<VV> Popular-Science-May-1960 Corvair Article

[RoboMan91324 at aol.com]

Bob,
 
First, I think the answer to your question might have been  touched on in 
the article.  The Corvair was (and is) a nearly unique  design.  Certainly, 
Chevy had no in-house experience to build on.   Many of the different 
components were hand-made in the design process and  reacted differently than the 
mass production versions.  I suspect that  production and purchasing cost 
issues may have had a hand in this.  The low  bid gets the order.
 
Second, also touched on in the article is the fact that GM  Engineers 
probably had their hands full with more serious matters and may have  neglected 
some "minor" issues.  Keep in mind that there was huge pressure  to get the 
Corvair introduced on time for the 1960 model year.  No company  wants to 
introduce a new car a year or even a few months late, though it does  happen.  
It is extremely costly to the company and makes the consumer  suspicious.  
High and medium level people lose jobs and careers when they  don't meet very 
critical deadlines; even unreasonable ones.  I can imagine  statements like 
the following, "Forget the drumming from the gas heater for  now.  It only 
happens on a few units and is not dangerous.  We can  introduce a fix on the 
production floor.  Have your guys work on the ?????  problem which must be 
fixed before production starts."
 
Third, as pointed out in the article, all cars have their  "birthing" 
problems even if it is a vehicle that has traditional designs such as  the 
Valiant and Falcon back then.  I hate to say it again but part of that  problem 
came from cost factors in the design and purchasing decisions.   This was 
hugely aggravated by the poor work practices on the production  floor.  If there 
are problems with new traditional designs, you must expect  problems with a 
completely unprecedented design.
 
Fourth, and this may be the primary reason, the Engineers  didn't and maybe 
couldn't imagine all of the possible failure  modes.  I have no doubt that 
they tested vehicles at the extreme  temperatures to be sure the car would st
art and run in the Nevada desert in  summer as well as in Maine in the dead 
of winter.  They may not have tested  in the 32 to 42 F range at a variety 
of specific humidity points ranging around  75%.  The thought process might 
be, "If it runs OK at the extremes, it  should run fine anywhere in the 
middle."  Even if they did test at the  critical points, see the first item 
above.  The carbs were hand constructed  and may not have exhibited a problem 
anywhere in the temp/humidity  range.
 
Even today when the Engineers have design and testing tools  that the 50s 
and 60s Engineers couldn't even imagine, we still see birthing  problems and 
subsequent production floor and dealership fixes and even  recalls.  Many of 
the issues from back when still exist.
 
Doc
 
1960 Corvette, 1961 Rampside, 1962 Rampside, 1964 Spyder  coupe, 1965 
Greenbrier, 1966 Canadian Corsa turbo coupe, 1967 Nova SS, 1968  Camaro ragtop

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
In a message dated 3/10/2013 9:00:32 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time,  
virtualvairs-request at corvair.org writes:

Message:  3
Date: Sun, 10 Mar 2013 08:37:25 -0700
From: "Bob Gilbert"  <bgilbert at gilberts-bc.ca>
Subject: Re: <VV>  Popular-Science-May-1960  Corvair Article
To: "'Matt Nall'"  <patiomatt at aol.com>,     <virtualvairs at corvair.org>
Message-ID:  <00eb01ce1da5$2a8b61b0$7fa22510$@gilberts-bc.ca>
Content-Type:  text/plain;    charset="us-ascii"

Interesting article but  what amazes me when I read articles like this is 
that most of the reported  problems could have(or should have)  been caught 
during basic testing.  Didn't the original belt system exhibit these problems 
during testing? Was  there no cold weather testing and so  on?
Regards,
Bob