<VV> Did the Corvair design its own demise ?

[jvhroberts at aol.com]

The Falcon came out at the same time the Corvair did. This was the 
basis for the Mustnag. All Ford had to do was rebody the Falcon. GM's 
path foward was more arduous with the Corvair, but for the Chevy II, 
they followed Ford's formula. Not sure if the Corvair was the 
inspiration or not.

John Roberts

-----Original Message-----
From: chaz at ProperProPer.com
To: RoboMan91324 at aol.com; virtualvairs at corvair.org; hharpo at earthlink.net
Sent: Thu, Dec 9, 2010 9:41 pm
Subject: <VV> Did  the Corvair design its own demise ?


The Corvair is one car that falls under the "Law of Unintended 
Consequences"
because it was SUPPOSED to be an econo-box, but became so much more 
that was
never anticipated.

Someone said that the Mustang killed the Corvair, but isn't it true 
that the
Corvair made the Mustang possible, by showing Detroit that small cars 
could
be profitable, when Chevy added  features that customers wanted ?

The 4-speed, carpets, bucket seats, nice trim, then a convertible 
(which
killed the Lakewood when Chevy changed their target market ?), Chevy
couldn't take the Corvair, with big engines (although the Nova has a 
283 in
1963 or before ?)

So, without Corvair, would there have a been a Mustang ?

A bit of a paradox, actually, since the Corvair designed its own demise 
?

Charlie

-----Original Message-----
From: RoboMan91324 at aol.com
Sent: Thursday, December 09, 2010 4:07 PM
To: virtualvairs at corvair.org ; hharpo at earthlink.net
Subject:  Nader and the book ! Why was Corvair his target ?

Yes, Marc.

I believe Nadar's thought process was that, because the Corvair was
revolutionary instead of evolutionary, it should have included many 
safety
upgrades
that would be required years later.  The Corvair was a complete 
departure
 from the norm and since GM had started with a blank sheet of paper, he 
felt
that they didn't need to live with an existing platform and technology. 
 It
would have been "easy" in his opinion to include safer technology.  
Where
his
logic fell short was that the Corvair was designed and marketed as an
economy car.  Of course, there are those among us that feel that it 
should
have b
een marketed as a sports car but that wasn't the direction they took 
back
when it was first designed.  Adding 3 point seat belts, collapsing 
steering
columns, disk brakes, etc. would have guaranteed the failure of the 
Corvair
in
its first year due to costs.  After that, no manufacturer would dare to
innovate if it would add cost; especially on an economy car.  High end
luxury
cars could afford to include "experimental" safety upgrades but an 
economy
car aimed at the Beetle as its competition could not afford upgrades 
that
were
not required by the government or a competitive industry.  At that time 
and
to a degree, still today, car manufacturers rarely added costly safety
equipment unless required by the government.  A government requirement
levels
the field because everyone's cost goes up.  Remember, back then, people
would
make an economy car buying decision based on a few dollars difference.

Like it or not, Nadar's legacy is that he forced the government to get 
more
involved and ultimately force all manufacturers to include safety 
equipment
that they might not have included otherwise.

Doc
1960 Corvette; 1961 Rampside; 1962 Rampside; 1964 Spyder coupe; 1965
Greenbrier; 1966 Corsa turbo coupe; 1967 Nova SS; 1968 Camaro ragtop
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In a message dated 12/9/2010 11:59:21 AM Pacific Standard Time,
virtualvairs-request at corvair.org writes:

> Message: 7
> Date: Thu, 9 Dec 2010 11:34:54 -0800 (GMT-08:00)
> From: Marc  Marcoulides <hharpo at earthlink.net>
> Subject: Re: <VV> Nader and the book ! Why was Corvair his target ?
> To: virtualvairs at corvair.org
> Message-ID:
>     <
> 
20634314.1291923294352.JavaMail.root at elwamui-lapwing.atl.sa.earthlink.net
>
>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
>
> Long ago Ralph Nader was guest speaker at our national convention, in 
his
> remarks he said that the Corvair was an entirely new offering from
> Detroits
> biggest company and thus his most logical target
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