<VV> Saginaw transaxle

[Sethracer at aol.com]

Okay - The reasoning is this: In 1957 through 1963, Chevrolet used the  
Borg-Warner built T10 4-speed transmission in all of their applications,  
besides the Corvair. For 1964, Chevy introduced the "Muncie" 4-speed, replacing  
the Borg-Warner (which they had to buy outside GM) in most applications. The 
 Muncie was much stronger than the T10, and Horsepower/torque had increased 
past  it's limits. (think 409) But even making the transmission in-house 
(actually, in  Muncie at a GM plant) was still expensive and the strength of 
the Muncie was way  beyond what was needed for the lower HP applications. So 
Chevy designed, for  lower HP applications, a new 4-speed with the reverse 
gears in the main case  (unlike the Borg-Warner or Muncie, which had them in 
the tail shaft). It was  built at the Saginaw transmission plant (where all 
Corvair 4-speeds were also  built.)  In Chevy Parts lingo, a conventional 
4-speed transmission has  always been either a "Muncie", a "Borg-Warner", or a 
"Saginaw". 
 
 Through 1963, the Corvair 4-speed had some common parts with the  trans 
used in the Tempest, and maybe some internal parts were shared with other  
lower HP cars. From 64-on, the Tempest went to a conventional trans, as did all 
 the other GM intermediates. So the Corvair was now the only usage for 
those  parts. GM didn't like single applications. As I mentioned, the newly  
designed Saginaw 4-speed had all the gears in the main case, so it could  
"easily" be adapted for transaxle use. Hollow output shaft and long  input. So to 
spread the development cost out, Chevy re-designed the unit  for transaxle 
use for the 66-later Corvair application. The Corvair unit  was a 
re-designed "Saginaw" conventional transmission. Many of  the internal parts of the 
66-69 Corvair 4-speed are common to other rear wheel  drive Chevys of the era. 
The Vega used a Saginaw 4-speed, etc.
 
So, it isn't just the Corvair folks who call that 66-69 transmission a  
"Saginaw", although, as Bob noted, all Corvair transmissions were built in  
Saginaw.
 
- Seth
     
 
 
In a message dated 8/12/2016 6:16:24 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time,  
virtualvairs at corvair.org writes:

On  8/12/2016 4:04 AM, Charles Lee via VirtualVairs wrote:

> I have  always heard the '66 to '69 transmission called a "Saginaw" to
>  distinguish it from the smaller, less robust '65 transmission.
This is  correct.  it has long been called a "Saginaw" by those in the 
hobby  to distinguish it from the '64-'65 transmission.  But despite 
this,  both were indeed manufactured at the Saginaw  plant.

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