<VV> Corvair handling

[Smitty]

Smitty Says;  I resisted joining in this thread as long as I could but the
20 degrees and light snow have taken the fun out of being outside.
My first experience with Corvairs was when I got a 64 coupe for a runabout
car.  I was immediately impressed with the delicious handling even though I
thought the steering to be too slow.  Associates filled me in on how
dangerous they were and I thought that was a little stupid.  I can't
remember who it was but I remember an auto magazine writer stating that the
difference between European drivers and domestic drivers was that they found
the limits of their cars and then drive within those limits, whereas
American drivers only discovered the limits of their cars when it was too
late to do them any good.   I was daily exploring the limits of the coupe
and one day a driver shot across traffic in front of me and I had to jerk
the wheel over hard to avoid him.  It seemed I whipsawed that car back and
forth for a block till I gradually got the oscillation dampened down.  I
thought the car passed that test remarkably well and doubted a front engine
car would have survived the same situation.  A month or so later I was on my
way to work and it was raining.  I was still enjoying "pushing" the car in
the corners.  I came into a normal 90 degree left, but it was reverse
cambered.  Before I could even react the car had done a perfect 180 and I
sat there with an intelligent look on my face, facing the driver which had
been following me.  New lesson learned.  Since then I have been on the edge
of terminal oversteer many times but survived because I knew it was there.
At no time did I ever curse GM or the Corvair for those happenings.  It
wasn't their fault I pushed the car beyond the designed limits.  It was my
responsibility to find them and stay within.
On the subject of practicing handling, there was a high school a few miles
from my house that had a huge parking lot.  It was flat as a table.  When
the temperature had been around zero a few days one of us would go to the
lot and open a nearby fire hydrant.  Some passerby or neighbor always
reported it soon after but that left a good inch or more of ice on the
surface.  Lessons learned there at 2 to 5 miles per hour served us well in
later years at much higher speeds.  2 wheel drifts, 4 wheel drifts, and
bootleg U turns became an art to be practiced.