Leno did an episode of 'Jay Leno's Garage' where he discussed the corvair and he mentioned that the owner's manual suggested that the tires be inflated to 18 lbs. but many drivers insisted on 32 or more ppi because that's what big hot rods would run. The result was a serious increase in the issue of over steering.
DUSTY PENDLETON my thinking is that because most cars had the same tire inflation on all four tires people did the same with the Corvair. Most people never read the owners manual.
Just as Ford refused to fix the problem with the drop in gas tank in the Mustangs.
My first car. $50. '63 two door and we tweeked the suspension so it handled like a dream. Sucked oil like a locomotive. Fun car.
My first was was a '64. loved it but it too went through oil and fan belts. Most of the oil was left on the road because the O-rings on the push rod tubes would burn up when the fan belt would break. I always thought the engines was too big and heavy for the car that was designed as an economy car not a sports car. Should have had a 4 cylinder.
They should have built the Corvair with a Wankel engine. Same power but way less weight. And it would have gone through just as much oil. : )
New viton pushrod o rings take care of the oil leak problem
The STOCK CORVAIR STRAIGHT FROM THE DEALERSHIP WON THE 1963 CANADIAN winter rally. Considered one of the toughest rallys. My friend had a pure stock 1960 ( first year ) was a delight to drive. With the gasoline heater could defrost all the windows quickly. Great car and handled well.
The day after I watched this video, after finishing our morning Masters Swim I asked Herb, a buddy who drives a late model Corvette what vehicle was the most fun to drive in all of his years. Without prompting, Herb said a 1965 Corvair that he used to race (?) at rallies. And he mentioned the oversteer helping in the slalom. With the help of this video, Herb's comment made a lot of sense to me.
My dad bought a corvair (4 door) back in 1961 (when I was in 6th grade) and we drove it cross country (in the middle of winter) with the only problem being vapor locks in sub freezing climate. I learned to drive with it and continued to use it throughout college. I never experienced any situation that worried me or was dangerous in any way.
Same argument for three wheelers in the '80's. All it takes to make a recipe for disaster is the dumb ass who has no knowledge of what they're doing who tries to drive something like they're a pro racer.
The point that this car was fun to push in corners could may well have been the cause of more 'accidents'.
Freedomquest08
Three wheel mayhem
Russian roulette. .. with your spine...
I was going to make that exact point til I read your post..as an avid 3wheeler I ride a large ATV event in the spring and am approached regularly with the comment.."isn't that thing dangerous? weren't they banned?"
Yes they are, but so is your quad..but in the hands of an experienced 3wheeler operator they can do things a Quad can't and safely!! But it didn't stop the media from going on a torch & pitchfork rampage back in the 80s and having the 3wheeler banned from manufacturing!! So the moral is hold em if you got em.
History repeats itself again and again..and hey, whatever happened lawndarts?? I love those things!!!
Really the Corvair was sensitive to air pressure in the tires. It liked lower pressures, higher pressures would make it handle a little twitchy.
Actually GM started recommending lower air pressure only in the front tires to address the oversteer issue. The rear tires they recommended more pressure than the front.
Most (probably all) tail-heavy rear-engine cars specify much lower front tire pressures and higher rear pressures. Some, like Porsches, even use bigger tires on the back. I owned a 64 Renault R8 that called for some ridiculously low front tire pressure, about 20 psi as I recall, and about 36 in the rear. That sounded strange, but that little rear-engine car actually handled really well with those pressures, WAY better than my 61 Corvair. But even my 72 VW Microbus handled better than my Corvair. Working as an auto mechanic for 40 years I know for a fact that most drivers pay no attention to their tire pressures, which can really bite you when you aren't expecting it in a tail-heavy car.
I think there is some half-trues here. For starts, the part of Nader’s that dealt with the Corvair was not with the model itself, but to its first generation (1960-1963). This has a reason. The design of the car was supposed to include an anti-sway bar, which would shifted weight transfer, preventing from oversteer, but the company’s management voted against it to save costs. In 1964 it was offered as an option, and from 1965 it was a standard feature. But in between a 100 lawsuits concerning incidents with the Corvair (from where Nader started his own investigation), hurt the trust of the public by the time the problem was resolved. And no, a car that is not a sport car it’s no supposed to be always driven by expert drivers. The 1965 Corvair of the video wasn’t goin to roll, but its predecessors did...
