The Corvair’s engine hung out behind the rear wheels to a very great extent, while all of Ferdinand Porsche’s rear engine designs had the engine located essentially right over the rear axles.
Proper tire inflation was critically important with Corvairs, and the specified inflation was…unconventional.
In an era when every other car with which Americans were familiar had very strong understeer, and were somewhat forgiving if you didn’t precisely maintain the recommended tire pressure (usually 26 psi, all around), GM specified–IIRC–18 lbs in the front and 30 lbs in the rear for the Corvair, and failure to use those pressures resulted in the aforementioned “tuck-under” and a vicious tendency to overrsteer. (I could be “off” a bit with those inflation numbers, but the differential in specified pressures between front and rear was both unusual and…drastically different from front to rear.)
And, the biggest problem with those unconventional tire pressures is that they were mentioned ONLY in the Owner’s Manual, which–as we and GM know–most folks simply fail to read.
With a car that had somewhat unconventional handling to begin with, and whose handling could be downright dangerous if the correct tire pressures were not maintained, it behooved GM to do something additional, such as placing a sleeve on the sun visor with tire inflation information.
Since they already used sleeves of that nature for something as benign as heater operation, they certainly could have used something similar to make people aware that their new Corvair required tire pressures that were drastically different from every car that they had owned previously. Surveys even found that the vast majority of Chevy dealerships were unaware of the critical nature of those unconventional tire pressures for Corvairs. When asked what pressures they put in Corvair tires prior to delivery, almost all Chevy dealerships responded that they used the same tire pressure in all Chevy models.
Re: Rear engine Corvair’s reputed instability problem
The journalist who made the 5000 mile cross-America trip in his 1960 Corvair, Mr Glover, he tells in his article how pretty much every gas station he’d pull in to to fill up, somebody would walk over and remind him that his car was a “death trap”. His experience however was that the Corvair was quite stable, and the only time he had to be a little careful was driving on gravel roads when it was wet. In that situation he did notice the rear end tending to want wiggle a little coming out of turns. His solution: don’t step on the gas quite as much.
With respect, all three vehicles, the 912s, VW Beetles, and Corvairs had the engine behind the differential. The only difference in the amount they hung over the rear axle was the two added cylinders in the Corvairs. However, the Corvair also had a 108" wheelbase with more weight forward of the rear axle, as opposed to the Porsche’s 88.8" wheelbase and VWs 94.5" wheelbase. The Porsche’s weight distribution was 58.1 rear 41.5 front, while the Corvair’s was 60 rear 40 front, and was improved as it progressed to 1965 (its last model year).
All of these cars suffered the same foibles. Porsches were famous for understeer and for spinning. And all, if pushed to their limit, were subject to the rear axle tucking under. Nader expounded on the Corvair in his book because it was American made. Sway bars and a lower Cg did make the Porsche more stable and less likely to tuck, and the Beetle’s very low power made them hard to push beyond their stability limits, but all three had very similar chassis design weaknesses.
A 1960 Corvair would be lucky to make it cross-country when it was brand new…But most states will issue a “Temporary Registration”" allowing you drive it to another state…
By the time you get this “classic” back to England, it will be the most expensive Corvair ever built…One nightmare after another…
Sports car?? That’s a laugh…They were econo-box death traps. If they didn’t flip over, then the heater / defroster “system” would certainly kill you…But right at the end, they made a few Spyder models that were respectable…
I was surprised the Corvair made the trip at all, let alone made it without any issues at all apparently. The magazine article explains that this particular Corvair was a trailer queen apparently, shown at car shows, seldom driven. And before the 5000 cross country trip a couple of fellow Corvair enthusiasts here in the USA took pity on the poor British journalist & basically took the engine and transmission apart and put it back together, replacing anything that was a wearing item and replaceable. So functionally it was pretty much as close to a new Corvair as you’d be likely to find.
Actually I liked my 61 Corvair. I paid $150 for it out of a barn yard. So it was a barn find. Not in the barn but outside in the weeds. Took a little work to get it road worthy again but it was a fun car. Sold it for $100 in '76 to our builder and wish I still had it.
