<VV> Corvair Production

[James P. Rice]

Ken:  Like Bob, I'd love to know the source of your info that GM's plan was
to produce 10-20K Corvairs per year for 10 years w/o body style change.

I think I have every major piece of literature written on the 'Vair, some of
it dating from 1959, and all the Communiques back to the mid-70's.  Never
heard what you wrote before.

It doesn't make sense on first thoughtful pass for about 3 reasons.
1. GM product cycle was generally 3 years.  Producing the same car for 10
was anathema to their business plan.
2. The break even point on today's cars is about 30K, last I heard, when a
limited production car uses major subassemblies from other cars.  The
Corvair didn't use any major - or minor - subassemblies from anything then
in production.  Somehow I don't think GM in the late 50's/early 60's could
beat the economics of today's robot manufactured & assembled cars.
3. Corvair production was 250K cars in 1960.  You do not go from planning on
10-20K cars to 250K without a major thrash with your suppliers and your own
plants.  If that incredible increase in product had been required and
accomplished in the first year of production, those of us living and paying
attention to the auto industry in SE Michigan would have noticed.  Which
didn't happen.

While I do not know what production numbers GM was anticipating for the 1960
model year, take it to the bank it was a lot more than 10-20K Corvairs.

Or is it April 1st in your time and space?

Historically Yours,
                   James Rice
                   CORSA member since mid-70's
                   Former Chairman of the Competition Committee
                   Member of original CPF Advisorary Committee
                   CORSA/CPF BoD member and CPF Liaison 1999-01
                   Occasional contributor to the Communique

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Message: 2
Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2010 11:48:31 EDT
From: HallGrenn at aol.com
Subject: Re: <VV> Medical waivers - making Corvair safer
To: virtualvairs at corvair.org

In a message dated 8/26/2010 9:06:34 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
kenpepke at juno.com writes:

The  original GM plan was to build 10 to 20 thousand Corvairs per year, for
10  years, without changing the body style just to see how they would do
using VW product planning.

Ken,


I'd be interested in the source of that number range.  With all the tooling
costs for the new engine, new body and suspension I've always read Chevrolet
meant to be number one in a growing market for compact, more fuel efficient
cars selling in the hundreds of thousands per year.

Bob Hall
Group Corvair
Corvanatics (I just sent the renewal check)
CORSA