What Were the Chevrolet Corvair’s Biggest Problems and Why Did Chevy Stop Producing Them?

Chevrolet Corvair, One of the weirdest Chevrolets ever madeIt was the American version of the Volkswagen Beetle. Like the Beetle, it had an air-cooled engine in the rear. Unlike the Beetle, it had contemporary styling, had a larger, more powerful straight-six-cylinder engine (compared to the Beetle’s flat-four), and had seating for six. The Corvair was intended to be better than the Beetle in every way important to Americans. By 1961, the Corvair lineup included sedan, coupe, station wagon, window van, panel van and pickup truck.

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Unfortunately, Corvair’s story did not have a happy ending. A series of problems, ranging from cost-cutting decisions to clumsy attempts to discredit automotive safety crusader Ralph Nader, doomed a car that could have been an engineering masterpiece. The introduction of the Ford Mustang and the subsequent horse-drawn carriage craze also drew attention (and sales) away from the Corvair.

In a different world, the Corvair might have developed as a rear-engined sports car to rival the Porsche 911 (first shown three years later in 1963). By the time the Corvair reached its second generation (1965-69 models), it had all the basic components. These included a redesigned suspension and a turbocharged engine with 180 horsepower. Pretty good for the 1960s, and more than a decade ahead of Porsche in terms of turbocharging.

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In accordance with its design, the first generation Corvair (1960-64) had single-joint swing axles in its rear suspension. first Volkswagen Beetle. These swing axles were common on the Beetle and other European rear-engined cars. The Corvair’s difference was that its engine was larger and heavier than the Beetle’s. This design puts 60-63% of the Corvair’s weight on the rear wheels, creating a more severe impact on handling during extreme maneuvers. The bias-ply tires used at the time were part of the problem and would easily loosen, causing the rear ends to slide.

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Added to this is the need for Corvair owners to maintain different tire pressures front and rear (15 psi front, 26 psi rear) to combat the Corvair’s tendency to oversteer due to the rear-weight bias. This was a practice completely unknown to American drivers accustomed to front-engine, rear-wheel drive cars and their identical pressure recommendations front and rear. This tire pressure information is not supported in the owner’s manual. Most regular drivers had no experience how to handle an understeer car like the Corvair.

The low-cost nature of the Corvair’s entry-level mission led cost accountants to reject adding a front anti-roll bar or a rear camber compensating spring to the suspension. These relatively inexpensive additions, well known to GM engineers, would eliminate the first-generation Corvair’s handling problems. It took until 1964 for these elements to be added to the first-generation model, and in 1965 the second-generation Corvair debuted with an all-new suspension that eliminated the first-generation’s shortcomings.

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Of course, 1965 was also the year Ralph Nader’s book “Unsafe at Any Speed” came out. The damning portrait of the first-generation Corvair’s handling characteristics resulted in very bad publicity. In response, General Motors hired private investigators to smear Nader. When this was revealed by GM in its Senate testimony, it backfired heavily for the company. Congress passed the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act in 1966, followed by the creation of NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) in 1970. There would now be a government agency to oversee vehicle safety.

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Chevy stopped production of the Corvair in 1969; This was, ironically, three years after they had planned to cease production. When the 1964 1/2 Ford Mustang was introduced and became a huge sales success, Chevy put the Mustang rival Camaro into production in 1967, planning to replace the Corvair with it. The unorthodox Corvair had become a real liability, but Chevy didn’t want to admit it, so it kept Corvair production continuing until 1969.

The Mustang changed everything. After seeing how Ford took the bones of its ugly duckling economy car (the Ford Falcon) and turned it into a high-margin, best-selling Mustang swan – in classic colors – all other manufacturers followed suit. The Mustang’s long-hood, short-deck formula was quickly copied, resulting in the Chevy Camaro, Pontiac Firebird, Dodge Challenger, Plymouth Barracuda, Mercury Cougar and AMC Javelin. Horsepower and sexiness were at the forefront; There were no economical cars.

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