<VV> exoneration?

Tue Jan 22 16:10:07 EST 2013

All:  I have in front of me a copy of the DoT/NHSA news release dated July 21, 1972.  It 's conclusion is the "handling and stability performance of these cars (the Corvair) is at least as good as the performance of several contemporary domestic and foreign vehicals.  The Corvair performance does not result in a abnormal potential for loss of control or rollover".  

The other cars were Falcons and Valients and probably others.  They are not ID in the news release.  The  "abnormal potential for loss of control or rollover" is the qualifier.  It means the Corvair wasn't any better or worse than the other cars when driven to their limits of physics.  

Of course, the object of normal driving on the streets is to not get in the situation of taking the car to its limits. 

One or more of us on VV need to see the film Chevrolet R&D made for GM's lawyers before saying anything more about what the EM Corvair will do at the limits of physics.  I saw it at the GM tech Center in 1979 about the EM Corvair.  Eye opener.  I don't have the time to key stroke the film content, but the Corvair did do a snap spin at about the same speed the Falcon and Valent had understeered themselves off the skid pad.  As for the LM Corvair, there is a reason racers and auto-x's put wider tires on the back of their cars.  Stingers came with 7 ' rims on the back for a reason. 

Nader became famous because of GM's poorly handled PI investagation of him.  If GM had left him alone, he probably would have gone back into the woodwork. The question is, who authorized the PI investagation?  Then there were the congressional hearings by a Senator looking for a fight which fanned the suitutation.  The press mostly did their jobs.  

I don't think the Corvair was ever "exoneration" in court.  GM was in the business of cutting their losses and settled just about all of the cases outside of court.   

I cannot remember ever spining a Corvair, even autocrossing.  I always developed an attack of chickenitis first...and lifted my foot. 

I have seen Alliance's race back in the 80's as a support series for IMSA.  In fact, James Reeve successufully race them.  Yenko Stinger to an Alliance, with a stop off with a race winning Buick Skyhawk in between.  They looked as stable as any FWD car IMSA raced as support series.  All FWD cars back then cornered on 3 wheels. 

I had a '84 Dodge Shelby Charger (aka a Dodge Omni).  It had performance tires and shocks, a couple of large sway bars and always understeered...but went like stink.  

But I never tryed a jerk the steering wheel 90 degs at speed and let go, in it or anyother car.  How dumb is that?  

And Ken is correct about both Nader's and White's books.  Read  them.  Once you get beyond the first two chapters, tell me Nader wasn't correct about the auto industry back then.  

Autoweek is mostly run by a bunch of snotty nose kids, as are most of their writers.  They are to be pittied and forgiven. 

Historically Yours,
						James

Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2013 09:24:05 -0500
From: Ken Pepke 
Subject: Re: Autoweek ~ "ill-handling Corvair" -  Really ?
To: Vair Views 

While I know of no book specifically entitled 'Ill Handling Corvair' there was a book written near the end of 1965 that was titled 'Unsafe At Any Speed.'  Part of one of its chapters included negative claims concerning the Corvair's drivability.  Hungry for newsworthy product  and unencumbered by any need for truth and accuracy, the news medial jumped at the bait.  Hundreds of articles were written and published selling the idea to John Q Public.  

The Corvair's reputation remains tarnished even today.  How many of the members of this venue still believe Corvairs oversteer even though they have been driving them for many years?  In fact, the claims agains the Corvair were settled in court with the exoneration of its engineering.  Where was the news media on that day? 

While it is impossible to set the record straight, a book making an attempt to do so was was written 'way back in 1969!  Called 'Assassination of the Corvair' written by Andrew J White and published by Readers Press, Inc., Library of Congress Catalog No. 77-95002.

Ken P
Wyandotte, MI
65 Monza 110hp 4 speed 2 door
Worry looks around; Sorry looks back, Faith looks up.

***********************************

On Jan 21, 2013, at 3:25 PM, Shelrockbored at aol.com wrote:
> People just assume that since there was a book written about the  
> "ill-handling Corvair" that there was in fact something wrong with it.  The  person 
> who wrote the article probably never saw or at least drove a Corvair in  his 
> life and he probably knows nothing about it.  He just assumed that  since an 
> ambulance chaser wrote a book about it how bad it is then it must be  true.
> 
> Like it or not the Corvair has a deserved or undeserved bad name.  The  
> debate will not end here and will probably never end.  I've found that Corvair 
> aficionados defend the Corvair (because they are knowledgeable about it) 
> while people who are ignorant of it assume that it is a bad car.  
> 
> It just goes to show that everybody know everything but in fact nobody  
> knows anything.
> 
> Stephen Sassi
> Long Island Corvair
> 
> 
> In a message dated 1/1/2013 10:31:34 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,  
> chaz at properproper.com writes:
> 
> Did they  have to add "Fitch, who died Oct. 31, turned the ill-handling
> Corvair into  the agile Fitch Sprint" ?
> 
> You'd think they'd know  better?

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Message: 2
Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2013 09:59:38 -0500 (EST)
From: wrsssatty at aol.com
Subject: Nader's [sic] VW book; Was:   Autoweek ~
	"ill-handling Corvair" -
To: virtualvairs at corvair.org
Message-ID: <8CFC6C83B69A0A2-E30-27EA3 at webmail-m159.sysops.aol.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

I assume the reference is to "Small-On Safety".  However, that book was not written by Ralph Nader.  He only wrote the introduction.  The complete title of the book is "Small-On Safety The Designed-in Dangers of the Volkswagen".  The Center for Auto Safety is credited as the author.  The Center for Auto Safety was founded in 1970 by Consumers Union and Ralph Nader.  So, the book was not written by Ralph Nader but by some of his minions who were known at the time as "Nader's Raiders", an overworked, underpaid group of freshly minted, idealistic attorneys.

~Bill Stanley

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Message: 3
Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2013 10:56:23 -0500
From: "Steven J. Serenska" 
Subject: Re: Autoweek ~ "ill-handling Corvair" -,
	Really ?
To: virtualvairs at corvair.org
Cc: jvhroberts at aol.com

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