<VV> Porch involvement

[kevin nash]

> 
> Message: 1
> Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2010 12:50:41 -0500
> From: "Smitty" <vairologist at cox.net>
> Subject: <VV> Porch Involvement
> To: <virtualvairs at corvair.org>
> Message-ID: <0B3853EF66334043803D0D685A96EA24 at D5856H81>
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> 
> Smitty Says; Yeah I know I said it wrong. Had a neighbor that was eat up with Porsches, along with his Dad. He would go insane when I called them porches.
> Anyway I have been to the conventions and heard the guest speakers and read the transcripts and I say none of the argument is necessary. GM was a God to themselves in the 50s. They could do no wrong. NIH (Not Invented Here) was embeded in their mindset. They had some of the best engineers in the world and they knew it. You could have asked any of them. No doubt in my mind they examined other air cooled engines. They might have looked at Harleys or even Briggs engines to see what they could learn. No doubt porsches too. But to suggest that they had some outsider tell them how to build an air cooled (or any other engine), is to ignore the fact of the corporate "think" of that time. It couldn't have happened.
> 

 I've had VW guys try to tell me that chevy copied vw, and Porsche guys tell me that chevy copied Porsche!
 
I think these MYTH's started with some small truths. According to a article from 1974  in "Special Interest Auto's" , GM did get "some" help from the Karl  Schmidt foundry in Germany, when
setting up the manufacturing techniques for the then new low pressure permanent mold process used for casting the aluminum parts. Also, when the engine was being designed, Gm engineers "surveyed the literature" (like all good engineers do) , looking at a variety of then current air cooled engines with a particular interest in typical exhaust valve temperatures. This is the "small truth" that has
been exaggerated and spun into "chevy copied vw". The "Chevy copied Porsche" myth comes from the 356 w/corvair engine stuffed in it. 
 
Kevin Nash