<VV> The demise of the American Car - Limited Corvair

[Tony Underwood]

At 08:16 AM 12/30/2011, Grant Young wrote:
>There in an article in our St. Pete Times today that is borrowed 
>from the NY Times News Service. It is about how American car 
>manufacturers inadvertently opened the US to imports by producing 
>three of the worst cars ever - the Vega, Gremlin, and Pinto all at 
>once. Seems that in 1968 only 1 in 10 cars sold were imports. The 
>article starts with a slam on the Corvair by saying "The Chairman of 
>GM announced...that the XP-887 (Vega) would be about a foot shorter 
>than GM's smallest offering...the Chevrolet Corvair. And it would, 
>no doubt, be better than that star-crossed and litigation-plagued 
>import fighter from a decade earlier."
>
>It goes on to say that "instead of being developed by the 
>engineering staff of a single brand, the Vega was designed by the 
>corporate engineering staff under the direction of Edward M. 
>Cole...It was then handed to Chevrolet's managers (headed by John 
>DeLorean) to sell." Seems the major glitch was the engine "that 
>looked like it had been taken off a 1920's farm tractor...."
>
>The gist of the article is that those three cars were so bad that it 
>essentially opened the market flood gates to the much better imports 
>and it was all down hill from there.



Trouble is:

There's nothing inherently wrong with the Pinto.  And I don't wanna 
hear anybody start in on that exploding Pinto fiasco which is bogus 
and needs to be chalked up right beside Corvairs turning over and 
Yugos rusting in showrooms.   Kinda stupid, when some slam manages to 
make its way into popular terminology in spite of being plain wrong.

And Gremlins had nothing wrong with them either outside quirky 
styling.  There have been two of 'em in the fleet here, still have 
one.   The other was sold to somebody who wanted it bad enough to 
come from 100 miles away just to see it.   My brother had one that he 
drove for years.


I'm also a bit suspicious of ANY car related article that comes from 
the NY Times.   Sorry... they're a rag that I have little use for, 
regarding anything connected with US Industry and that includes cars.

I forget how many thousands of miles I put on a '72 Pinto runabout 
that never did anything except just run and run and run.   I'd drive 
another one anywhere in a minute.  Vegas?   Mixed bag.  Interesting 
car that got done all wrong, mostly because of that engine which DID 
get a fix with sleeves later and then all was well, but by then its 
credibility was already slaughtered.





...and hasn't ANYbody ever noticed that when ANY car gets maligned 
for any reason, no matter that it's untrue, many people immediately 
begin to treat them like disposable objects?     After 5 years of 
abuse, it ends up getting called a POS and ever after, all others of 
the same marque get the same identity.


Look at Corvairs, STILL getting flak from "experts" who are nothing 
of the sort but they get believed anyway.



tony..