BSCC- Corvair led to Bush victory over Gore!

[C. Raia]

Today's Globe had an interesting review of a new book called "Engines of Change: A History of the American Dream in Fifteen Cars," by Paul Ingrassia. http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/2012/05/20/paul-ingrassia-engines-change-traces-shifts-politics-culture-and-technology-through-development-iconic-cars/mmlhT1ZDQTbQ7Oym5VopGP/story.html   Based on the review, it's not clear whether Tompkins was fair to the Corvair, but it sounds like an interesting read. 


Celia


Book Review
‘Engines of Change’ by Paul Ingrassia
By Towle Tompkins Globe Correspondent
  
   May 21, 2012

Here’s a proposition for history buffs: General Motors’s decision to 
greenlight the 1960 Corvair led to George W. Bush’s victory over Al 
Gore.

So posits Paul Ingrassia in his diverting book “Engines of Change: A History of the American Dream in Fifteen Cars.’’

Ingrassia is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and coauthor, with 
Joseph B. White, of 1994’s “Comeback: The Rise and Fall of the American 
Automobile Industry,’’ a look at how Ford, GM, and Chrysler rebounded 
from missteps in the 1980s. 

In this new book, Ingrassia traces the history of some iconic cars and how those models reflected shifts in politics, culture, and technology. He 
also takes readers inside the industry, skillfully navigating among the 
soaring tail fins, egomaniacal visionaries, and corporate intrigue that 
surrounded the creation of these vehicles. 

Consider, for instance, Ingrassia’s examination of the Corvair, a 
tale that blends corporate hubris, the emergence of the two-car family, 
and the ambitions of a young Ralph Nader.

While at Harvard Law in the late 1950s, Nader wrote a paper titled 
“Negligent Automobile Design and the Law.” A few years later, he wrote 
the occasional magazine piece about automobile safety, attracting the 
attention of a GM employee who alerted Nader to concerns about the 
Corvair. 


The Corvair was born amid an industry attempt to play catch-up. GM, 
Ford, and Chrysler had pointedly ignored compact cars until 1958 when 
American Motors, headed by Mitt Romney père, George, parked its Rambler 
in the third place sales position behind Chevrolet and Ford. 

Meanwhile, the Beetle had been tailgating Detroit for years, and by 
the late 1950s had become “cool,” thanks, in part, to a memorably clever advertising campaign. Suddenly, buyers included young drivers, and 
families who desired a second car in the driveway. 

Ingrassia notes that Ed Cole, Chevrolet’s general manager, had long 
held that an American version of the Beetle could offer more room, more 
power, and more profits for GM. But pre-production tests showed that the Corvair’s weight and rear-engine design made it unstable during some 
extreme steering maneuvers. The prudent solution: Include an anti-roll 
bar as part of the front suspension. But the less-costly alternative 
prevailed: Urge buyers to carefully monitor the air pressure in the 
Corvair’s tires; the equivalent of urging Dean Martin to carefully 
monitor the olives in his martinis.

The Corvair debuted in the fall of 1959 and was named Motor Trend Car of the Year for 1960, winning Cole a spot on the cover of Time, but the model almost immediately became a subject of concern among automotive 
reviewers. 

During the next four years, GM made improvements to the Corvair’s 
suspension, but not before several high profile accidents, one involving the death of television comedian Ernie Kovacs. 

In 1965, Nader’s book “Unsafe at Any Speed’’ was published. It 
devoted just one chapter to the potentially risky design of the Corvair, but, as Ingrassia writes, that was enough to trigger lawsuits, GM’s 
hiring of investigators to follow Nader, and — after the exhaust cloud 
settled — the creation of the modern consumer protection movement.

Nader’s notoriety led him to fight corporate malfeasance, and to 
assume that he would make a fine president. Were it not for Nader’s 
candidacy in 2000, Al Gore just might have won enough Electoral College 
votes to defeat George W. Bush outright, Ingrassia opines. A stretch 
perhaps? But interesting nonetheless. 

“Engines of Change’’ also charts the history of Ford’s Model T, 
Mustang, and F-Series pickups; GM’s Cadillac LaSalle, Chevrolet 
Corvette, 1959 Cadillac, and Pontiac GTO; Chrysler’s minivans and Jeeps; the BMW 3 Series; the DeLorean; Honda’s game-changing build quality; 
and Toyota’s innovative hybrid technology. 

“Engines of Change’’ is as much about people as about cars: 
minivan-driving soccer moms, hard charging pickup-truckers, 
turn-signal-averse BMW yuppies, and (as Ingrassia terms them) “pious” 
Prius owners. They, along with a consumer advocate who has never owned 
an automobile, drove a significant portion of America’s 20th-century 
popular culture.
Towle Tompkins has written about automobiles for
 The New York Times and Road & Track magazine. He can be reached at 
Towle01 at gmail.com. 
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