"but the company’s management voted against it to save costs"
thats the point thats nader focused.
@@ungezognee Exactement, mon ami...
The car in the video is 62 if this video is the one you are referring to.
Shut up! Facts have no place in a RUclips comment.
TRUTHS. NOT TRUES.
OK. Nobody will see this comment since the video came out four years ago. I don't care. Just want to get it off my chest. 1) Nader, right or wrong with respect to the Corvair, had a hugely positive impact on the engineering of safer cars. We should be thankful for that. 2) I owned two Corvairs in my younger years. The first was a '65 two door that I paid $150 for. I could never get the rear wheels from splaying out and as a consequence I went through tires really quickly. It also leaked oil. However, I got run off a two lane road by a truck and slid broadside into the end of a guard rail. Maybe going 40 mph when I hit. I was shaken up but I didn't get hurt. My second was a '64 Spyder convertable with a turbo engine (1964!). It was a great car except that it, like my first, leaked oil pretty badly. The car was beautiful inside and out. I really liked it. To me, the leaky engine was the big problem, not the roll over. I'm not much of a fan of GM these days but I have to credit the company with its willingness to take risks and think outside the box: rear engine, air cooled, four-wheel independent suspension, turbo. Corvairs were leagues above Ford's Pinto.
In my senior year in high school, around 1977, while my older brother was in the Navy, I drove his 1969 Corvair convertible around. Late one night, while out with my buddies on the weekend, being bored and aware of Nader's comment, I decided to test the suspension. I performed a sharp turn and the tail end of the vehicle started fish-tailing. There was no recovering from it. The only random event that saved our lives was that the back end struck a tree after leaving the road and straightened the car right out. Broke the bell housing on the transmission and dented up one of the rear side panels but thank God we didn't roll. I believe Nader was right.
I bet your brother was pissed.
Mark Gramm maybe you weren’t old enough to know how to handle it. I had a 1964 in 1968 and tried it a number of times and just let it do its thing and recovery was easy, that’s why it was called oversteer. Most cars were designed to have understeer but there were a few that still had some oversteer.
@@kenswitzer4133 maybe but I doubt it. The '69 had these heavy milk bottle-sized canisters filled with some kind of fluid bolted into the 4 corners of the vehicle to aid in stability. An indication Chevy recognized a problem I think. But who knows?
Mark Gramm I understand. Guess my real problem is the VW had the same rear suspension and no one ever said a thing about the problems it had. With it being top heavy it was more prone to roll. I think nader killed a good idea. Rear engine and air cooled sports cars like the VW was a great idea. Much better gas mileage than traditional cars of the day. As for the dampers, they were used on the early Camaro convertibles also. Thanks for the reply.👍🇺🇸🤙😃
@@kenswitzer4133 having had many VWs, a Karman Ghia, a Transporter and a Fast Back, (I had the transaxle rebuilt on the Transporter) I quite agree they were awesome and I wish I still had them. One principle difference of note with the Corvair is that the driveshafts were terminated with Universal joints which are not true constant velocity joints which in my opinion was a failing in the design. But yes, rear engine is awesome! Thanks for bringing back the memory!
Being a air-cooled Porsche fanatic, the Corvair is simply amazing, flat-6 with horizontal fan and coil spring!
If fact, when I owned a air-cooled Porsche I found it less likely to roll-over, simply because its lower center of gravity. And yes, when handle it wrong it do spin.
It is funny that the air-cooled, flat/rear-engine, rear-wheel-drive layout has the world's most sold car, one of the best sport car series, and one of the 'worst' car in the world. And their basic design is almost identical.
air cooling change the center of gravity maybe by 0,00000001%
Ive driven a good few cars, but a 1964 Corvair was the first one I've ever bought, which was about half a year ago now. I love the car, I feel like I'm actually handling a vehicle rather than just sitting in a box and turning the wheel for what feels like every few minutes. Every second driving that car just feels right, it feels American.
Interesting. With an air-cooled rear engine, I can't think of a less-"American" car. And, in the '60s (and up until possibly the mid-'80s), driving a car that "feels American" - from a modern perspective - was far from a complement, but I think I know what you mean: a soft and isolated ride.
