<VV> Slow Death of the Corvair

[Brent Covey]

Havve you guys have seen the '1970 Corvair'?

There was a development program underway in late 1967-'68 that got as far as
full size clays for the 'third generation' Corvair- as well as a smaller
program in 1966-'67 for what appeared to be a small FWD car based in some
way on the Corvair and apparently dropped when what became the Vega was
announced by Mr Roche. The small FWD car seemed to be a precursor to the
market the Vega eventually was to tackle.

Corvair wasnt the only line in trouble at Chevy in 1969, during that period
there was talk of dropping Camaro and Chevy II instead- Chevy II sales were
nothing to shout about in this time frame either, and the Vega was on the
horizon. GM seemed to be thinking there might be value in carrying on with
Corvair and Vega after 1970. In 1967 Corvair sales were very weak, but not
so bad as to be beyond redemption, it was selling at a rate comparable to
Eldorado, Suburban and Corvette- and probably could have been revived in a
year or two with some effort.

The 1970 Corvair concept was rejected somewhere around spring 1968, but was
far enough along it would have been in showrooms as a 1970 1/2 model in all
probability, as Corvette and Camaro were, had they pursued it. The '1970
Corvair' styling was to emerge on the 1973 Intermediates, it looked very
like a cross between a 1970 Camaro and the 1973 LeMans, several pictures
exist of the car in clay. Other GM engineering projects like the THM 350
indicate the Corvair was a go quite a long time after the spring '65 order
to just do the minimum, at some point they must have regained interest in
Corvair after that.

Brent Covey
Vancouver BC