1967 Corvair advice

[padgett]

Good decision. The later ones also had a larger engine.

[rocketraider]

Local Rotary club did a show yesterday and a nice 64 convertible showed up. A young friend (21) went with me and the 'Vair caught the boy's eye. Had to explain Corvairs to him and when I said some were turbocharged his eyes really lit up. He wants a 67-69 Barracuda but Corvair intrigues him. 

 

My texts were full of beastly Corvairs this morning! He had found the Fitch, several auto-x cars, turbo, four barrel and multiple carb setups.

 

Nader's real gripe was that GM management had blown him off and snubbed him. Never understood why he didn't go after swing-arm VWs when those had the same handling quirks and were outselling Corvairs exponentially.

 

I've always thought the early-60s Y-body cars were GM's last stab at truly advanced engineering. Then along comes Nader. GM has never been that adventurous again except for when trying to satisfy government mandates, and even that was uninspired.

[76 Caddy]

When I was researching Corvairs I too wondered why Volkswagen got away with it.  Was Nader afraid of the Germans?

 

Tim

[padgett]

Mainly because Nader was after GM and not VW (which is mentioned as an aside on page 15). The real issue is why did GM take so long to add a camber compensator which was common. The probable reason is that except for some european and racing tires, the grip of the stock tires in 1960 were, well, terrible. GM knew about the handling characteristics of rear engined cars in the 50s (see pages 15 and 16) bit in stock form and with a 10psi difference between front and rear, there wasn't a problem. Of course it is unamerican to check tire pressure (or oil).

 

The rear problem came when people found that the Corvair made a great rally car and started adding Michelin X or Pirelli Cinturato ties which had much better grip and ignored the recommended tire pressures since in a hard corner 16 psi in the front did not work. Unfortunately adding A Lot of grip in the front underloaded the rear and Bad Thing happened. Camber compensators were common among enthusiasts early on but the factory did not add until 1964.

 

That said my 65 Corsa dominated F/S autocrosses in the midwest and racing Yenko Stingers have always done well. Even the 62 Spyder (150hp) added axle straps to limit travel but not for stock cars.

 

ps a larger, 164 cid, engine was introed for '64 but the 4 carb Corsa was '65