If you call this thing a "car! its an insult to all real cars.Of course a lot of people will claim it was the best car the ever had and all other drivers simply can`t drive! if the corvair was their best car im`asking them "why did you sell your model T ?
if you want a car to feel american, try driving an oldsmobile delta 88 or 98;
driving those are like driving your living room
@@Numantino312 with soft upholstered seats also
@@Paufit *PLUSH!*
My brother had a Corvair and he carried two 80 lb sacks of concrete in the front trunk.
He also mounted an aircraft landing light in the middle of the front grille….for those oncoming drivers who refuse to dim their headlights. He became a mechanical engineer.
Great video! VERY INFORMATIVE AND OBJECTIVE. We NEED MORE JOURNALISTS LIKE YOU.
We had a 1965 two-door burgundy Corvair. My brother and I decided to impress our dad by washing and waxing the vehicle. My know it all bro (who was 12 at the time) told me, after we applied the wax, that we had to leave it on in the sun for an hour. When we rubbed off the stuff, the paint came with it. Thank God my old man (RIP) was a reasonable guy.
Why do you make up stupid fantasy stories? Drugs?
"If you know what you're doing, it isn't unsafe". How many people out there with their license have an understanding of automotive physics and have won the Formula One World Championship? Cars need to be somewhat idiot proof, until they stop giving licenses to idiots.
That's how I feel about the Corvair. I think it would be a scary handler with a full load.. Just looking at the way it dips and swings with one person in the car. Slingggg shot city! Kinda like the first time I drove a minivan with 7 people in it ...certainly had to do some quick learning on how the car would react with the weight.
True. That’s why I tell my kids when they start driving that ‘ It’s not about just not panicking when you can’t stop for the car in front of you, it’s not just about avoiding hitting them by going for the ditch, it’s about being able to avoid a wreck, go for the ditch, go between the sign and the telephone pole to get to the ditch and hit the ditch so that you can use the banks of the ditch to come back onto the road. In other words, learn how to do more than just push the gas pedal and play with the radio.
I totally agree with you there are a lot of idiots that do not know their vehicle handling limitations and also to if you own a Corvair you have to read the tire inflation section but not many people followed the recommended tire pressures in the owner's manual I've driven one of these cars before when I was a teenager and follow the strict prudent Tire recommendations and also to it is not a car to Hot Rod with now if you want the Corvair to handle really good there was an old trick that we used to do was to put 2 50 lb weights up forward in the trunk and I guarantee you the Corvair will handle like anything you've never seen before but keep in mind of your driving ability and handling ability of this car.
Back then people did know how to drive.
@@ClassicStreetIron Nor now.
I've owned 3 Corvairs-stock, warmed-over, and mid-engine V8-zero one-car accidents.
In fact, zero accidents.
Are they reliable or not really? I hear everyone say there junk but there’s one I think looks sick near me
@@aceneto9386 My stock and warmed over Vairs were reliable.
My V8 took considerable work to become reliable.
I've owned 2 verts and had only one accident when the idiot friend of mine wouldn't slow down and he found how the steering swapped. We hit a dirt berm right next to a telephone pole, went up 45 degrees onto 2 wheels, and then settled down. No damage, but he never drove another one of my vehicles. LOL. One of my closest near-death exp.
@@aceneto9386 Belts, tires, and LOF were the only things I did to those vairs in 4+ years of driving.
Love all these comments. Growing up, we had both the turbo with the 4-speed and the Greenbriar van, also 4-speed. I think people make a fair point when they say you have to learn to drive them. Trouble is, when you buy a used car nobody's going to tell you stuff like that. Dad learned the hard way when he hit some railroad tracks on a curve and the car started to roll. Lucky for him, the bounce broke the motor mounts and changed the balance in his favor, though it left the motor and transaxle sitting on the railroad crossing. He came home that day with a 5-speed Datsun 510 -- the first brand-new car he ever owned and one of the most fun I've ever driven.
Great little car. I've owned several. Yes. The early corvairs had an inherent rear suspension issue. This was fixed on the 1965/66 model year with the addition of a true independent rear suspension. I've owned a couple of early monzas and corsas. They were a bit different to drive as opposed to the later models.
Understeer is considered safer handling for the general public, with some reason, but it seems to me that the way to reduce oversteer is with a front sway bar. It seems to me that if my 390 Mustang came with a pretty big front sway bar and no rear sway bar, (which I added partly because it would wear out the front tires in normal driving) that the Corvair should have come the same way, and if it had come with a big front sway bar, it could have kept the swing axles.
