Six Cars General Motors Didn't Need to Build

[Guest Magoo]

Even great car companies can get lost once in a while. Here are six colorful blunders in GM history.

Six Cars General Motors Didn't Need to Build | Mac's Motor City Garage.com

[Dave@Moon]

No X-cars?:confused: Coming on the heals of the Vega line, Pinto, and Omni/Horizon, those cars (Citation, Skylark, Omega, Phoenix) cemented small cars in the U.S. as the exclusive domain of "imports*" for the next 35 years (and counting).

*(made domestically or abroad)

[llskis]

Instead of a single car lets add a whole silly division they came up with--->Saturn. Stupid from the start and the taxpayers had to pay for it

at the end. Larry

[30DodgePanel]

Can't believe the Chevette didn't make the list, that was surprising...

[Guest my3buicks]

Lists like this are nothing more than someone's else's opinion. Worthless reading.

[Guest Magoo]

No X-cars?:confused: Coming on the heals of the Vega line, Pinto, and Omni/Horizon, those cars (Citation, Skylark, Omega, Phoenix) cemented small cars in the U.S. as the exclusive domain of "imports*" for the next 35 years (and counting).

*(made domestically or abroad)

Yes, the topic is ripe for sequels.

[smithbrother]

Who cares, every manufacture has made cars that didn't work.

That's just part of life. It may be fun to look at, but IMO doesn't mean it's gospel.

Dale in Indy

[Guest Skyking]

Just more worthless information by a writer. If some of these cars weren't built it's less that would be collected today.

[Guest marlin65]

I sure wish people would do their homework about the Corvair. It was not the only swing axle car being produced at the time, Porsche and VW come to mind. GM never lost a lawsuit involving the Corvair and in 1972 it was found to be perfectly as safe as any car of its day. By then it was to late. I sure get tired of hearing "Ralph this and Ralph that".Ralph is strangely silent about the current GM recall. What a lot of people don't know is that because of Ralph's rantings GM kept the Corvair in production 2 years longer. Lets take a look at the current garbage being produced today by every automaker, loaded with technical crap that eventually causes problems, every car looks the same etc etc. Ed a Corvair owner/driver in Florida

[D Yaros]

Hear, hear! Dave, a former Corvair owner/driver in WI.

[jeff_a]

Who cares, every manufacture has made cars that didn't work.

That's just part of life. It may be fun to look at, but IMO doesn't mean it's gospel.

Dale in Indy

I read that at one time there was a British locomotive maker that had a locomotive that hardly worked at all, but they still sold them because the company's sales department was extremely good.

[Rusty_OToole]

Every car maker comes out with new models all the time, never knowing if they will succeed or fail.

The Corvair gets panned but between 1953 and 1967 Chevrolet brought out 5 brand new cars - Corvette, Corvair, Nova, Malibu and Camaro. Every one was a smash hit except the Corvair.

A Broadway producer or a movie director who made 5 shows in 14 years, 4 out of 5 being hits, would be hailed as the biggest genius in show business. A batter who hit .800, the same.

Edited March 25, 2014 by Rusty_OToole (see edit history)

[Guest Magoo]

I sure wish people would do their homework about the Corvair. It was not the only swing axle car being produced at the time, Porsche and VW come to mind. GM never lost a lawsuit involving the Corvair and in 1972 it was found to be perfectly as safe as any car of its day. By then it was to late. I sure get tired of hearing "Ralph this and Ralph that".Ralph is strangely silent about the current GM recall. What a lot of people don't know is that because of Ralph's rantings GM kept the Corvair in production 2 years longer. Lets take a look at the current garbage being produced today by every automaker, loaded with technical crap that eventually causes problems, every car looks the same etc etc. Ed a Corvair owner/driver in Florida

I've done considerably more homework than you have, obviously, and I stand by my position 100 percent.

[avgwarhawk]

Can't believe the Chevette didn't make the list, that was surprising...

The Chevette was ok. I learned to drive a stick in a Chevette. Anyway, there was no place for your left arm when driving. There was no power at all. The distributor was buried under the A/C compressor. Made for additional work when tuning. It was the only car my father left the keys in the ignition hoping someone would steal it!

[Guest Skyking]

One way to look at this is if today's generation was buying cars back then, none of the manufacturers would have survived. Most of us did fine.....

[Guest Skyking]

Every car maker comes out with new models all the time, never knowing if they will succeed or fail.

The Corvair gets panned but between 1953 and 1967 Chevrolet brought out 5 brand new cars - Corvette, Corvair, Nova, Malibu and Camaro. Every one was a smash hit except the Corvair.

