<VV> RE: THE MARVELOUS CORVAIR

[Mark Corbin]

As Bill points out, Chevy was simply following Ford's proven formula. Ford
rebodied the Falcon on the cheap and had an instant hit. To reengineer the
Corvair engine and drivetrain for big displacement was an unnecessary
expense, when they already had of-the-shelf engines and drivetrains
suitable for that purpose. Incidentally, they DID try putting those engines
in a Corvair configuration, but (in the words of one engineer) that quickly
became gross. (BTW I've seen the pictures of those test vehicles, and even
one of the actual transaxles that was in one of them.) That's not to say
the CorV-8 isn't a neat vehicle mod, just that for production purposes it
was "quick and dirty" to just rebody the Chevy II and be done with it. OK,
the car would be a total reversal of the Corvair formula. But so was going
from an economy car to a road-burning sport(y) car. The REAL point to this
is that they really wanted to continue the Corvair "line" even if it meant
a total rethink of the drive train/layout. And that isn't something GM
hadn't done before or wouldn't do again. In a way, I really wish Ralphie
hadn't come on the scene when he did, because it would be interesting had
Camaro people had to accept their car as having a first and second
generation rear-engine heritage. Think on THAT one for a while!

-Mark


> [Original Message]
>
> If by "defeat for the original Corvair engineering concept" you mean 
> that an expensive to build low displacement drivetrain designed for an 
> economy car was not suitable for a high power sports GT car, yes, it was 
> defeated.
>
> By 1965 the Corvair mission had changed... the Corvair (almost by 
> accident) had created an entirely new genre of car (the pony car) where 
> it was ill-equipped to compete due to not only the displacement 
> limitations, but also the expense to produce. A 
> conventionally-engineered car like the Camaro better met the 
> expectations of this new market while simultaneously being cheaper to 
> build.
>
> Bottom line is that the market of the time did not value the attributes 
> (handling, braking, economy) that the Corvair offered...
>
> Bill
>
> Rod Murray wrote:
>
> > 
> >re:  mark's note below, it's easy to see the bodyline similarities
> >between camaro and the late vair.  But if this is true, how did jim
> >explain the significant redesign of going from an air-cooled rear-engine
> >vehicle to water-cooled front placement (along with whatever other
> >engineering differences)?  Wouldn't this be admitting defeat of the
> >original corvair engineering concept?  Or is it possible that the
> >original camaro body might have been Corvair Phase III and thus remained
> >rear-engine and air-cooled???  I'm not disputing anything here, it's
> >just interesting and i'm curious...thx   
> >
> >Snip "At the convention Jim Musser...worked for GM at
> >the time the Corvair was built...he confirmed...that management
> >wanted to put the Corvair name on the '67 ponycar, but that Ralphie's
> >book
> >made that impossible. So in reality, what was named the Camaro was
> >REALLY
> >supposed to be the third generation Corvair." end snip
> >
> >Rod
> >Vintage Corsa Publicity & Website Guy
> >66 Monza Convt 140/4
> >