@@alan6832 A front sway bar does indeed induce more understeer tendencies, and GM did indeed leave it off to cut costs, which was a very bad move on their part, but the Bug DID have a front sway bar and STILL rolled over. Swing-axle rear suspension combined with a rear engine, just like the Corvair, but the Corvair is much faster than the Bug, 80 horsepower minimum vs 40 horsepower, so more likely to get in trouble.
@@michaelbenardo5695 Was the front sway bar big enough? or stiff enough? because in some cases short arms can replace fat diameters. Anyway, I feel that the right front sway bar could have replaced the double jointed axle better and cheaper, especially since swing axles have the advantage of maintaining better camber during hard corners.
The Mier rear sway bar, and tires, were the only major performance upgrade I made to my 390 Mustang and it was the right one, since I bought it with posi, a cam and big carb already. though I planned rear battery and electric fan. I thought a bit about fiberglass hood and aluminum radiator and intake, all for weight balance.
That does explain why Nader picked on Corvair and not bug though, bug had the sway bar.
@@alan6832 It was very small, probably too small to do much. The 64 did have a sway bar and a rear compensating spring, and it did not have the problems of the 60 - 63 cars, even though it still had swing axles.
@@michaelbenardo5695 Do they make aftermarket sway bars stiff enough to make it understeer like it should? though I suppose if one failed to combine it with softer springs, it would have a harsh ride in front. Is battery in front at least?
I had a 4 door Corvair in the early 60's and did a 180 4x in that and also rolled it down a steep grassy slope once. ...In all cases heavy rain was a factor and not speed ... the car was unstable to say the least. I was not hurt and surprisingly the car was not damaged in the slow roll over...amazing!.
It seems to me that, in slick road conditions, you'd want most of the weight over the steering tires. In slick conditions, wouldn't the weighted end always try to move ahead of the light end? But I'm no engineer.
I just bought a '60 4door 700. I'm restoring it at the moment. And I love every second I have my hands on it
You should buy 65 Mustang or some other muscle car.
We had several Corvairs around the time that I got my driver's license in 1976. They were fun to drive. I did have one spin completely around on me one day on dry pavement. I was just going around a corner in a small neighborhood. Kinda freaked me out. One day, while pulling out of a small parking lot, I missed the d/way and drove off the curb. The engine slammed down on the curb. It developed a small oil leak soon after that my father could not fix. I think he was broken hearted. He eventually sold it to a parts counter salesman at a Chevy dealer in Silver Spring, MD (or NW DC). He was able to fix the oil leak and was very happy.
THE CORVAIR WAS MY EDUCATION. WENT ON TO WORKED FOR G.M. WASNT A DEFECTED DESIGN. MUST HAVE THE CORRECT AIR PRESSURE IN ALL TIRES. 32 REAR 25 FRONT. AND MUST USE GOOD HIGH TEST FUEL. VERY NICE CAR. LOVED IT.
I had a lot of fun with the 65 standard engine, 3 speed. I was never aware of the need for high octane fuel. Is that something that came up years later. I never knew what the compression ratio was. 19 years old at the time!
Only thought that came to mind was whether Nader's car had bias ply tires on it when you tested it.
It definitely looked like that. I didn't really fear that the car would roll, but the tyres pop off the rims.
@@Timberwolf69 Which could happen if you let the tire pressures get too low.
@@61rampy65 Well, I don't know about thetyre pressure in this case, but the tyres were fractions of an inch away from leaving the chat...
I owned 4 corvairs. Great little cars. Better than my camaro. My 65 turned 16s in quarter mile and out ran a 440 cruiser for 35 miles. Thats another story.
My family took one with us to Costa Rica in the mid 80s. With all the missing man hole covers, pot holes, driving up and down mountains, we're still alive.
I love the Corvair. 😍
When I grew up we had a car much like the Corvair. Four doors, engine in the rear, questionable reputation: an old Škoda. But that Škoda made me the car geek I am today. Funny how ONE car can do that. 🤗
I have owned two Corvairs. They were excellent cars. They handled well, and were very fuel efficient. The only fault I found was they tended to leak oil at the front (rear of the car) main seal..I always thought it to be the way the cooling fan belt was designed. Other than that, If I could find a decent one, I'd consider buying one today.
I think the Corvair was and is a gorgeous car. I would LOVE to own one someday.
