"Ed Hulett -> Ross Sauer"  wrote in
news:20592$MATZDOBRE{at}JamNNTPd:

 RS>>>>>> Did some research last night, found it again. It was
 RS>>>>>> mentioned in Ralph Nader's book, "Unsafe
At Any Speed."

 BA>>>>> That book was fiction back when Nader wrote it back in the
 BA>>>>> early 1960s - IIRC I was in HS at the time. 'course,
 BA>>>>> Nader was able to build a very nice career from it.

 RS>>>> The problem is Nader's book wasn't entirely fiction.
 RS>>>> Cars in the late 50's and early 60's could be really junk.

 BA>>> Nader's book was specifically about the rear engined Chevrolet
 EH>   Corvair. BA>> The early Corvair models *did* have a tendency to spin
 EH>   on slick BA>> pavements, but that problem was fixed by the time
 EH>   Nader published BA>> his book.

 RS>> Also the Corvair had different handling, the engine being in the
 EH>   rear. RS> But GM didn't market the car as having any different
 EH>   handling, so it was RS> sold to people who drove it like they would
 EH>   the family car. RS> That was a disaster in the making.

 EH> You don't know what you are talking about. The Corvair was not a
 EH> disaster. It handled quite well. My dad had two Corvairs, a 1962
 EH> Spyder and a 1965 Corsa. The Spyder was turbocharged and would go
 EH> 120mph and handled the windy 410 highway on the way to camping. We
 EH> kept up with my uncles 1959 Impala with a 409 4bbl.

I didn't say the car itself was a disaster.
How people drive it could be a disaster in the making, since some of
them didn't know how to handle a rear-engine car.

 EH> The '65 Corsa was even better in the handling department.

 EH> Nader used images from a 1960 Ford propaganda film they made trying to
 EH> show how much better their Falcon handled than the Corvair. In that
 EH> film, if you look at it frame by frame, the driver in the Corvair had
 EH> to whip the steering wheel back and forth to get it to spin out. The
 EH> Falcon driver had to do the course at a lower speed to safely complete
 EH> it.

 EH> Ironically, the Falcon was highly unstable and was prone to flip on
 EH> its top when cornering aggressively. I was witness to one such crash
 EH> several years ago where the driver did not survive. The crash took
 EH> place just outside a Denny's where I was having coffee at the time.
 EH> The geometry of the front suspension on the Falcon was such that it
 EH> would fold under the car with alarming ease.

Wasn't the original Mustang almost as bad?

 RS>>>> And GM could have just ignored Nader, thus ending the
 RS>>>> problem. Instead they put a private investigator onto Nader
 RS>>>> to dig up dirt. Very dumb mistake.

 BA>>> GM had already addressed and fixed the problem with Corvairs by
 EH>   the BA>> time Nader's book came out. IIRC it was a weight
 EH>   distribution problem - BA>> too much weight behind the rear wheels.

 RS>> It was the publicity of GM hiring the private investigator on
 EH>   Nader, that RS> really was GM's big mistake.

 EH> Yes, they should have ignored the idiot. Instead, they helped the
 EH> moron gain notoriety.

Dumb mistake on GM's part.

 RS>> The book also took other cars to task as well, and some of those
 EH>   reports RS> were true.

 EH> Really? Which ones were that?

 RS>> Cars from the late 50's and early 60's were sheet-metal
 EH>   montrosities with RS> overpowered engines.

 EH> You are an idiot.

 RS>> They were junk.

 EH> Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!

 EH> You haven't a clue about which you speak.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joMK1WZjP7g

--- Xnews/5.04.25