<VV> <Aarrgghh!!> Autoweek ~ "ill-handling Corvair" -, Really ?

[Steven J. Serenska]

John:
>   Part of it is, there are NO ill handling cars nowadays. At all. Probably haven't been in 30 years. And although I think all Corvairs have superb handling when maintained, an EM with soggy rear tires can be a handful, especially at the limit.
It's funny that you picked "30 years" as your cutoff because I had a 
very scary handling-related experience almost exactly 30 years ago in 
what must have been a 1983 Renault Alliance.

To set the story up, I need to say that in the late 1970s, there was a 
widely published article/video of a handling problem concerning a 
different car, the Dodge Omni/Plymouth Horizon.  Consumer Reports had 
given the Omni/Horizon an unsafe designation because the car failed to 
perform one of their tests.  In a nutshell, the driver would drive the 
car down a straight road, take his hands off the wheel and, with one 
hand or the other, give the wheel a sharp tug. CR wanted the car to 
"auto correct" and resume driving in a straight line with no further 
driver intervention.  I'm not sure if it's a fair or relevant test, but 
what the videos showed was scary.  Not only did the cars not "auto 
correct", they would go into a sideways spin and could seldom be 
wrestled back into control even by CR's test drivers.  Chrysler denied 
the tests, methodology, etc., and I'm really not sure what came of it.

In 1984, after I was out in the work force, I rented a car for an out of 
town assignment and was dealt a Renault Alliance by the Avis clerk.  
While I was initially pleased to get the Alliance because it had been 
Car and Driver's Car of the Year, I remember driving it and thinking to 
myself that a) the acceleration sucked, b) the fit and finish sucked, 
and c) the handling sucked.

I was driving on an interstate in southern NJ and, because I was young 
and stupid, decided to give CR's handling test a try.  I thought I might 
quantify just how much the handling sucked so I gave the wheel a sharp 
tug to the left.  As soon as I did it, it was like the lower front left 
of the car tried to get down and kiss the pavement.  The rear of the car 
flew up and to the right and felt like it was airborne although, since I 
didn't roll, it probably wasn't.  I came down with a jarring thud, 
probably at about a 40-degree angle to the lane.  I jerked the wheel 
back to the right and managed to get the car going forward again.  I 
rode the rest of the way to Philly with my heart pounding and the tops 
of my wrists tingling.  I turned the car in and declined to take one 
every time Avis offered me one thereafter.  As a footnote, Car and 
Driver later published this: 
http://www.caranddriver.com/features/dishonorable-mention-the-10-most-embarrassing-award-winners-in-automotive-history 
.

While the Consumer Reports test is a little dumb, the maneuver at the 
heart of the test is no different than one you might make if something 
fell off the car in front of you or if an animal darted out into the 
road and you turned sharply to avoid it.  The performance of the car in 
response to that simple maneuver scared the living daylights out of me.  
It's hard to believe it was 30 years ago, but even harder to believe 
that a car like that was actually manufactured and sold.

I haven't had an experience like that since then, so maybe your 30-year 
cutoff is correct.

Steven "old and stupid" Serenska
65 Monza Convertible, 110/4
66 Corsa Coupe, 140/4