<VV> Popular-Science-May-1960 Corvair Article

[Bob Gilbert]

Hi Doc,

This was a well thought out, well presented, balanced response to my query
and after looking back on my own career I can see analogs to most of the
items mentioned here.

Thanks,

Bob

 

 

From: RoboMan91324 at aol.com [mailto:RoboMan91324 at aol.com] 
Sent: March-10-13 10:45 AM
To: virtualvairs at corvair.org; bgilbert at gilberts-bc.ca
Subject: Popular-Science-May-1960 Corvair Article

 

Bob,

 

First, I think the answer to your question might have been touched on in the
article.  The Corvair was (and is) a nearly unique design.  Certainly, Chevy
had no in-house experience to build on.  Many of the different components
were hand-made in the design process and reacted differently than the mass
production versions.  I suspect that production and purchasing cost issues
may have had a hand in this.  The low bid gets the order.

 

Second, also touched on in the article is the fact that GM Engineers
probably had their hands full with more serious matters and may have
neglected some "minor" issues.  Keep in mind that there was huge pressure to
get the Corvair introduced on time for the 1960 model year.  No company
wants to introduce a new car a year or even a few months late, though it
does happen.  It is extremely costly to the company and makes the consumer
suspicious.  High and medium level people lose jobs and careers when they
don't meet very critical deadlines; even unreasonable ones.  I can imagine
statements like the following, "Forget the drumming from the gas heater for
now.  It only happens on a few units and is not dangerous.  We can introduce
a fix on the production floor.  Have your guys work on the ????? problem
which must be fixed before production starts."

 

Third, as pointed out in the article, all cars have their "birthing"
problems even if it is a vehicle that has traditional designs such as the
Valiant and Falcon back then.  I hate to say it again but part of that
problem came from cost factors in the design and purchasing decisions.  This
was hugely aggravated by the poor work practices on the production floor.
If there are problems with new traditional designs, you must expect problems
with a completely unprecedented design.

 

Fourth, and this may be the primary reason, the Engineers didn't and maybe
couldn't imagine all of the possible failure modes.  I have no doubt that
they tested vehicles at the extreme temperatures to be sure the car would
start and run in the Nevada desert in summer as well as in Maine in the dead
of winter.  They may not have tested in the 32 to 42 F range at a variety of
specific humidity points ranging around 75%.  The thought process might be,
"If it runs OK at the extremes, it should run fine anywhere in the middle."
Even if they did test at the critical points, see the first item above.  The
carbs were hand constructed and may not have exhibited a problem anywhere in
the temp/humidity range.

 

Even today when the Engineers have design and testing tools that the 50s and
60s Engineers couldn't even imagine, we still see birthing problems and
subsequent production floor and dealership fixes and even recalls.  Many of
the issues from back when still exist.

 

Doc

1960 Corvette, 1961 Rampside, 1962 Rampside, 1964 Spyder coupe, 1965
Greenbrier, 1966 Canadian Corsa turbo coupe, 1967 Nova SS, 1968 Camaro
ragtop

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In a message dated 3/10/2013 9:00:32 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time,
virtualvairs-request at corvair.org writes:

Message: 3
Date: Sun, 10 Mar 2013 08:37:25 -0700
From: "Bob Gilbert" <bgilbert at gilberts-bc.ca>
Subject: Re: <VV> Popular-Science-May-1960  Corvair Article
To: "'Matt Nall'" <patiomatt at aol.com>,    <virtualvairs at corvair.org>
Message-ID: <00eb01ce1da5$2a8b61b0$7fa22510$@gilberts-bc.ca>
Content-Type: text/plain;    charset="us-ascii"

Interesting article but what amazes me when I read articles like this is
that most of the reported problems could have(or should have)  been caught
during basic testing. Didn't the original belt system exhibit these problems
during testing? Was there no cold weather testing and so on?
Regards,
Bob

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