I for one had no problem with large trunk or hood panels. Holy cow, we’d put all our luggage for a trip, fishing gear, and an outboard in the trunk and close it too. The 59 Chevy styling to me was among the best of GM, and maybe the 61. The Pontiacs and Olds of 59, 60 and 61 were impressive too.
I believe she was an electrical engineer though not a mechanical so hope that will still apply. I still believe styling is an extremely important part. Problem was the accountants took over thinking they could suck more money out based on their market share-and it eventually back-fired on them.
And actually, there was nothing wrong with the Corvair. I owned one and it was a fun car.
“And actually, there was nothing wrong with the Corvair. I owned one and it was a fun car.”
@Bing…I owned a couple of Corvairs and if you drove them slow…there was no problem. If you drove them fast around a curve…they would wind up in a ditch.
@Dagosa…I owned a '63 Corvair with automatic transmission and it was fairly easy to drive slow. I traded it for a '63 Monza Spyder with a 4-speed transmission. It was very hard to drive it slow…for me anyway.
I heard the same kind of thing said in the mid-1990s. The domestic automakers all claimed they were finally making good cars. And they were only partially correct, because there were plenty of crappy domestic cars built in the mid-1990s, and since.
Another past GM mistake . . . in my opinion . . . was to let Saturn lose its way, to the point that it wasn’t needed anymore. I clearly remember when the Saturn division was introduced. The platforms and engines were not shared with other GM products, if memory serves. Unfortunately, the “good times” did not last, and in the end a Saturn was virtually indistinguishable from a Chevy, Pontiac, etc.
No offense intended to any Aztek and previous generation Impala fans . . . personally, I rather liked the look of the previous Impala.
Hopefully the new GM top dog will try her best to make sure the company stays on the right path and doesn’t have any more relapses . . . Pontiak Aztek comes to mind (from a styling point of view), as well as the previous Impala, which was perceived to be a car so boring, that only Hertz, Enterprise, Budget, etc. actually bought them
On a positive note, it appears that GM may have rolled a strike with the 2014 Impala
“The platforms and engines were not shared with other GM products, if memory serves. Unfortunately, the “good times” did not last, and in the end a Saturn was virtually indistinguishable from a Chevy, Pontiac, etc.”
You can thank the GM beancounters for that. It drove them nuts that Saturn’s architecture wasn’t shared by other GM divisions. After letting them be independent for a while, the manager was “promoted” and a “company man” was installed, who promptly forced a switch to other common GM platforms. Thus, Saturn’s uniqueness was gone, as were it’s loyal customers. Although they’re disappearing, the early, unique Saturns were popular amongst Stage Rally racers.
My dad owned a Corvair. I liked it. It was easy to work on, and I thought it handled well. Up here, there’s someone who runs a late model Spyder in SCCA vintage division. That thing really scoots, although he’s starting to have problems finding parts for it.
Ah, yes, Saturn: another good idea bled to death by the bean counters. My friend the retired machinist/gearhead/cheapskate buys old Saturns for $1000 and drives the snot out of them. He likes them because they have timing chains instead of belts.
In the early days, they were the experts are literally everything automotive. They knew more about each component than the component manufacturers did.
But that changed - and they didn’t change with it. Instead, they developed a “Not Invented Here” attitude. A good idea that was invented somewhere else, wasn’t a good idea for GM.
Somewhere along the line, they realized they needed to change to survive. So long as things were going good, there was no pressure to change - while their competition kept trying to find ways to improve. There were those brought up with the idea that GM could do no wrong and they held things back. It takes a long time to change a management style within a company and GM is a perfect example of a company with a HUGE amount of built in inertia.
…aside from the need for an extra pair of CV joints and a decently designed rear suspension, both of which were finally included as of the 1965 model year. The '65s were incredibly good handling vehicles, but the ones built for the preceding 4 model years had a disturbing tendency to oversteer, and that tendency was exacerbated by incorrect tire pressures.
I don’t recall the exact tire pressure differentials for the original Corvairs, but I believe that it was something on the order of 16 lbs front & 28 lbs rear. IF a Corvair owner maintained the correct inflation pressure differential between front & rear, and if he was cautious on wet curves, he could keep himself out of trouble.
