<VV> Corvair and their lack of appeal

[Bill Hubbell]

I agree with Dennis - this is nothing new or even unusual.

Think of it this way: Among the general population, most people buy products
for what they think they can do with them and they aren't the least bit
interested in how they are made or how to fix them.  If the product breaks,
they will either take it to somebody to get it fixed or they will get a new
product.  Now in the past, many products needed a lot of maintenance
(especially cars), so folks either learned to do some of the fixing
themselves, to save a little money, perhaps, or they found somebody to do it
for them.  But even 40-50 years ago (the Age of Corvairs) it was still only
a small percentage of folks who actually ENJOYED fixing things (or just
taking them apart to see how they worked and then putting them together
again!).

Well, it so happened that the Corvair was the perfect car for people who
loved to tinker/fix things, so naturally it attracted a somewhat larger
percentage of such folk than did the more mainstream (i.e. "white bread")
vehicles.  So of course we do seem to have a higher percentage of tinkerers
and fixers in the Corvair clubs even today.

However, the old car hobby crowd in general is not all that different from
the population at large, in that many of them do not really enjoy all the
tinkering and are always looking for somebody else to do it - they would
just as soon pay money to get what they want (a pretty show car) and then
enjoy showing it off (and getting trophies).

Additionally, the same rules which worked in the new car market also work in
the collector car market; that which was most desirable new is still that
which is most desirable as a collectable.   The Corvair was never more than
a niche car when new and was quickly overshadowed by the more mainstream
("white bread") muscle cars that the masses could buy and sell in bulk.  The
Corvair will therefore remain a niche car as a collectable, for all the same
reasons.

Of course, if you like a little color in your bread....

Bill Hubbell


-----Original Message-----
From: virtualvairs-bounces at corvair.org
[mailto:virtualvairs-bounces at corvair.org] On Behalf Of Dennis Dorogi
Sent: Thursday, April 10, 2008 9:55 AM
To: Russ Moorhouse; VV
Subject: Re: <VV> Corvair and their lack of appeal

This is not a new problem.  It was hard to get mechanics to work on corvairs

when they were new.