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Probably one of the most controversial cars built in the United States in the last 60 years or so was the Chevrolet Corvair. Up until 1960, the Big Three — GM, Ford and Chrysler — were just building big cars. Some European imports were getting the attention of the American consumer, and finally the executives of the Big Three took notice.
American Motors, a relatively new corporation formed by combining Nash and Hudson, began building small, fuel-efficient cars in the 1950s. Under the leadership of George Romney (Mitt Romney’s father), the new compact model called the Rambler became the third best-selling car in the country. Studebaker brought out the Lark, which was a compact car that initially sold well.
To get into the compact car business. Ford and Chrysler generally downsized the kinds of cars they were already building, but GM, under the direction of Chevrolet General Manager Ed Cole, took a new path. This new car would be called Corvair, a name that blended the Corvette and Bel Air model names. It had an aluminum, 140-cubic-inch, flat-six, 80-horsepower, air-cooled rear engine similar to Volkswagen and Porsche.
The styling of the Corvair was unique and untraditional for American cars. The base model sold for less than $2,000 (about $17,300 in today’s dollars) and sold well. From 1960 through 1969, there were 1,710,018 Corvairs sold, and it was the “Motor Trend” car of the year for 1960. The rear engine gave the car a lower silhouette, flat interior floors and no need for power-assisted steering. It had superior braking balance, ride quality and traction.
It also had the all-independent suspension system, but to save $4 a car, GM didn’t include antiroll bars, a poor decision. The result was that the car tended to oversteer (tail-wag) if the correct tire pressures of 15 psi front and 26 psi rear weren’t observed, but the oversteering situation was considered minimal and not dangerous. The problem was that most of the owners didn’t pay attention to the correct tire pressure. There were some other disappointments. The cost of production was higher than planned, and the engine was about 78 pounds heavier than predicted.
But the biggest negative was a young lawyer named Ralph Nader. He wrote a book in 1965 called “Unsafe at Any Speed” in which he stated that the Corvair was the most dangerous automobile on the road in the 1960s. In 1972, there was a study done for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that found the Corvair possessed no greater potential for loss of control in extreme conditions than competitors. But the damage was done, and it was too late.
Bill Norman, an Alamo resident, has an 89,000-mile, red 1962 Chevrolet Corvair Monza convertible with the two-speed Power-Glide automatic transmission. It was Norman’s dad’s purchase.
“He saw it for sale in front of the Wells Fargo Bank in Alamo, and he brought it home. It wasn’t even painted, and Dad sensed there was something major wrong with it, so we parked it.”
That was in 2006, and it was not moved until about a month ago.
“I started it a few weeks back and heard lifter noise. I took it to a friend’s house and he told me I better take care of that lifter before something else goes wrong.”
Norman is an electrician, but he is also mechanically inclined.
“So, I watched a YouTube video that showed how to take everything apart. I looked at it three or four times, then I started working on it and pulled the two lifters out.”
It only took him a couple of hours.
“I bought two new ones, put them in, and now it runs like a vacuum cleaner.”
Regarding his YouTube study he said, “A little information is better than no information.”
It is not a show car, nor is it Norman’s intention to make it one. His plan is just to maintain it and enjoy driving it locally.
“We had it painted. We took all the chrome off and took it to a local paint shop, and then we put all the chrome back on. It has some blemishes, but it’s good enough.”
It is a convertible, so I inquired about the top’s condition.
“Oh, the top hasn’t been up for as long as we’ve had it,” Norman said. “I’m just going to keep it down.”
Norman believes the Corvair is beginning to be recognized as a nice collector car. His research indicates the value of his Corvair to be in the $10,000 neighborhood but has no intention of selling it. He plans on driving his Corvair in this year’s Piedmont Fourth of July parade, and maybe, just maybe, he will have a dignitary to carry in the back seat, but probably not one you’ve seen on CNN.
Have an interesting vehicle? Contact David Krumboltz at MOBopoly@yahoo.com. To view more photos of this and other issues’ vehicles or to read more of Dave’s columns, visit mercurynews.com/author/david-krumboltz.