A Broadway producer or a movie mogul who made 5 shows in 14 years, 4 out of 5 being hits, would be hailed as the biggest genius in show business. A batter who hit .800, the same.

"LIKE"

[Steve Braverman]

Everything Marlin65 said about the corvair is 100% correct. With about two million units sold, it was hardly a failure.

[Guest cben09]

If all but 2 of the aircooled Chevrolets were bought back [1923],,,??,,

What happened to those 2,,,

If memory serves me,,,there was one at the Princeton Auto Museum

3rd row wey back on the left as viewd from the front door

All for now,,,Ben

[Rusty_OToole]

If all but 2 of the aircooled Chevrolets were bought back [1923],,,??,,

What happened to those 2,,,

If memory serves me,,,there was one at the Princeton Auto Museum

3rd row wey back on the left as viewd from the front door

All for now,,,Ben

I think Henry Ford bought one, and refused to give it back. Now in the Ford museum.

Supposedly all the engines were loaded on a barge and dumped in Lake Michigan.

[Guest Henry White]

What is wrong with the Corvair? Other than it being slandered by Ralph know-not?

I agree with Keith, someone's opinion and worthless reading.

My friend rode his Chevette sideways on I-495 one day when he got tangled up with, then pushed by a big rig. Has nothing to do with this thread, I just thought it remarkable that he lived to tell, and kept driving the car!

[Guest Henry White]

I've done considerably more homework than you have,

Really? How would you know?

[Marty Roth]

Let's try to keep it CIVIL...

and I really liked all of my Corvairs

sorry Magoo, but I have to disagree with you on this one

[Rusty_OToole]

As a Corvair fan I know there is a lot of false information about the car, and it was not as black as it was painted by certain parties. But, to look at it in a different way, the rear engine design was a dead end, obsolete the day it was made.

There had been several rear engine economy cars from Europe that were quite successful. But they all became obsolete the day the Austin Mini debuted in 1959. From then on it was plain that the best layout for efficiency and economy was transverse engine, front wheel drive .

Every up to date small car from then on was front drive front engine, none was rear engine.

I don't like Ralph Nader any better than you do but the Corvair was doomed from the start. It lasted 9 years which is a good long run. Let's be happy with that.

Edited March 26, 2014 by Rusty_OToole (see edit history)

[Bleach]

No mention of the "Cadillac" Cimmaron?

That had to be a major flop.

[Dave@Moon]

I sure wish people would do their homework about the Corvair. It was not the only swing axle car being produced at the time, Porsche and VW come to mind.

I sometimes think that more people have read critiques of Unsafe at any Speed than have actually read the book. Swing axels were a bad design. They were for all cars.

This photo is of an early Triumph Spitfire's swing axels doing exactly what you don't want a swing axel to do. The Spitfire got away with them for a while (like VW and Porsche did) because they didn't have enough horsepower to make this happen in typical driving circumstances. In 1966 the Spitfire design was given a coupe body and a 6 cylinder engine, creating a dreadfully awful handful of a car...the Triumph GT6 Mark 1. The tuck-under created by the new, more powerful engine was so severe that a Mark 2 versiopn was rushed into production ASAP with a completely revised rear suspension.

Swing axels plus enough horsepower is a formula for disaster. Corvairs had enough. Complicated by an inexpensive wheel design that allowed blowouts understress, this was a bad design. Playing with low air pressures to partially mitigate the problem instead of installing a $14 sway bar (which would have helped more, but not nearly as much as the 1964 suspension redesign) was a half-measure at best.

GM got what it deserved with the Corvair. It was a good car let down by design on the cheap, and could have been a great car if the 1964 design was the first design.

[5219]

I thought that the Corvair was a poor seller only in its last few years. My recollection is that they sold big numbers in the early sixties. It was a winner at the time.

The HT 4100 Cadillac V-8 deserves mention. It was a stinker on a par with the Vega. They sold lots of them at the time, and most of them were troublesome. These were the cars that drove America's upper classes into Lexus and Mercedes.

The Cimarron sold well for the first few years. It must have been profitable, since it was a tarted up Cavalier being sold at a Cadillac price. Once it got a V-6 and actually became a performer, GM killed it.

[30DodgePanel]

The Chevette was ok. I learned to drive a stick in a Chevette. Anyway, there was no place for your left arm when driving. There was no power at all. The distributor was buried under the A/C compressor. Made for additional work when tuning. It was the only car my father left the keys in the ignition hoping someone would steal it!

