A guide to Chevrolet Corvair

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The general view is that following the critical report on the Corvair in Ralph Nader’s book Unsafe at any Speed, this was the beginning of the end of themodel – but the birth of passive safety in cars.

The general view is that following the critical report on the Corvair in Ralph Nader’s book Unsafe at any Speed, this was the beginning of the end of the model – but the birth of passive safety in cars. Born in Winsted, Connecticut, Ralph Nader was educated at Princeton University andthen at Harvard Law School where he took a special interest in cases of car injuries. On graduation from law school he then practiced law as a specialist in automobile safety, and went on to work for the defence and protection of consumers from industrial dangers. Interestingly only one of the book’s eight chapters covers the infamous Corvair. Indeed there were many accidents involving the first generation Corvair, with its rear suspension design having a tendency for the inside wheel to ‘tuck-under’ when cornering, and not all quickly. The Chevrolet had a characteristic of wagging its tail on cornering which even when pushed to the lowly limits of the early 1960s could break away with venom. Corvairs built from 1965 did not suffer from this problem as a second outboard CV joint was added to maintain a constant camber angle at the wheels. In the book the Corvair was portrayed as unstable and prone to roll-over accidents. Some 62 per cent of its weight was over the rear wheels! The flat-six rearmounted engine was much heavier than was first envisaged and being heavier at the rear and light at the front caused the car to oversteer. Also, not enough attention was focussed on keeping correct tyre pressures which was absolutely critical on this car. When cold, 15psi at the front and 26psi at the rear was recommended. All kinds of remedies were available to improve the handling of the first cars, with some success. These included front anti-roll bars, increasing negative camber plus lower, stiffer springs and dampers. This heavy-duty suspension kit improved stability, and aftermarket tuning company Empi also offered a camber compensator, rear wheel stabiliser and an anti roll bar for the front suspension. The camber compensator was a single leaf spring which links together the independently sprung rear wheels. Pivoting at the differential housing, this acted just the opposite to the motion of an anti-roll bar. Steering arms were changed for quicker response giving 3.3 turns from lock to lock. It was something of an irony that following the book Unsafe at any Speed the second generation Corvair was a much improved car. Almost 1.8 million Corvairs were built over a 10 year period and Chevrolet did much pioneering work with turbo charging with the Corsa model.