Chevrolet Corvair-A Most Unusual Car

Up to the 1950s most cars made in America were large. It wasn't until the imports from Europe such as the Volkswagen and Renault made the U.S. auto manufactures aware that there was a market here for smaller cars. Even though it was thought they would be for a second car or for the budget conscious, the main auto makers decided to bring out a smaller or compact car in 1959 or 1960.

Most of their designs were just smaller versions of their standard cars. They were designed for 4 or 6 cylinder engines rather than the V-8s and the bodies would be about 20% smaller than conventional cars. Chevrolet decided to be the exception to this thinking with the Corvair. Chevrolet General Manage Edward N. Coles led the design to come up with a revolutionary new automobile. The Corvair project was begun in 1956 and the car debuted in 1959 for the 1960 sales year.

The engine for the Corvair was an all aluminum air cooled horizontal design with six cylinders. It was mounted in the rear and drove the rear wheels through a small automatic transaxle. All four wheels had independent suspension and there was no frame as the Corvair was the first Unibody build by the Fisher Body company. Even the tires had a new design with a new low and wide profile.

The styling was completely new for Detroit, as the Corvair had no tailfins and of course no chrome grill. It was described as subtle and elegant. The engineering earned a number of patents and many European auto makers copied its styling. It was on the cover of Time Magazine and named 1960 Car of the Year by Motor Trend Magazine.

Even with all this the Corvair couldn't dominate the market. The unique design made producing it expensive and many of its competitors were more economical to drive. Because this was billed as an economy car these weaknesses were a major obstacle to great sales figures.

The first designs were a sedan and a coupe with low engine power and a very plain trim level. The base model Corvair engine had 140 Cubic Inches and 80 Horsepower. In comparison to later years the 1960 production was not too bad as they sold 250,000 cars of which 12,000 was the new Monza Coupe which had been introduced later in the year.

The Monza coupe was possibly what saved the Corvair from an early grave. Designed as a show car the Monza was a very sporty car with its bucket seats and floor shifter. It proved to be so popular that it was immediately put into production. It was available with a 95 HP engine and a 4 speed transmission. In 1961 Corvair sold 282,000 cars of which 110,000 were Monza coupes and another 34,000 were Monza sedans. What the sales figures would have been without the Monza is a good question.

I remember when the Corvair came out and some of the problems it had. The ones I remember most was the oil leaking and the fan belt breaking along with head gaskets leaking. These problems were fixed in later models and the Corvair became a fairly reliable car.

1962 saw a number of changes in the Corvair line as they had a dozen different cars and trucks. The most exciting news for us car nuts was the Monza convertible and the supercharged Spyder. Many of my most pleasant memories involved cars from the early 50's up to end of the muscle cars in 1971. Of those memories one of the most outstanding ones was when my buddy pulled up in his red and white Monza Spyder convertible.

By 1962 there were many impressive cars with big V-8s, but I can still remember that first ride in the Spyder and I have to say it was about as impressive some of those car with the V-8s. His car was one of the first Spyders with the turbocharger which put out 150 HP and really made that little car fly.

1962 was the high point in Corvair's history as far as I'm concerned although they went on to make improvements to both cars and engines. If 1962 was the high point then the low point had to be 1964 when the book "Unsafe At Any Speed" by Ralph Nader came out with a very critical analysis of the Corvair. This was also the debut year for the Ford Mustang which made the greatest splash of any car ever and rolled over all the compact cars.

The rumor was that Chevrolet was going to kill the Corvair in 1966 because of the Camaro but decided not to so they wouldn't look like Nader forced them to. Whether this was true or not Corvair hung on by their fingernails until 1969 when Chevrolet finally mercifully ended their life

The Corvair was a great little car and didn't deserve to die the way it did, but happily there are a lot of Corvairs still running and there is a large amount of support from clubs around the country such as the Corvair Society of America. If you have a Corvair or are thinking of getting one check them out.

Sources:

Corvair history-http://www.corvair.org/csaindex.php?csaact=hist

Corvair production figures-http://www.corvair.org/csaindex.php?csaact=prod

Corvair history-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Corvair

Ralph Nader's book-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsafe_at_Any_Speed