However, despite the urgent need for the correct inflation pressure differential on this car, the information was mentioned only in the Owner’s Manual, and there was no informational sticker…in the trunk…or on the door jamb…or in the glove compartment making owners aware of the critical need to maintain the correct differential in inflation pressures.
For a cost of…maybe…2 cents per vehicle, GM could have made a sincere effort to inform Corvair owners that their car needed inflation pressures that were totally diffferent from every other American car at that time. Even Chevrolet dealerships seemed to be unaware of this situation, and most of them inflated tires to 24 lbs in all 4 tires.
That failure to adequately inform people about the importance of the tire pressures on this car was a major oversight relating to the safety of the people who drove and rode in those cars. Cheaping-out on the design of the rear axle/suspension was understandable, but to not make a major effort to inform Corvair owners of what they needed to do in order to avoid oversteer (which was essentially unknown to drivers of traditional nose-heavy American cars) bordered on criminal, IMHO.
I heard the same kind of thing said in the mid-1990s. The domestic automakers all claimed they were finally making good cars. And they were only partially correct, because there were plenty of crappy domestic cars built in the mid-1990s, and since.
I’m not saying they will be either. The main point I was making…is that GM ADMITTED they made crappy cars. WE all know they did.
And them making the statement is actually GOOD. You can’t get by any problems you have if you don’t admit you have a problem. If you admit you have a problem…then you can put the resources to solving the problem. What I HATE are the companies that think they are PERFECT…and they shouldn’t change. Change means they have to admit they were WRONG.
I drove both '61 and '65 Corvairs when I was young (both owned by my dad). I learned to drive on the '61. The '61 used many of the same design approaches as did many other cars of the era, including the Porsche 356 and the VW Beetle. While dangerous by current standards, I don’t think the Corvairs were any more dangerous than other small cars of the era. The '65 was actually a great improvement, having abandoned the rear swing axles. But by then its name had already been tarnished.
I actually think the '65 design was a pretty decent car for the time.
Everone who believes that the federal government should be able to tax us more to bail out badly run private companies, raise your hands. What?" No hands?
Gm has a history of choosing an engineer as CEO and then choosing a finance guy. The engineer makes the great cars and the finance guy comes back 'round to straighten up the cost overruns the engineers create. The Design guys have lots of power but never the top jobs. GM lost its way in the 70’s and 80’s ( I worked there, I saw it firsthand) because they were so inbred in their management structure that they didn’t see or believe what was happening in California and the eastern states with Japanese imports. They only saw Michigan where everyone got a discount from one of the Big 3 so they only drove domestics. Heck, GM’s Roger Smith proudly proclaimed people would rather buy a used Buick than a new Honda. Yeah, in a state dominated by the UAW and domestic producer, sure they would. Everywhere else, not so much. Barra’s got the background to lead GM, but I wish her luck, she’s gonna need it.
When I think about GM’s management problem during the 1970s, I think about John DeLorean’s book “On a Clear Day You Can See General Motors”. He may have been right about the excesses and mismanagement of the GM bigwigs.
Mountainbike, what makes you think that the auto loans, or any of the loans at the time were primarily to benefit the companies? Millions more people would have been severely effected if the government did not step in to calm the economy in the USA. And by calming our economy, the world economy was stabilized a bit, too.
@bscar2, thanks for that clip. I hadn’t seen it before, but it was extremely informative and now I understand better why GM oroducts were so bad for so long. It was a completely upside down system: start with the goals, financials, etc, and the actual product was almost an afterthought.
Lutz said GM people were " prisoners of a stupid analytical system that prevented them from doing the right thing." Great quote that sums it up.
Instead of starting with " how can we build great cars that people will want to buy?" It’s shocking that management didn’t start with that question, and explains a lot of the schlock they churned out.
The question they asked themselves, is " how can I maximize the profit for this fiscal year". Let’s sell warranties, home loans and service they don’t need. Oh cars, that’s an after thought.
