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Oh, ok, so GM woke up one day and decided to drop the Corvair. No, Ralph Nader killed the Corvair. There are no Ralph Naders on the Tesla's case. Blaming the driver is the popular pass time for auto makers. Remember drivers with big feet driving Audis?
Quote:
Originally Posted by burdell
As blaming the car was popular with Nader, accurate or not. I never put much stock in his book given he did things like give credence to LEO's reports of accidents as engineering assessments. Granted they taught about trailing throttle oversteer but so did the Porsches of the time.
Though never banned I agree with your assessment in the OP that it was trashed under the "flimsiest of the pretenses". Who knows? Had it been marketed as a sports car rather than an econo-car it may have had a longer life. IMO the second generation stills looks fairly contemporary today.
while nader and his idiocy in his book unsafe at any speed didnt help the popularity of the corvair, the combination of the popularity of the mustang and falcon, combined with the popularity of the nova, and the declining popularity of the corvair all conspired for chevrolet to make the decision to drop the corvair.
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Originally Posted by Elliott_CA
Chevy Corvair and Ford Pinto were corporate cover-ups: both companies had internal evidence of design and safety flaws but chose to cover up instead of fix. Tesla isn't covering up, they are actively working on improving their products. That's the difference.
wrong again their my friend, the corvair was constantly upgrade over its lifetime, the last model year being the best corvairs put out. they were in fact good cars over their lifetime.
as for the pinto, that was also a rubbish attack on the car, and the company, pintos were also very good cars, that were also upgraded over the years, i have had a couple and they were neat little cars to drive. and for the record, there were no more deaths in pintos than in any other car on the market. in fact the total number of fire deaths in pintos was 27, less that fire deaths in crown vics or other cars.
and i know someone will bring up the memo that was put out by ford on the cost of human life vs the cost of repairing the cars, or what ever they think the memo was about. reality check here, that memo was ORDERED by the nhtsa, and had very set parameters, again set by the nhtsa.
in all both were good and popular cars, and they were ultimately killed because of that popularity.
Baloney!! Chevrolet constantly improved the 1st generation Corvair's rear swing-arm suspension. The 2nd generation Corvairs has a completely new rear suspension.
In the past safety coverups were standard operating procedure:
"Thus for decades, manufacturers have required victims of vehicle defects to sign confidentiality agreements prior to receiving compensation via settlement while their attorneys must agree to protective orders on discovery in order to advance their client’s case. This practice prevents victims from reporting vehicle safety defects to NHTSA as well as to the media and other organizations, effectively giving manufacturers control over vital safety information that reaches the agency, as well as the public at large." -- Center for Auto Safety
It happened frequently where car manufacturers settled out of court as long as all of the documents and evidence was destroyed and there was a non-disclosure agreement.
...Ford Pinto were corporate cover-ups: both companies had internal evidence of design and safety flaws but chose to cover up instead of fix.
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Originally Posted by burdell
RTFM, Read The F-in' Manual. It's amazing how many alleged problems that little piece of can solve.
Really? Find a Pinto manual and show me where it reads, "Don't get rear-ended because the floor of your cargo area is the top of the fuel tank, so even the slightest crush will rupture the tank and spray gas all through the car. This Would Be Bad."
Classic Mustangs are the same, as were many Fords and other makes of the same era. Which is why classic Mustang owners (and the few Pinto/Maverick diehards) put a piece of "tank armor" over the thing. Which Ford didn't want to do because money.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Quietude
Really? Find a Pinto manual and show me where it reads, "Don't get rear-ended because the floor of your cargo area is the top of the fuel tank, so even the slightest crush will rupture the tank and spray gas all through the car. This Would Be Bad."
Classic Mustangs are the same, as were many Fords and other makes of the same era. Which is why classic Mustang owners (and the few Pinto/Maverick diehards) put a piece of "tank armor" over the thing. Which Ford didn't want to do because money.
IIRC the crash that was plastered all over the news involved a stationery Pinto being rear-ended by a van at ~60mph. How many cars of that era would have maintained gas tank integrity given that scenario?
BTW, I could find you a Corvair manual detailing a far greater than usual pressure differential between front and rear tire, the lack of which could cause handling issues so yes, I'll stand with RTFM! as a way of avoiding some problems that BS artist Nader alleged was a design issue.
Funny that people are talking about a car that was made before most here were even born but think they know why it was dropped from GM. My father worked for GM back in the 60’s when the Corvair came out he worked at GM Fisher Body plant on Fort street in Detroit. He said the Corvair was a great car and that Ralf Nader and all the bad press caused its demise. It was GM’s first attempt to mass produce a rear air cooled engine. And my father was one of the first Journeyman mold makers to make the molds for GM’s first padded dashboards.
