<VV> RE: Porsche/ Corvaie Engine Casting

[Jeff Clark]

I've read where Ed Cole had a late 40's Pontiac with a
Cadillac V8 installed in the rear seat/ trunk area,
driving the rear wheels.  Drove it through the Detroit
winters, and LOVED the car's traction.  E.C. was an
avid pilot, so he was quite familiar with air-cooled
pancake engines.

GM did use Porsches for test-bed vehicles, which is
the extent of Porsche's influence on the Corvair.  The
rapidly-increasing VW sales in the mid-50s merely gave
Cole the ammo he needed to sell the idea of the
Corvair to the GM board.  Keep in mind that the GM
board officialy approved the Corvair project in the
fall of '57, yet the car was ready to market in the
fall of '59.  That means Cole and his engineers were
at work on the car long before the board approved of
it.  You don't build a radical new car, totally
different from anything you've ever built before, from
the ground up and have it ready to go in just 24
months.  I get a little irked when people outside of
"our world" refer to the Corvair as "GM's version of
the Beetle."


	
		
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