<VV> Corvair Production - "Law of Unintended Consequences"

[Charles Lee]

It may be that GM and the others thought the "compact car" was going to be 
as successful as IBM wanted the PC to be.

Remember the "PC Jr" ?   Did it seem that IBM was in the toy business ?  I 
think not : I think (and still do) that IBM wanted to discredit the PC as a 
"toy" much the same as GM thought of compact cars as non-profit necessary 
evils, to placate the masses, much like the VW.

However GM doesn't do things small, but it's possible that just piddling out 
"a few" thousand little tin cans may have been considered at some point, and 
amortize over the long haul, making the same little bucket for a decade and 
"proving" that small cars are not feasible and not many people would want 
them.

File it under "Law of Unintended Consequences" since it didn't quite turn 
out that way, did it ?

BTW, did you know that the Captain of the Beagle exploration vessel may have 
hired a man named Charles Darwin to sail around the world (ostensibly to map 
out coastlines), with the intention of having Darwin, a noted naturalist, 
help him DISPROVE all those pesky theories of "evolution" that were 
bothering the church at the time ?

Well, that didn't quite work out the way he planned either, did it ?

Funny how things work out, isn't it ?

Charlie

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "James P. Rice" <ricebugg at mtco.com>
To: <virtualvairs at corvair.org>
Sent: Friday, August 27, 2010 8:03 PM
Subject: <VV> Corvair Production


> 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
>
> **************************
>
> 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
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> This message was sent by the VirtualVairs mailing list, all copyrights are 
> the property
> of the writer, please attribute properly. For help, 
> mailto:vv-help at corvair.org
> This list sponsored by the Corvair Society of America, 
> http://www.corvair.org/
> Post messages to: VirtualVairs at corvair.org
> Change your options: 
> http://www.vv.corvair.org/mailman/options/virtualvairs
> _______________________________________________
>