<VV> Nader

[Doug Mackintosh]

The short answer is that it sounded plausible and ultimately the government (precurser to the NHTSA) had tests run which did not conclude until a final report issued in 1972, which exonerated the Corvair, but of course that was too late to have any effect since production stopped in 1969. The actual cause of the Corvair's demise was the Mustang and the fact that it was cheaper to compete with the Camaro than to make the Corvair competitive as a cheap street drag rubber-burner.
The other thing was that GM had the bad judgment to send Private Eyes after Nader to try to discredit him by catching him in some embarassing behavior. In this respect Nader was clean as a whistle, and GM was caught in the act and ulltimately suffered the indignity of having their CEO publicly apologize to Nader in public congressional testimony as I recall.
<< Hugo Miller said:
Date: Tue, 03 Mar 2020 04:33:50 -0500
From: Hugo Miller <hugo at aruncoaches.co.uk>
To: <virtualvairs at corvair.org>
Subject: <VV> Nader
Message-ID: <ac0550e3bbf9b40f9d876241de224948 at aruncoaches.co.uk>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed

I watched a tv marathon the other night on the history of the motor car
and in particular the 'Big Three' car makers. The Corvair got a mention,
and they showed a clip of Ralph Nader making some specific and
detrimental remarks about the Corvair's handling on camera. He said,
inter alia, that the car could break away 'suddenly and unpredictably'
in corners.
That statement, along with others in similar vein, demonstrably cost GM
a great deal of money in lost sales. What I would like to know is why
Nader wasn't sued. If I went on national tv and made specific claims
which disparaged the products of a major corporation, I would expect to
find myself walking out of court bankrupt in a very short space of time.
Or was Nader actually able to substantiate his claims to the extent that
would survive a libel suit?
My personal view is that there is a grain of truth in what he said, but
that his claims were wildly over-stated, and demonstrably so. How did he
get away with it?>>



-- Doug Mackintosh Corsa member since 1996 Corsa/NC member since 1996, Virtual Vairs member Corvair owner 1969-1971 and 1996-on