:eek: That must have been tempting for many a thief ...

I once stumbled onto a Lamborghini Countach with the doors wide open with keys in the ignition and yes, it was running and no owner in sight....

Beautiful car, black exterior with tan leather interior (did I mention it was running? ) on the side of a mountain during a midsummer night overlooking downtown Phoenix in 1986. I had one foot in the vehicle but heard a female voice saying in the back round screaming "WHAT ARE YOU DOING"? !!!!!

Needless to say, my better half talked me off that cliff and back into our classic 1984 Vette ... SHHevette that is... One of the few mistakes I've ever made in life.. well, besides the purchase of the Vette.

Funny you mention you learned on a stick Chevette. I was at a swap meet a few weeks ago and encountered the following:

During the early hours of the swap meet a rough biker gal in her 50's came around the corner in one (2 door, early 80s white) looking for a spot to park so she could begin selling items. I chuckled, smiled at my wife and the closest vendor who was smiling too and said to him jokingly "now that's old school" he replied, "old school ?, that thing is a classic" as he burst out in laughter... ahh, good times..

The funny thing was it died on her whilst it was in a slow roll, so she popped the clutch and it fired right up. In shock, the vendor, my wife and I all looked at each other with our mouths wide open. She smiled at all of us as if to say "you bet your a*# it's a classic" !

Some rides you just never forget.

[Guest prs519]

Without betraying the thread too much, find it astonishing what Detroit and satellite assembly plants WERE turning out, in the mid-sixties. I will use the products of Oldsmobile in 1966 to make my point. One did not go to the dealership to choose which options he might want on a couple of base models. No sir, picking your new Olds meant maybe choosing the new well engineered Toronado, said to be sort of a mechanical masterpiece. Or, maybe you feared the new-fangled, so you tryed out the true classic Luxury of the Olds 98. Too showy? Maybe we should get the mainstay Olds 88! if that is too docile, let us get the luxury muscle car, the Starfire. Still have the racer blood in you-- order up a 442, or maybe one of those very basic Jetfires, whose extra weight items were generally already deleted for you!. I believe they also built and sold a starlight station wagon and an economy car I do not recall the name of. Not sure if the F85 was still around, but is it not amazing that they built such a wonderful variety of truly different automobiles?. Oh, for a kid in love with cars -- it was the most happy of a decadent fantasy. Consider this list, were it to include the Buick, Pontiac, Chevrolet, and Cadillac offerings! Doesn't it make you sad that those days are gone? Were these cars all necessary? I do not know, but I am glad that someone thought they were.

[Guest my3buicks]

Is it really any different today? All those cars were either a stripped down version of something or a gussied up version of something, I believe the same still applies today.

[Rusty_OToole]

Without betraying the thread too much, find it astonishing what Detroit and satellite assembly plants WERE turning out, in the mid-sixties. I will use the products of Oldsmobile in 1966 to make my point. One did not go to the dealership to choose which options he might want on a couple of base models. No sir, picking your new Olds meant maybe choosing the new well engineered Toronado, said to be sort of a mechanical masterpiece. Or, maybe you feared the new-fangled, so you tryed out the true classic Luxury of the Olds 98. Too showy? Maybe we should get the mainstay Olds 88! if that is too docile, let us get the luxury muscle car, the Starfire. Still have the racer blood in you-- order up a 442, or maybe one of those very basic Jetfires, whose extra weight items were generally already deleted for you!. I believe they also built and sold a starlight station wagon and an economy car I do not recall the name of. Not sure if the F85 was still around, but is it not amazing that they built such a wonderful variety of truly different automobiles?. Oh, for a kid in love with cars -- it was the most happy of a decadent fantasy. Consider this list, were it to include the Buick, Pontiac, Chevrolet, and Cadillac offerings! Doesn't it make you sad that those days are gone? Were these cars all necessary? I do not know, but I am glad that someone thought they were.

Don't forget the "Turnpike Cruiser" Oldsmobile. A special option package for the Delta 88 aimed at maximum gas mileage on the hiway. You got a full size 88 sedan with 400 cu in regular fuel engine with 2 barrel carb, along with a very high rear axle ratio, in the 2's which was very high then.

It would whisper down the hiway at the legal limit (70) and deliver 20 MPG or better. The steam boat like torque of the big engine meant it had enough power for low speeds and hills despite the gear ratio.

10 years later all cars were set up this way in quest of better mileage.

