<VV> Car History Question -- No Corvair

[Bill H.]

                                              B"H

It was posited on this board that there were many older cars that could be bought for cheap in the late 1950s...VERY cheap.  Of tne cars that seemed to be mechanically bulletproof in those days would have been the Plymouths and Chryslers of the late 40s.  Those old flathead sixes went to hell and back, and many turned over more than once.

Being a young boy back in '58, but having a Dad who was a car nut, I can tell you that those old MoPars soldiered on forever.  Fords fell apart after only a few years of use, although the flathead V8 earned a good reputation for being easy to "hop up."  Chevys were durable, but those Stovebolts did start to burn oil before their decade was over.

It's true that smaller cars were not very very popular before 1958.  "Bigger is Better" was the motto, but a nasty recession that year turned finicky buyers to Ramblers and yes, VW bugs.  Companies trying to hawk the battleships were using axles with higher numerical ratios to squeeze more miles out of each drop of high-test gas.  I remember seeing a number of Renault Dauphines in those years, a rear-engine air cooled competitor for the Bug.  Back then, anyone who drove something that was made on the other side of the Atlantic was looked at as a "kook."  "Why doesn't he drive a REAL car?", was the question I heard from my folks and their friends.

The Big Three saw '58 Rambler sales taking off, especially the new American (which was simply a rehashed '50 Nash Rambler), and rushed to the drawing board, knowing that their behemoths were getting so big and plush, that sales resistance to these cars would come naturally, in direct proportion to the increases in wheelbase and cubic inches of the "standard" cars.

The Lark kept Studebaker on life support for a few years, while the Packard died with sales dwindling to next to nothing.  

The writing was on the wall...as we all know, sales of smaller cars began to take off in a big way starting around that recession year of 1958.

It's interesting to note that as early as 1953, Consumer Reports objected to the bigger, faster cars coming out of Detroit, and gave high marks to the Aero Willys and the Nash Rambler that year.  A subscriber asked CR if they would road-test the Rover, which was apparently a $2,800 car (an outrageous sum in those days) in the compact class, but highly trimmed.  

I was 6 when the '60 Corvair came out.  I was disappointed in the style and wondered why there was no convertible or hardtop coupe.  But, none of the other compacts had hardtops, either.  Lark got one in '61, followed by Valiant the same year.  Nova got one at the outset, and Falcon got one for '63.  Rambler American got one also in, I think 1961 or 62.  

And when the '65 Corvair came out, none of them came close to the Vair in the styling department.  Just my two cents.

I find this history stuff fascinating...

Bill Hershkowitz 69 Monza 110 PG