<VV> Did the Corvair design its own demise ?

[chaz at ProperProPer.com]

The Corvair is one car that falls under the "Law of Unintended Consequences" 
because it was SUPPOSED to be an econo-box, but became so much more that was 
never anticipated.

Someone said that the Mustang killed the Corvair, but isn't it true that the 
Corvair made the Mustang possible, by showing Detroit that small cars could 
be profitable, when Chevy added  features that customers wanted ?

The 4-speed, carpets, bucket seats, nice trim, then a convertible (which 
killed the Lakewood when Chevy changed their target market ?), Chevy 
couldn't take the Corvair, with big engines (although the Nova has a 283 in 
1963 or before ?)

So, without Corvair, would there have a been a Mustang ?

A bit of a paradox, actually, since the Corvair designed its own demise ?

Charlie

-----Original Message----- 
From: RoboMan91324 at aol.com
Sent: Thursday, December 09, 2010 4:07 PM
To: virtualvairs at corvair.org ; hharpo at earthlink.net
Subject:  Nader and the book ! Why was Corvair his target ?

Yes, Marc.

I believe Nadar's thought process was that, because the Corvair was
revolutionary instead of evolutionary, it should have included many safety 
upgrades
that would be required years later.  The Corvair was a complete departure
from the norm and since GM had started with a blank sheet of paper, he felt
that they didn't need to live with an existing platform and technology.  It
would have been "easy" in his opinion to include safer technology.  Where 
his
logic fell short was that the Corvair was designed and marketed as an
economy car.  Of course, there are those among us that feel that it should 
have b
een marketed as a sports car but that wasn't the direction they took back
when it was first designed.  Adding 3 point seat belts, collapsing steering
columns, disk brakes, etc. would have guaranteed the failure of the Corvair 
in
its first year due to costs.  After that, no manufacturer would dare to
innovate if it would add cost; especially on an economy car.  High end 
luxury
cars could afford to include "experimental" safety upgrades but an economy
car aimed at the Beetle as its competition could not afford upgrades that 
were
not required by the government or a competitive industry.  At that time and
to a degree, still today, car manufacturers rarely added costly safety
equipment unless required by the government.  A government requirement 
levels
the field because everyone's cost goes up.  Remember, back then, people 
would
make an economy car buying decision based on a few dollars difference.

Like it or not, Nadar's legacy is that he forced the government to get more
involved and ultimately force all manufacturers to include safety equipment
that they might not have included otherwise.

Doc
1960 Corvette; 1961 Rampside; 1962 Rampside; 1964 Spyder coupe; 1965
Greenbrier; 1966 Corsa turbo coupe; 1967 Nova SS; 1968 Camaro ragtop
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In a message dated 12/9/2010 11:59:21 AM Pacific Standard Time,
virtualvairs-request at corvair.org writes:

> Message: 7
> Date: Thu, 9 Dec 2010 11:34:54 -0800 (GMT-08:00)
> From: Marc  Marcoulides <hharpo at earthlink.net>
> Subject: Re: <VV> Nader and the book ! Why was Corvair his target ?
> To: virtualvairs at corvair.org
> Message-ID:
>     <
> 20634314.1291923294352.JavaMail.root at elwamui-lapwing.atl.sa.earthlink.net>
>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
>
> Long ago Ralph Nader was guest speaker at our national convention, in his
> remarks he said that the Corvair was an entirely new offering from 
> Detroits
> biggest company and thus his most logical target
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