Quote:
Originally Posted by Nickshu
It's nice to see that 50 years later the truth about the Corvair is starting to become more widely known outside of those of us who own and love the cars.
Also Ralph Nader has owned several Corvairs actually. His 1962 was recently sold to a collector in Michigan.
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Some misunderstanding in this thread.
The Corvairs that Nader "owned" were
donated to his Museum of Tort Law, not to him personally and he never bought one/drove one himself.
If anyone has actually read "
Unsafe at any speed," you will know the book is an
indictment of the entire auto industry, not of the Corvair alone. The early Corvair accounts for only one of eight chapters in the book, but is the first chapter and that is the one the media pounced on when the book first came out.
Everything he recounts about the Corvair is correct, especially about the budget minded decision not to equip the cars with front anti-sway bars, rear camber compensators, and to recommend low, out of spec front tire pressures (12-15 lbs.) which made the tires overloaded and unsafe if two or more passengers were in the car.
Even John DeLorean, GM General Manager at the time, agreed that Nader's criticism was correct.
Nader did not kill the Corvair by himself, but timing is everything. The car had always been a niche vehicle and was costly to produce vs the other cars in the GM line. It had already been decided that little, if any new developments for the car would be made after the '66 model and the car would be phased out. Chevy did no advertising for the Corvair after '67. His book came out just when the car had been redesigned and some of the safety issues had been addressed. Further, Ford had come out with the Mustang, and Chevrolet was looking to capture the economy market with more traditional cars, the Chevy II, Chevelle, and a sporty car to compete with the Mustang--the Camaro. Put these factors together and sales drop by half, and the fate of the Corvair is sealed.
BTW, the first car I ever owned was a 1963 Corvair Monza, 4-speed. Loved it.