I remember the F85 fondly, I had one with the 330 V8. Excellent car, one of the most durable and reliable ever made. Engine, trans, body, everything had it over the Chevelle like a tent.

You are right, in those days every car company offered a whole series of cars each with their own personality and features. You could custom build a car any way you wanted, just by picking the right options. Not like today when they make 3 or 4 cars and minivans and slap different emblems on them.

Edited March 26, 2014 by Rusty_OToole (see edit history)

[supersix]

I can't see where a '78 Buick Century Aeroback body style would be at the top of GM's list of failures.

[Dave Mellor NJ]

When the Vega came out Pontiac rebadged it as the "Astre". Then they had the Monza, famous for having to pull the engine to change the spark plugs. Pontiac followed suit with the Venture?. I think Olds and Buick also got into the act with their own versions. Somebody said the Corvette was a great success but let's not forget the plug came close to being pulled in the beginning. I think they only saved it because they didn't want to admit they were losing to the Thunderbird.

[smithbrother]

The V-8 saved the Vette, IMO.

Dale in Indy

[CarlLaFong]

Then they had the Monza, famous for having to pull the engine to change the spark plugs.

That's an urban myth. The plugs were a booger to change, but you didn't have to pull the engine. Removing the mount bolts and rocking the engine to one side did make it easier

[Guest Magoo]

I can't see where a '78 Buick Century Aeroback body style would be at the top of GM's list of failures.

It's not a worst list and there is no top. These are simply interesting GM product failures -- of many stripes.

[Guest Magoo]

Let's try to keep it CIVIL...

and I really liked all of my Corvairs

sorry Magoo, but I have to disagree with you on this one

There's nothing in the story intended to dissuade anyone from liking or enjoying their Corvair. The car is a fascinating and significant piece of automotive history.

People might take these critiques too seriously and too personally. Look at it this way: the worst car ever built is still a car -- will still likely take you from A to B, still has interesting features, still has appeal on multiple levels, especially for collectors. I've owned Corvairs. I could easily buy one today, if the right car at the right price appeared. Old saying in the dealer biz: there's an ass for every seat. Anyone who's worked a used car lot knows what I mean. The copper cooled Chevy was a total piece of crap, but what collector wouldn't want to own one? I know I would.

My story addressed one thing: the Corvair had a demonstrated safety defect that permanently altered the company's public image. That the car had a significant handling deficiency is beyond objective dispute. Look at the recommended front tire pressure: 15 PSI. That's screwed up. Case closed. Detroit would not and could not build such a car today. No engineer would sign off on it.

[39BuickEight]

Instead of a single car lets add a whole silly division they came up with--->Saturn. Stupid from the start and the taxpayers had to pay for it

at the end. Larry

Add Geo to that list. Then again, how many, literally hundreds, of oddball makers came and went in the prewar days? Not all GM companies, but still a ton of flops. Saturn and Geo did just well enough to keep themselves afloat too long.

Corvairs are neat cars in many ways, but I'd agree that GM "didn't need to build" them.

Edited March 27, 2014 by 39BuickEight (see edit history)

[Restorer32]

What do the actual statistics say about early Corvair crashes?

[Rusty_OToole]

"People might take these critiques too seriously and too personally. Look at it this way: the worst car ever built is still a car -- will still likely take you from A to B, still has interesting features, still has appeal on multiple levels, especially for collectors."

Optimist. You probably aren't familiar with the Pontiac Firenza, a GM product of the seventies that gets my vote for the worst car ever made. It is the only car I ever heard of that had an owner's club formed specifically to seek redress from the manufacturer. They once staged a protest rally in Toronto that ended in a parade to GM headquarters in Oshawa, 30 miles away. Less than half the cars made it. Most of them broke down on the way, and 4 caught fire.

I nominate it as a car that has no interesting features, no loyal owners, no appeal to anyone on any level, and no collector interest.

By the way this is the first Pontiac Firenza, which was a Vauxhall product made by GM in England. Later they used the name on a J car which was merely boring.

The Firenza is to the Corvair as the Yugo is to the Porsche.

[avgwarhawk]

Add Geo to that list. Then again, how many, literally hundreds, of oddball makers came and went in the prewar days? Not all GM companies, but still a ton of flops. Saturn and Geo did just well enough to keep themselves afloat too long.

I owned a 93 Geo Storm 5 speed twin cam. Great car. Drove it to 100K with nothing but a T-belt change, front brake pads and a set of tires(at 70K). I gave it to my sister-in-law and she drive it another 50k. Mechanically a good car. The earlier GEO not so much. Looks were ok for the time.