This is the first that I have read of GM’s aborted plans to produce a Pontiac version of the Corvair.
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Slightly more attractive than the Corvair. Unfortunately much of the Corvair “problems” were due to the front/rear tire pressure difference that were usually ignored by owner. Too bad GM did not solve that problems before realeasing the Corvair. I still like the last Corvair generation.
+1, on all points.
The revisions to the Corvair’s rear suspension for the second generation essentially eliminated the limitations of the original version. But, even with the original rear suspension design, a lot of accidents could have been prevented if GM had properly posted the need for very unorthodox tire inflation pressures, rather than burying that info in the Owner’s Manual.
Even most Chevy dealerships inflated Corvair tires to 26 psi all around–just as they did with full-size Chevys–instead of the specified and extremely important 15 psi front/26 rear.
Very interesting, first ive ever heard of that, also.
Yes, at the Mobil station I worked at, every tire went out with 30 PSI.
Every once in a while TCM will run the 15 minute “Corvair in Action” (I think that is the title) infomercial, Corvair shown to be quite competent.
They could also have been prevented with a rebound travel limiter on the rear suspension. The swing axle was used on a lot of cars of that era. It was reasonably well known and there were fixes available but GM chose not to use them.
The Pontiac Tempest was a weird version of that platform in many ways… The rear transaxle with the “rope drive” steel driveshaft, the “half a V8” cement mixer of a 4 cylinder and the V8 version of the car with that silly driveshaft.
The Olds and Buick versions were far more reasonable and the engine spawned two icons in the automotive world… the Rover V8 and the GM 3.8 liter V6 to become the 3800 Series V6.
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Yup!
The brother of a friend had a '61 or '62 Tempest, and that thing “ate” rear tires at an incredible rate. After ~10k miles, the “inner” surface of the tread would be bald. I suspected that he needed to replace the rear shocks, but instead of doing anything with the suspension, he chose to replace the tires at least once each year. As you mentioned, that “half a V-8” was a nasty little mill, with a rough idle and a lot of noise and vibration, even at highway speeds.
My most vivid memory of that weird little POS was riding along the NJ Turnpike, as a passenger. Suddenly, there was a LOT of noise coming from the instrument panel, and I saw the speedometer needle slowly oscillating back & forth between zero and 120. It then proceeded to oscillate faster and faster until something snapped and it rested–permanently–at zero.
Thank God that it didn’t have one of those new-fangled electronic speedometers! You know… one of the “gadgets” that are prone to breaking–unlike the purely mechanical devices from “The Good Old Days” that never break 
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I guess I owned our corvair for about five years. Had a lot of fun with it in the snow. Had the repair manual but I never recall knowing about the air pressure differential. Without reading the article, I disagree that the Pontiac would not appeal to a younger sportier crowd. Most of the folks I knew with corvairs fit that description. Even the ones that had them as second or third cars thought they were fun little cars. Not everyone likes to drive on two wheels or 90 mph. At any rate, that Pontiac version is ugly and would not have competed well, imho.
I forgot to add that he needed to replace the timing chain a couple of times. Possibly the result of those engines being inherently unbalanced??
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I found this info about the Tempest in an online Corvair enthusiast forum:
On paper, it looked like Pontiac had achieved all the advantages Chevy sought in the Corvair without the rear-weight bias and complex engineering. How did they do it?
*With rope drive! Yes, the Tempest used a flexible, curved driveshaft that gently arched beneath the interior to lower the drivetrain tunnel. In principle, the driveshaft worked like a big, thick speedometer cable. And to make the drivetrain tunnel even less intrusive, Pontiac stuck the transmission in the back of the car, in unit with the differential. So, like the Corvair, the Tempest had a transaxle in the rear. *
*The engine remained up front. And what a strange engine it was! Like the successful Chrysler slant six, the Tempest Indy Four was an in-line engine, leaned over toward one side. Unlike the Chrysler six, which was engineered from scratch, the Indy Four was simply a Pontiac 389 V-8 chopped in half. *
*If you take 389 cubic inches and divide by 2, you get 194.5. And that was exactly the size of the Tempest Indy Four: 194.5 cid. This was the biggest four cylinder car engine offered anywhere in the world. *
- Like most really big fours, the Indy Four vibrated badly. Even DeLorean admitted that the Tempest “rattled so loudly that it sounded like it was carrying half a trunkful of rolling rocks.” That’s where the Tempest miracle began to unravel.*
The Tempest not only had a loud buzzy engine. It also had swing axles. Ironically, the Tempest’s rear suspension was a virtual duplicate of the early series Corvair suspension that DeLorean despised. And to make matters worse, Tempests came exclusively with skinny 15 inch tires. Ostensibly, the large diameter tires gave “greater ground clearance and better tire wear”, but they also raised the center of gravity. So Tempests didn’t stick to the road very well.
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A friend drove a Tempest and it was a good car. It was also a second generation, the one that spawned the GTO. It was a white coupe with an auto transmission. I don’t recall whether it has the 3.8L I-6 or the 5.8L V8.
They used plastic timing chain guides in that miserable little engine. The guides would wear out or break, and the chain would bang against the timing cover and destroy itself.
Pontiac probably wanted to fix the dangerous rear drive train and GM probably said no
Was this the model they used the infamous ‘rope’ drive-shaft on?
I recall reading some years back what a HOOT driving that thing was.
Replacing a speedometer drive cable was cheap and easy and could have been prevented with a little lube.
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3.5 L I-6… 215 cubic inches. A pushrod motor identical to the Chevy. I owned a 64 Tempest as my first car. Pontiac offered an engine halfway between the 196 Chevy II and 230 cid used in the Malibu for some odd reason. The 230 OHC wasn’t offered until 66, I think.
Or 5.3 liter V8, 326 cid was the small V8 engine until 68 when it grew to 350.
Yes that is what they called it. That model has a history… since the 24 hours of Daytona is on as I type this…
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Yes, the second generation Tempest was a decent car–unlike the first generation Tempest.
That is true. But, I have never heard of this happening with a car that had less than 30k miles on the odometer.