Cadillac & Tanks RE: <VV> Re: Porsche/Corvair Engine Casting

[Joel Rushworth - Morton-Clarke Victoria]

Wasn't Ed Cole working for Cadillac during the war, making rear engined, air
cooled tank motors?  Isn't that where part of the inspiration for the
Corvair came from?  I thought E.C. had originally proposed a Caddy econo-car
back in '48 or something, rear engined, called the Cadet?

And if all of the above is true, isn't most of the other Porsche/VW stuff
mostly just "expert" stories made up to try and make sense of the origins of
the Corvair because they're ignorant of E.C.'s familiarity with air-cooled,
rear engine set ups?

Regards,
Joel

-----Original Message-----
From: virtualvairs-bounces at corvair.org
[mailto:virtualvairs-bounces at corvair.org]On Behalf Of HallGrenn at aol.com
Sent: Monday, November 14, 2005 12:22 PM
To: virtualvairs at corvair.org
Subject: Fwd: <VV> Re: Porsche/Corvair Engine Casting


In a message dated 11/14/2005 3:12:22 PM Eastern Standard Time,
mmcguire at hiwaay.net writes:

> I thought Porsche had the patent on aluminum casting technology and that
> was
> where the Porsche/GM connection rummors of it being a Porsche design
> started.
>
>

Since we're on the engine casting side now--I know of no Porsche engine
casting connection, but I believe GM did license the Renault vacuum casting
system
used at Tonawanda.  It allowed the use of reusable molds for the aluminum
parts (I'm sure the cast iron parts used reusable molds as well--this was a
Chevy
and not a Porsche).

Bob Hall
Group Corvair