BTW, I could find you a Corvair manual detailing a far greater than usual pressure differential between front and rear tire, the lack of which could cause handling issues so yes, I'll stand with RTFM! as a way of avoiding some problems that BS artist Nader alleged was a design issue.
Tire pressures could lead to erratic handling, much more so than any equivalent car of the era. Whether you want to say that was a 'design flaw' or just 'stupid ignorant drivers' is a debate with no end.
However, there were other flaws in the Gen1 Corvair, the most serious of which was the lack of downward travel limit on the rear swing-axle suspension. With the shock absorber being the only thing limiting downward swing/negative cambering, a hard turn (such as that caused by erratic control caused by improper tire pressures) could make the rear end 'jack' by quite a bit. Every owner of a Gen1 I've known added a hard stop to the rear suspension - I believe it's a standard kit from the aftermarket now.
The Corvairs were like a number of existing European cars... but far larger and heavier, amplifying the bad handling issues. They were sold to a fairly ignorant market that expected American car (of the time) handling and driveability, not Porsche owners used to bizarre handling reactions. The Gen2 was an extremely nice car for its age, with most of the problems corrected. But the demise of the make due to the limitations of the Gen1 was not entirely because of Ralphie's hot air, no matter how much aficionados like to say so.
I owned a 1964 Corvair for a short while in 1972. I was driving down a 2 way street in Washington and during a light rainstorm, the car decided to pull a 540 and I was heading the other direction. 2 weeks later, it threw a rod and that was it for the Corvair. Definitely the best $100 I ever spent!
Speaking of reading the manual, the Tesla manual says
Traffic-Aware Cruise Control cannot detect all objects and may not brake/decelerate for stationary vehicles, especially in situations when you are driving over 50 mph (80 km/h) and a vehicle you are following moves out of your driving path and a stationary vehicle or object is in front of you instead.
They make it clear Autopilot is not a self-driving car. It's a partial assistant as best. So when the Tesla slammed into the stationary fire truck, that's human error, not a Tesla defect.
p.s. I don't own a Tesla, I'm not a fanboy. But I do appreciate the latest in high tech.
Location: By the sea, by the sea, by the beautiful sea
68,329 posts, read 54,373,658 times
Reputation: 40731
Quote:
Originally Posted by Quietude
Tire pressures could lead to erratic handling, much more so than any equivalent car of the era. Whether you want to say that was a 'design flaw' or just 'stupid ignorant drivers' is a debate with no end.
However, there were other flaws in the Gen1 Corvair, the most serious of which was the lack of downward travel limit on the rear swing-axle suspension. With the shock absorber being the only thing limiting downward swing/negative cambering, a hard turn (such as that caused by erratic control caused by improper tire pressures) could make the rear end 'jack' by quite a bit. Every owner of a Gen1 I've known added a hard stop to the rear suspension - I believe it's a standard kit from the aftermarket now.
I recall a diagram in Unsafe At Any Speed showing an axle drooping far more than an intact shock would allow with no mention of that, that's one of the reasons I've always viewed Nader as a sensationalist who would happily omit facts in the interest of fear-mongering.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Quietude
The Corvairs were like a number of existing European cars... but far larger and heavier, amplifying the bad handling issues. They were sold to a fairly ignorant market that expected American car (of the time) handling and driveability, not Porsche owners used to bizarre handling reactions. The Gen2 was an extremely nice car for its age, with most of the problems corrected. But the demise of the make due to the limitations of the Gen1 was not entirely because of Ralphie's hot air, no matter how much aficionados like to say so.
Ignorant drivers are not the fault of the car. And a '63 Corvair coupe is listed at ~ 2500 lbs and the heaviest '63 Porsche 356 at ~ 2300 lbs, not much of a difference at all. Many have said had GM marketed the car as a sports car rather than an econo-car its life may have been far different.
I've literally seen an SUV up on 2 wheels when the driver jerked the wheel back from an ill-time lane change. Design issue or ignorant driver?
The Corvair was never banned, merely dropped by GM.
A Corvair convertible was my first car, I'd buy another in a NY minute!
As far as Tesla goes, it's not the number of accidents but the WHY of those accidents that's
At one time I owned 5 corvairs, and loved them. They had their little quirks, but I could drive in the worst snowstorm and never got stuck. Pretty dependable, if you maintained them.
During the gas crunch of the 70's, I put a second Corvair fuel tank in the front with the original, and had a selector switch to pull fuel from one tank or the other. On my odd or even day to get gas, I would pull in, and since both fuel fills were right there, I could put in two tankfuls before the gas station attendant got wise to me. Gave me enough fuel to get to work for many days.
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