<VV> Lack of Appeal: Movies & Racing

[james rice]

All:  Interesting observation about the movies.

Another contributing factor is racing at various levels.  The factories
supported, with money, parts and engineering support, pony cars and muscle
cars of various sizes in Drag Racing , SCCA's TransAm and NASCAR.  Lots of
"Race on Sunday, sell on Monday" efforts.

Corvairs never had real factory support in any form of racing.  There were a
two events for compact cars in '59/60 where there was some factory
participation.  Don Yenko possibly got some creative financing when he
bought 100 Corvairs at one time in '65. Does that count as "Support". But
other than that?  Maybe some rally's in Canada?  Doug Roe had some
encouragement with his car, but nothing else we know about.

So how many non-Corvairs were sold and dreams made in racing?  The results
of non GM support for the Corvair in motor sports ripples thru the car hobby
to this day.

Historically Yours,
			James


-----Original Message-----
From: virtualvairs-bounces at corvair.org
[mailto:virtualvairs-bounces at corvair.org] On Behalf Of jwcorvair at aol.com
Sent: Thursday, April 10, 2008 10:13 PM
To: virtualvairs at corvair.org
Subject: <VV> Lack of appeal - another perspective

Hi,

I have read with with much interest the different perspectives on why
Corvairs might not have as much appeal as the Mustangs, Camaros, and other
pony cars. One thing that hasn't been mentioned as to why the pony cars
might have more appeal is the movies. Who can forget Fiona driving James
Bond through the night in her powder blue Mustang convertible; Jame Garner
in his Shelby Mustang in "Grand Prix"; Steve McQueen in his Mustang in
"Bullitt"; Steve McQueen in his 911 in "Le Mans" (okay, not a pony car but
still a darn good movie); Firebirds in the Smokey movies; a Charger (I
think) in "Vanishing Point." I could go on, but I think that you get my
drift. The movies glamourized many different car models - but never a
Corvair. I cannont think of one movie from the 60s or 70s in which the
protagonist drove a Corvair. I would be pleasantly surprised to be correct.

Just my $.02 - and just for fun.

Joe White (62 Sedan, 66 Porvair, and maybe soon a 64 Spyder project car)

CORSA, RMC