This is the first time I ever saw a reference to a Corvair as a sports car. It was Chevy
s compact car for 1960, made to compete with Ford Falcons , Plymouth Valiants. Never mind that Rambler, Studebaker Lark, Kaisers Henry J and Allstare, Hudson Jet and Willis Aero had all beaten them to market. The big 3 ignored the independents as if they didn’t exist.
They made a big mistake when they treated the imports the same way.
The only problem with the Corvair was that it oversteered when Americans were used to cars that understeered.
The best description of the difference is that with understeer you leave the road front end first when you lose it. With oversteer you leave the road rear end first.
The very best race drivers prefer cars that slightly oversteer. They are slightly faster but require much more skill to control. The rest of us meer mortals prefer understeer.
If you watch Nascar, push is understeer, loose is oversteer.
So…he got the car registered and insured, and drove it on old plates, assuming “nobody more than one state over can tell the difference?” That’s basically how I got a motorcycle from Carrizozo, NM, to Pittsburgh. You do NOT want to get busted w/o insurance, or with a car you cannot prove is yours…but driving a car w/o valid plates is a much lesser offense.
Heck, plenty of states give you 7 days (or similar) residency to get the car plated. Did that, too: bought a car in Florida, found out that state wanted MORE for a plate than I paid to buy it(!), so I made damn sure I was across state lines at midnight on day 7. Made it all the way to PA before I got stopped, (for no plate, plus speeding) a mile from home…went to court, showed I had been in PA for less than a week, and left FL less than a week after purchasing the car, and got out of the “no plate” charge! (Had to pay for speeding, though.)
I always enjoyed driving my dad’s Corvairs too, and the only problem I ever had was when trying to bust through snow banks… it would ride over the snowbank on its belly pan! But I was young and foolish, so I thought it was fun. I used to make a lot of trips to Plymouth, 75 miles away on the interstate, to hang out at my brother’s college (he was a student), so I also had lots of highway time in Corvairs. I liked them. I liked the more-oversteer-than-usual handling and never felt in danger of having a control problem.
I’ve never heard them called sports cars either. I always thought of them as economy cars. They were designed to compete with the imported econoboxes of the era, including air-cooled VW Beetles, and I still feel that they were great cars for their “class” that got a bad rap. I would even say that my dad’s '61 Corvair was a more capable car that my '61 Beetle. They were not sports cars, nor family cars, just economy cars. Nothing more, nothing less.
you can use american size plates in England as well
"All number plates must meet standard size for lettering and style (with the exception of imported cars that were not designed for UK plates and have a functional reason for not using standard size plates). Certain imported vehicles may be permitted to display number plates with smaller characters if: The vehicle does not have European Community Whole Type Approval AND the vehicle’s construction/design cannot accommodate standard size number plates".
Youtube has the Cosby videos on 200 mph cars. I had trouble understanding it so stopped soon, but ti’s there.
SAAB raced competitively with FWD cars. Check it out.
I remember reading back in the 60’s before I went into the Army that they, the SAAB racing team, developed a way of taking corners full throttle with the brakes on, to get the under/over steer on the FWD the way they wanted it. Those were my insane years in the car, and I tried it on my '53 Chevrolet and it actually helped, though my car wasn’t FWD.
Several of you are clearly thinking, “You were nuts.” Yep, that was me in those days. Guilty as charged, your honor.
Never hit anyone while driving like that. Never put a car in the ditch. Thinking back that makes no sense. I clearly had psi powers, no?
I used to drive 70 mph on winding gravel roads. And, that was absolutely as fast as I could drive in those conditions. Of course, there were corners I took at 70 on gravel that the Big Boys insisted no one could make over 50 mph.
I had an older brother who talked about driving 100 or 120 on those roads, and like an idiot, I believed him and wondered how it was possible. Years later, it came over me. All those years driving like that on those roads ONLY ONE PERSON EVER PASSED ME! Which means only one person that I ever saw ever drove faster there than I did. At that moment, I realized he was simply lying, and probably did not drive as fast as I did.
