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anyone ever driven a corvair or owned one ?

motorcityxj

NAXJA Forum User
Location
detroit suburbs
I admit have really been smitten with the corvair lately ... well the later ones anyways. I am curious if anyone on here has driven one and how they handled i am not really on any other auto or motorsports boards besides here and pirate. The combined experience of some of you guys is amazing so no doubt someone has opinions on how well a corvair can be moded and how well they handle. I am smitten, i think they are beautiful cars, plus i love the rear and mid engine cars like the lotus elise, the 911, the mr2 (2nd gen).

i wouldnt mind one that looks like this.

339094_1_full.jpg


or this yenko

Ec02.jpg
 
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Dad always thought that when Nader's wife was killed it was more a problem with her wrecklessness, not an actual problem with the car. Gee, ever wonder where beiong sue happy started?

Dad also had a friend back in the 60's that took a turbo model (Spyder I think), cut the body off, chopped it down in length and stuck a Meyer Manx body on it before suping it up. The thing would run a 90* corner at 60mph!

I also seem to remember with Yenko, GM had to practicly twist his arm to get him to play with the Camaro's. Just don't remember where I read that though......
 
Had a Spyder back in the late 60's
 
Driven a couple, never owned one. Didn't think the handling was bad by any means; on a wet night, I'd rather be in a Corvair than a Beetle from the same era. If I could find a serviceable Monza convertible for something other than silly money I'd snap it up in a second.
 
My first car was a 65 Corvair Monza that I got for $250. It was a puke green color when I bought it. Went to Earl Scheib and got a $29.95 Midnight Blue paint job.

I loved that car. The dash-mounted shifter was cool. Everyone at school knew my car....because it smoked so much. The thing burned oil like crazy.

Couldn't tell you anything about handling, since I never drove the car very fast.
 
a buddy of mine had one 15 years ago, and i think he still has it now!! flat 6 with the 4 bbl intake option. kinda sluggish on power, but cornered like it was on rails. I just got rid of a 99 f150 lowered 6 inches and sitting on 18 inch rubber, and I swear that corvair would outcorner it!!!
 
Buddy in high school had one (late 70's) - two things I recall: you could see the road going by through the rust holes in the floor (reminds me of an xj) and I believe the thing had an ungodly big belt that actually made a turn from vertical to horizontal - very unique. Nice looking cars, though.
 
I didn't know that Ralph Nader's wife was killed in one but I understood that he was able to prove that when the Corvair hit an immovable object, the engine had a nasty tendency to keep going right through the passenger compartment and beyond.
 
casm said:
Driven a couple, never owned one. Didn't think the handling was bad by any means; on a wet night, I'd rather be in a Corvair than a Beetle from the same era.


Dad's said that too, kinda made is sound like GM did a better job on the Corvair than Hitler/Porsche/Volkswagon did on the Bugs. He also wondered why Nader went after GM but left Porsche and VW alone, other than monetary reasons of course.
 
bjoehandley said:
Dad's said that too, kinda made is sound like GM did a better job on the Corvair than Hitler/Porsche/Volkswagon did on the Bugs.

That pretty much sums up my opinion of them. I've driven both early and late Beetles, 911s, 912s (which handle better than the 911, IMHO), 914s, 914/6s, Speedsters, 356s, Skoda S110Rs, Skoda Rapids, and a few other rear-engined vehicles - and I just can't fault the Corvair. Yeah, if you drove it like a jackass you were screwed - but that applies to any vehicle, regardless of engine position.

He also wondered why Nader went after GM but left Porsche and VW alone, other than monetary reasons of course.

Basically, it did boil down to monetary reasons. GM had cash at the time; VW/Porsche didn't. While he may have a valid point, he's a complete hypocrite for singling out one vehicle and not the others that were far worse IMHO.

And yes, the fan belt made a 90-degree turn from the crank to the fan.
 
Friend of mine in my pre driving days in HS had 2 of them, well, his parents did, one was a 64 rag top and the other was the 66 or 67 supercharged one, spyder I think it was called. Damn fast car with the supercharger and cornered like on rails. They were nice, lots of interior room as I remember, even in the back seat though with 4 people in it it would tend to bottom out on back roads. No clue what they were like to maintain or work on though. Both got his parents to work every day even in the snow in north New Jersey.
 
A friend back long ago had a 65 Corvair, and it was pretty nice. From 65 on when then put the double-jointed axles in, it was a good handling car, and reasonably safe. You can argue about Nader all you want, but the earlier design was pretty deadly. As I recall, it wasn't just the oversteer from the swing axles, but the fact that they had little or nothing to hold them from drooping, and combined with a too-soft overall suspension and inadequate stock tires, it allowed the rear wheels to tuck under the car and literally vault it over. VW's did much the same thing, but less readily, because they were sprung more stiffly and had less horsepower to push them around. It was apparently possible to flip a baseline early Corvair at 25 miles an hour in a sudden lane change. They also had a few other teething problems, including a front axle problem that contributed to the overall tendency to spin out (I can't remember the details on that one, but I think something actually collapsed there), and a gas tank design that was a little bit too prone to blowing up in collisions. The early Corvairs also had a serpentine V-belt that failed easily, leaving the engine with no cooling.

And of course, as usual, it wasn't so much the bad design that killed Corvair as GM's attempt to cover it up or to deny it, and the all-too-typical corporate attitude that it's cheaper to pay for a few deaths than it is to fix the problem. By the time they did fix the problem, it was too late to revive the model, because "Corvair" was by then about as reputable a name as "Edsel.". They should have re-badged it as a little Pontiac with a different name.

Corvairs of the earlier type could be made fairly stable with the addition of a stabilizer spring beneath the swing axles, to limit their downward movement. The 64 came with this, I think, and it could be retrofitted to earlier ones. Suitably modified, swing axle Corvairs were pretty successful in racing, but this doesn't mean the regular ones were safe, because of course they were not fitted with stock shocks and springs, and 2-ply tires, as the consumer models were.

I'd stick to the later style, in part because I think they're better looking. Actually, although some details nowadays look a little dated, I think the 65-69 Corvair was one of the most harmonious designs ever to come out of Detroit.
 
I've been really wanting to buy one to modify. My grandpa absolutely loved them. He owned a few over the years but long before I was around so I never got to see them. What I've been wanting to do is swap in a modern engine from say a Nissan Altima V6 or a Cobalt SS 2.4 and turbo it. I haven't worked out all the kinks but I figure a rear engined car is likely going to have a transverse mounted engine so a good engine from a frontdriver should work. Get something lightweight but powerful and rework the suspension to give it modern handling capabilities. Although there is one here in town that has big fat rear tires and apparently no muffler that I really like. Its rediculously loud and mean, and I like it. Don't see many mean Corvairs...
 
My first car was a 60 that my brother bought in phoenix for $400 and had shipped home to me. Great fun until I used it to remove some trees and a water main. It was still driveable, but the scratch in the side looked bad (Love steel cars! :D ). Blew a rear tire on a 45mph curve, fishtailed a couple times, but finally lost it.


BTW, that blue convertible you pictured....I know where one is, in that condition for cheap, but I'm not telling.
 
Never driven one but my dad loved them and he HATED small cars. Nader was and still is a complete jackass.
 
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