<VV> Corvair Vs. Falcon

[Jeffrey B. Aronson]

>
> The question I wish I had an answer for was why the Corvair was kept in
> production so long, given the sales compared to Falcon's and Chevy II's.
> There are few left to ask, and no known documentation of the discussion and
> decision making process.  I suspect it they decided to recoup the
> development cost and mixed in was some amount of pride and love of the car.
> It appears all the car guys at Chevrolet & GM loved the Corvair, while the
> marketing, sales type and the dealers did not. 
James,

Very interesting speculation - I look forward to your article. Two 
thoughts to share with you::

VW sold about 177,000 cars and a few trucks in the US in 1961. That was 
a considerable number back then and I'm sure Chevy and GM wanted a piece 
of that.

So, too, did dealers. There was an old saw that there were good and bad 
VW dealerships, but no poor ones. The basic car made money for the 
dealer network, even with its somewhat fixed price and few options. 
Chevy dealers would see that it was not hard to sell VW's and would want 
a car that could compete with it. While the Beetle was very slow to get 
to speed, it was always driven in a sporting manner. Remember the 
saying, "if you lined all the cars on earth, someone in a Beetle would 
try and pass them?"

The Corvair cost much less to change each year because there weren't 
that many cosmetic changes; as with the VW, the changes were internal to 
the drivetrain.and/or suspension. It gave more time to amortize the 
large investment.

So you could develop the Chevy II and enhance the brand name as the 
Corvair - which was simply too different from the larger Chevys - never 
could.

Jeff Aronson
Vinalhaven, ME