All Corvairs of every version were flat air cooled 6 cylinders. The cars, the truck and the van. 2.6 liters pushing a van back in the 60s is gonna be sloooooow.
I had to look that car up! Pretty good looking Renault based on a Dauphine. I don’t think I have ever seen one in person.
Back in the '60s, I occasionally saw them in NJ. They were nice-looking, but–just like with the Dauphines–after a few years most were sidelined by rust issues, coupled with mechanical problems and poor parts availability.
After the Dauphine, Renault introduced their “8” model, which was based on the Dauphine platform, but with a very different, more modern body style:
One of the selling points was that it had an optional electrically-shifted manual transmission–essentially Renault’s version of an automatic trans. It was a resounding failure, and they sold even fewer model 8 cars than they had sold Dauphines. I would be very surprised to see one of these cars still around–and functional–today.
I JUST saw a Dauphine at a Cars and Coffee held by the museum I volunteer for. A Gordini special performance edition. I have seen Dauphines and R8s and R9s before. But never a Caravelle.
Side note; Renault used 3 bolt wheels in those cars. 3, not 4 or 5, just 3. Nearly the only cars to do that. The French copy no one… and no one copies the French!
The Greenbriar I drove at work was a manual. The stick was at least 2 feet long and curved. It felt like the stick was bending any time I changed gears, especially going into 3rd.
Renaults rusted out quickly, grossly underpowered. The wheel bolt patter was nuts.
I grew up near the University of Minnesota, moved there when Bob Dylan was living in our neighborhood. There was nearly every car made could be seen. Citroens, Renaults, MGs, Triumphs, even saw a Morgan. Just about every motorcycle brand too, my brother had a 250CC Zundapp, another brand for you to search😀
I did and found that Zundapp made a car, the Janus, as well as bikes and scooters. I have seen a Zundapp bike somewhere. Considering they closed on 1982, it is a rare brand.
If a Janus exists in the USA, I’d bet the Lane Motor Museum in Tennessee has one, or 2 or… Lane loves small weird cars!
And they DO!
And their first year - Motor Trend gave them the title of “Car of the Year”. Another dog they picked (or actually paid) to be car of the year.
I guess another reason I don’t subscribe to motor trend or car and driver anymore.
We had a few Isettas running around the campus:
A lot of 2CVs, usually at sorority houses!
Citroen 7Cs were common around Saigon.
The museum in Naples I volunteer for just got an Isetta donated to them. Not sure about the year but it is a LHD, 4 wheel model and I think it is a 300. Painted green.
Leftovers from the French involvement, most likely.
Yes, there were still French there when I was there.
Funny thing, we could not take photographs on the flight line, in comes an Air France 747, all the passengers were snapping photos as they deplaned.
Back to Chris’ comments about tire pressures,
my car faces south, I have checked the tire pressures at 11AM, drivers side , warmed by the sun, can be 2-3 PSI greater than passengers side. Drive a few miles, all pressures even out.
Re: Sunnyside!
Of course, leave them alone.
Only once, in a rare emergency situation, I checked tires on a sunnyside car. It was 7am, summer, and my neighbor’s car was getting hit on the passenger side good.
I set driver side tires to +1psi over door placard value(sun has been up a while) and pax side tires 2psi higher than drivers side.
Next(EARLY!) morning, approaching twilight, all four tires matched, about a hair over door placard…
BUTTER!
I used to occasionally see an Isetta, back in the late '50s-early '60s, and–of course–the first thing that came to mind was… how would you get out of that thing in the event of a front-end crash? But, I imagine that the chances of surviving a crash in that little egg were not good, so…
All of the Isettas that I saw were made by BMW, and it was only many years later that I found out that the basic Isetta design was made by several manufacturers.
I discovered the tire gauge I’ve been using for years was reading about two pounds low. I’m not about to pay $50 or more for a dead acurate gauge so I bought a new $10 one. Same thing. So I just noted that on the back as a reminder and look at the tpms instead.
I’d rather have a low-reading than a high-reading gauge, by no more than 1psi of course.
A low reader means you’ll overinflate tires slightly. I’d prefer that to a scenario where I’m consistently underinflating things.
I have a list of tires to stay away from, and No. 1 is general. Out of four, two had separated cords within one year. Needless to say, its warranty is not worth paper it’s printed on. No. 2 is pirelli. Had them installed once, and the car started wondering all over the road @50+ mph. Swapped them with Michelin the same day, and never had that issue again.
I’m on my second set of generals with nary a problem. Molded in USA I believe.
Now do they still make uni royal, bf Goodrich, or whatever they sold at target or the farm store in the evening never seemed the greatest. Biased back then.
Pun intended. Computer changes second to send. Sheesh.
I can only speak of my personal experience. I have no reason to be bias simply because I couldn’t care less. Both of my 4Runners have KO2’s, my Rav4 Hybrid still runs on factory tires. I can’t even count how many tires on how many vehicles I’ve had over the last 40+ years, and only two “brands” turned out to be outright garbage - general and pirelli. And I don’t care where it is molded.
This tire thing is sure sounding like a “What’s the best oil” thread.
