popular mechanics oct 1959 mentions corvair

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er-mine
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popular mechanics oct 1959 mentions corvair

Post by er-mine »

corvair gets a blurb...fights falcon for first in compacts

one day it will rule the world...well not exactly


Title: Popular Mechanics - October 1959 - (Volume 112 Number 4)


cant fugger out how to link it..goota go , maybe later

page afte page of old fun stuff !

scroll scroll scroll >>>>>>>
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er-mine
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Re: popular mechanics oct 1959 mentions corvair

Post by er-mine »

Here is a page....found it by looking for corvair swivel seat


Seems gm thought about it long long ago
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Re: popular mechanics oct 1959 mentions corvair

Post by GriffinGuru »

That's really interesting... So even before the Ralph Nader days, the general public etc. was a little uneasy about the stability of rear engine cars? In 1959 there were only early Beetles, Porsches, and what the Tucker(?) that were actually rear engined? Anyone with a little drivers experience would have a feel and sense of the weight distribution when driving any car be it front, mid, or rear engine, at least we hope. And those who would be buying and driving those Beetles etc would hopefully know what they were getting into in the first place?

Perhaps as part of the marketing campaign at GM, they were overly reassuring the unknowing buyers that the Corvairs were just like any other car with regards to handling- and "but just look at all the interior space, Mrs. Jones, with the new Corvair compact rear mounted power plant!" And the rest is history as the unassuming general public drove these cars accordingly and set tire pressures etc in the standard fashion as they were most accustomed to...

Not that they are inherently bad cars, but you drive accordingly. I don't drive a heavy conversion van like a small sports car, and I don't go off roading in a Ferrari (not that I have a Ferrari rock-crawler anyway!).
It keeps me humble:
64 Corvair Monza convertible called Lucy (work in progress)
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er-mine
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Re: popular mechanics oct 1959 mentions corvair

Post by er-mine »

indeed... an off road ferrari wood be cool tho!

purpose specific cars might have been obvious to most buyers ...but corvair kinda offered some different things eh....

rear wheel traction, sporty handling, less mechanical parts (power steering power brakes etc) plus the bs that there was all that room up front!

whats the diff between room in a front trunk or a rear trunk.... extra room based on engine up front or rear. you do not get any addional space ?

what was bad, was the inertia of the masses during an accident ..... oooops, rear motor tries to get up front, but your in the way!

funny that a thought was, that the corvair was going to begin a new way of motoring life ! ....much like the flying wing was going to be the new wave in aircraft design

never mind that it had very few places to land. airports at the time were not wide enough to accept it. other than military bases, it had little commercial ability to land

at one time most aircraft were flying boats...there were few airports early on but plenty of waterways and freight shipping lines. highways, airports and commercial airlines popped up. float planes vanished...yet they were going to be the next big wave !

history marches on and over us....
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