<VV> Corvair/Camaro & horsey cars

[Charles Lee]

Note that I had to delete Jim Rice using "Reply to all" to avoid being
flamed here !

I think (if I can remember what I wanted to say ;>}) that Corvair Spyders
defined the group with finesse, but Mustang brutalized the breed with
gigantic engines (OK, just 289 to start), which gave the genre its horsey
name.

The Corvair showed the world that small didn't have to be 'cheap cars' and a
profit could be made on them (which was probably more important, as well as
the Corvair's demise, since they were NOT cheap to make, but boy, were they
sophisticated !)

Charlie


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "James P. Rice" <ricebugg at mtco.com>
To: <virtualvairs at corvair.org>
Sent: Friday, August 20, 2010 1:40 PM
Subject: <VV> Corvair/Camaro


> All:  There was no "pony car" before the Mustang.  Plymouth had a tame
> Barracuda but Mustang invented the class.  The '67 Camaro was built off 
> the
> chassis for the 2nd generation '68 Chevy II.  Chevy needed an answer to 
> the
> Mustang - the LM Corsa turbo was not it - and liberated a work in process
> from the Nova people, finalized it for their application and went to
> production.
>
> Yes, there is a styling connection - a family tree - as the Camaro was
> styled by the same people who did the LM Corvair.  There was family
> resemblance across Chevy's product line.  No surprise there.  But the only
> Corvair connection between Corvair and Camaro is that Pete Estes wanted to
> call what we know as the Camaro the new Corvair.  He was soundly booed 
> down
> by his marketing people.  Hence they invented the name Camaro.
>
> Which, if you think about it, is a piece of evidence that the Corvair was
> scheduled to die with the '66 production run.  Otherwise, if "our Corvair"
> continued in production, what was it to be called?  Oh wait, the Camaro
> would have been the Corvair II.  No evidence of that plan.
>
> The death notice for the Corvair probably came down from 7th floor in 
> about
> April '65.  A date that comes from three sources independent of each 
> other.
> Chevy did have suppliers, purchase orders and contracts to modify or 
> cancel.
> That does take some time if you want to be orderly.  Plus they needed
> something until '67 production of the Camaro started.
>
> I actually believe the death knell for the Corvair first rang in early '60
> when production of the Chevy II was given the go ahead.  This about 6 
> months
> after the Corvair's introduction.  The Falcon outsold Corvair about three 
> to
> one, and GM realized there was a market for the unconventional, but it was
> not big enough.  The FL didn't sing then, but she was moving onto the 
> stage.
>
> Thank Ralph for the '67-69 Corvairs.
>
> Historically Yours,
> James