Lucky for you they are fairly cheap
I’m selling mine right now if you’re interested. I can link you the listing
Gotta find a Turbo version..
@@TheAceLewis hey can you send me that link
pizza with pineapple crust imma hit you with that link real soon. Gimme a day.
I owned two as a young man, a 62 2 door and a 64 convertible and as a typical kid, drove them spiritedly. At 70 I am still here today and wish I owned another.
*Nader* was a *lawyer?*
*THAT* just about explains *EVERYTHING.*
Majority of Politicians used to be Lawyers..
@@mikeskidmore6754 >>> *"LAWYERS. The LARVAL STAGE of POLITICIANS."*
@@Allan_aka_RocKITEman That's funny but sadly so true..
@@mikeskidmore6754 >>> I read that somewhere DECADES AGO, and I have never forgotten it....
I know, right? If you ever get in trouble with the law, don't hire one.
Another big issue was that the Corvair had unique tire pressure requirements to help with its bouncy back end and extra weight in the rear versus the front - which buyers just kinda didn't acknowledge.
These came later, when GM realized they had screwed the pooch. Nice way of offsetting responsibility to the consumer, GM.
Yeah that seems like an afterthought bandaid fix for bad suspension.
I owned a ‘62 back in college and the tire pressures where right there in the owners manual, pretty sure they would have been on the door too.
@@vermithrax-pejorative still, it's a half-assed measure that can get dangerous real soon.
@@8BRInteractive No they did not. Tire pressures were listed in the owner's manual AND RIGHT THERE on a decal stuck to the door of the glove box.
Will it kill you? It would have to start first. My dad didn't keep his very long and he punched a hole in the dashboard before getting rid of it.
@Rich Jake ?
@Rich Jake I can see that.
my dad had a 66. the only reason people were losing control was because they inflated the tires wrong
I remember my dad always looked under the car it had a constant oil leak
@@coolbreeze5561 well if you know it has one you check the oil level, not the leak
I love Corvairs. My dad bought a 1960 Corvair on the first day they were put on sale, in the fall of 1959. It was AT and all of 88 HP, but it was a great car to learn to drive in. I drove it, sometimes hard, on the highways and gravel roads of eastern Indiana and it never gave me a bit of uncertainty about how it was going to respond. :Yes, driven hard in corners, it would oversteer, and that was a good thing once you understood how to deal with it and what that could do for you. I loved driving that Corvair.
I give Ralph Nader credit for getting our legislators and automakers to start thinking about safety. I thank Hagerty for making this thoughtful video.
You conveniently forgot to include that it was Ralph Nader that is mostly responsible for that drop in fatalities because his actions led to seat belts being mandatory in cars.
Chevrolet management had already decided to kill off the Corvair a year before Nader’s book came out. A memo to Chevrolet Engineering in 1965 said “No new development work. Just do enough to keep up with the safety standards.” Also, the Corvair’s biggest problem had been fixed by 1964. Still, Chevrolet’s three biggest failures, the Corvair, Vega and Citation do show that Chevrolet was willing to push the envelope. The Citation did lead to the Oldsmobile Ciera, so it wasn’t a total loss.
@@captainmanic1959 They’ve also been show to put money above safety.
Love the back tires in the corners.
08:08, 08:28~08:31 | The rear wheels of the Corvair can clearly be seen bending toward a positive camber position and almost lifting off from the road.
This indeed could result in a roll over in the most extreme cases.
However, this can be corrected - at least partially, by having an extreme negative camber alignment for all 4 wheels while using very wide low offset wheels (et -25) coupled with low profile tires.
A good rollbar coupled with topline coilovers should also help in minimizing the risk of a rollover.
An engineer suggested an anti-roll bar but was rebuffed by GM management. He was the whistleblower who went to Nader.
I remember people talking about dropping a small V8 in the back seat and making it a mid-engine car. Always thought the Monza body style looked ahead of its time.
Great video - thank you. I grew up in that era and a friend's brother bought a few Corvairs, hopping them up. We all thought they were great cars. I too think that Mr Nader exploited the Corvair for sakes of a book. "Sacrificial Lamb" describes it perfectly.
Economical to own and purchase, being so good on gas consumption, it was ahead of its time for green conservation. And Nader killed it.
Actually, as much as anything else, it was GM's own Camaro that was responsible for killing the Corvair, seeing as how muscular pony cars had been coming into their own since 1964... Dart-GT, Barracuda, Mustang... all built by somebody ELSE. And, GM needed something to compete with the other makers. And quick. Ever notice how much a first generation Camaro resembles a '65 and up Corvair? Everyone keeps saying the Mustang killed the Corvair. Nope. GM themselves did it to put their eggs in the Camaro which owes its existence to the late model Corvair which unfortunately was occupying the same niche that the Camaro was being aimed at, and GM wasn't interested in Corvairs anymore after '66 and would have cancelled the Corvair in '67 if not for the hoopla with Nader's book, thus Corvair production continued through May of 1969 just to show everyone that they weren't running away... and to be able to say "In your face, Nader!"
Thank you Tony - I didn't know all of that. Interesting....
This lamb was sick, and mercifully was culled.
That was my first car - the 1964 version. Went through a quart of oil every 10 miles. "Fill 'er her up with oil and check the gas," I would say at every service station. My high school buddy had the turbocharged 150 hp Monza convertible version while mine only had 84 hp. He was always working on his too.
Andy, Dad was married to his 3rd wife in the early 1970's and that was a trip. She would put us all in the car 2 boys a 3 girls (hers) and off to town we would go. She would pull into a gas station and the attendent would come running out and ask what she needed. That's where the fun began as the look on his face and the shock when she said " I need some oral." So it went on like that with us kids laughing until she told us to tell him what she said " She said she needed oil." She always put an "R" in oil when she said it. LOL
My first care was a '62 Monza. Loved it. Hated its unquenchable thirst for oil, though.
@@grouchomarxist666, 1972 Ford Gran Torino, 2 door. Wish still had that car.
I loved my 63', I drove it 70- 80 mph down twisting gravel roads and could never understand everyone's fear of it.
The trunk must have been full of Moonshine!!
@@oldscout80 No I was just usually running late for work. These roads were very curvy because they followed property lines, many ducks and guinea hens lost their lives in those days sorry to say.
@@oldscout80 I'm afraid so.
My dad bought a 1967 4-door Corvair as our family car. In 1974, I took it over and drove it until 1982; gave it to a friend of mine with 225,000 miles on the OD. My friend fixed it up and the old Corvair became a show car. It was an awesome car. There were two things tho: the fan belt and the oil seal rings on the pusher rod tubes. Every 2,500 miles or so, the fan belt would break. And about every 3,500 miles, I had to replace the oil-seal rings (24 rings total) or just keep filling the car with oil. After a few years, I got it down to where I could replace the fan belt in about 10-15 minutes, and all 24 oil seal rings in about an hour. And thinking back, it wasn't all that bad. Never felt more in touch with a car since.
Back in the day, my buddy's dad had a gen 1 Corvair with the swing axles. We found out that if we floored the gas in a turn, and that thing would tuck its' outside rear axle, and if the forces were great enough, the tire would fold under far enough that the RIM would dig in to the pavement. When that happened, the rear end steered the car and if you got scared and let off the gas, the weight transfer would let the rear end rise. Then the front wheel would suddenly have too much weight to support with only 16lbs air pressure and things got ugly really quickly. He found out how to do it by waiting to turn left at a light, and when it was ok to go, he floored it while making his turn. Ended up almost crapping himself, but then just had to show us what it could do.
Had a Corvair Monza Spider many years ago. The handling was, IMNSHO, great. You just had to know how to drive, not just steer.
To the best of my recollection, the actual "over steer" crashes that I heard about as the result of publication, involved over inflation of the Corvair's front tires.
The 1965 Corvair switched to a semi-trailing rear suspension, which VW subsequently did in 1968.
Peter Dohm
...and under inflated rear tyres. Course a "camber compesator" would have fixed the whole issue. Porsche, Mercedes and Renault all used them. VW used a Z-bar in the late 60s-70s.
"Camber compensator?!"
Welcome to the 1950s. Try and keep up. ;)
spitlist.info/camber3d.pdf
Slow Learner Uh, okay, what normal people call a "sway bar?"
I had a '64 Corvair in High School (70's) for a while and never had a problem with cornering... loved sliding that thing around corners every chance I could get!!! Update to now.... am building a '65 Corvair with an LS4 in the back seat. When done it should be about 400hp in a 2400# car. Rack & pinion steering, modest street splitter up front and , small wing and defuser in back, ... looking forward to embarrassing a few Porches on track days!!!