Big Yank Imp

[akku]

cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=4638471636&rd=1&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWA%3AIT&rd=1

I always fancied one of these. Basically to see if they are the lethal death trap Nader and others proclaimed it to be, or if its a nice compact sporting car as its advocates (including Stirling Moss) claim.

£1500 reserve not met.... And its been of the road for years...

I'd rather have the the Jensen....

But these babies can take a mid mounted V8 which is kinda cool.

[Jack]

it's ok. But i don't like the colour.

[Bioshock]

gotta say i love the corvair,i was watching the drag wheelie finals
on the box a few weeks back a bloke won in a corvair.All that weight in the back must have helped,not sure what one would be like in the twistys.

[akku]

Aledgedly they are supposed to be quite good handling (for age and type of vehicle) - I've seen pics from back in the day of them being circuit raced back in the US. The early versions jack the rear wheel under in hard cornering which leads to wild oversteer. This was fixed on the "phase 2" models.

The Corvair was the second turbo production car in the world (by about a week!) and arguably the first sucessful one.

Never drive one so I have no idea how much is myth.

I've seen a magazine faeture on that red Corvair. Very nice.

[street]

I kinda like Corvairs........ What was the main things that gave them such a bad reputation?

[akku]

Ralph Nader (self appointed consumer protection guru and environmental crusader) sued General Motors to hell over the Corvair. He wrote a book called "unsafe at any speed" in which the Corvair is cited for terminal oversteer and should be banned.

GM fought back and the thing rattled through the courts for years with the likes of Sterling Moss called to defend the Corvair, saying that oversteer was perfectly controlable if you just steer out of it.

The design of the rear suspension was altered in like 1965 anyway so that the car handled more neutrally and the tuck-under of the rear wheels under hard cornering was reduced or eliminated (not sure which).

GM then counter sued Nader for deformation.

The Corvair reached the natural end of its production run in 1969 and GM chose not to replace it as it was cheaper just to offer more variants of the Nova, plus sales of 6 cyl cars were negligible, everyone wanted a V8.

Due to the fact the Corvair was canned a myth came to being that Nader had actually won his initial court case and got it banned. Theres also rumours that sales were terrible due to the court action, but this was not really the case. The Corvair shifted something like 35,000 units a year through most of the 60s, it was only the last couple of years that sales fell off, but then sales on all small engine compacts were on the wane then anyway.

[street]

Dude your knowledge on this kind of thing is impressive!
Got to say, while it was nice of Stirling moss to have leapt to the defence of the Corvair, I don't think your average Joe Flannelshirt would have took much comfort in a proffesional racing driver not discounting the claims of horrific understeer but just instructing you to simply steer out of impending doom! Easy for him to say!

[TwincamGTi]

The design of the rear suspension was altered in like 1965 anyway so that the car handled more neutrally and the tuck-under of the rear wheels under hard cornering was reduced or eliminated (not sure which).

This 'stigma' stayed with the last version of the US 'Jeep' (which was totally redesigned):


The MUTT (Military Utility Tactical Truck) due to similar design of rear suspension.
There was a bad fault with original 151 version but by 151 'A2' version most of faults were ironed out (also it is foolish to drive any military 1/4 ton 4x4 at high speed round corners anyway!)

[akku]

Sterling Moss was employed as a professional witness rather than doig it out of the goodness of his own heart I suspect. He was the Micheal Schumacher of the day (without the attitude!) GM asked him to drive the Corvair, and drive it hard, and report back what he thought of the handling in terms of whethr it should be considered "unsafe" and he gave evidence in front of (IIRC) a federal grand jury tha it was not "unsafe".

There is an element in the USA which is continually trying to "stick one on" the major makers. Amazingly when they deserve having one "stuck on them" - eg the Pinto - they escape unscathed and the dangerously flawed product continues for years... Even the later CROWN Victoria saga for a more recent example shows Ford learned very little by that...

Yet then Chrysler got prosecuted and sued for something like $20million because soe kid got killed when he was thrown out of the window in an accident in a Voyager - but wasn't even wearing a seatbelt. The judge said after the verdict that he "thought it was about time someone found against a US manufacturer for a defective MPV"

Chrysler appealed, not sure of the ruling on appeal.

As for getting out of a skid-oversteer, it used to be a question on the driving test... Anyone who's ever driven a Capri in the wet can do it (or killed their Capri...) its not so hard.

One of the reasons I called it a big yank imp in the tile was the same accusations were levelled at the little Hillman (although never in court)

I have a mine of useless information, yet struggle to remember my wifes birthday....

[Imperial]

i've only had serious oversteer in an imp once when i lost control.i was bombing round brands hatch going through surtees turning into mclaren,where the long circuit spurs off,i hit a patch of frost ,spun (really quickly) shot backwards across the grass and ended up on clearways (where the long circuit rejoins) facing clark curve.bad news is,firstly ,i had a witness,the head marshal was at clearways watching me,secondly i shouldnt have been going so fast as i was only out on track to clear the frost before the first race ,formula dickhead and third my mate in the car almost gave birth.oops

[TwincamGTi]

alistairk

Sterling Moss was employed as a professional witness rather than doig it out of the goodness of his own heart I suspect. He was the Micheal Schumacher of the day (without the attitude!)

Sterling Moss is a very cheerful a friendly Gentleman

...and so is Micheal Schumacher is you meet him for real (and not the way he unfortunately appears on telly )



Have said all the above I have lost interest in F1 since it went over to ITV in 1997(...then a bit later when Murray Walker retired and of course last years American fiasco was the final nail IMO)

[Jack]

www.coolcarsforsale.net/showcar.htm?1081&1967954199FL_125_8872.dat

[bryn]

Flat six engine, rear mounted, hmm, some sort of circuit inspired '911 RS' project springs to mind, twin fans mounted flush into a carbon fibre rear deck lid... Ooh.
Surely it can be made to handle? And Alistair, you are the font of all knowledge, very interesting, I always remember random points but seldomly the complete picture... Bit like Tim 'The tool man' Taylor passing on advice from Wilson in Home Improvement.

[akku]

As I say, I've seen photos of the little (?) beasties flat out round Laguna Seca and the like, so either they wizz off backwards att he next corner (not shown in photograph) or some tweaks help them stick to the road better than their reputation suggests.

When it comes down to it the Porsches have a rear engine and manage corners.

I always liked the mid engine idea. Theres a forum of them somewhere I think. Or maybe that was V8 Fiero conversions. I forget.

I also recently saw one with a V8 in the front. Nice, but I think he's missed the point.

[Jack]

alistairk said:

I always liked the mid engine idea. Theres a forum of them somewhere I think.
.

www.v8vairs.com/index.htm

[akku]

I thank you...

[Dan 1641]

Was slobbering over this at Holton on the weekend. Awesome cars, would definitely have one if I had the money

[Revolution 9]

Always quite liked the Corvair myself, partly because the Imp owes a few major things to it, firstly the styling took a lot of inspiration from it, particularly the Sunbeam Stiletto. Mike Parkes and Tim Fry got their hands on a Corvair while the Imp was in the design stages to determine whether the handling really was that bad. Apparently they found the Corvair wasn't a dangerous car, but they did decide that the Imp needed a more advanced rear suspension system, which combined with a lightweight alloy engine meant they were confident that there was nothing wrong with a rear engined layout.

Of course the real problem the Corvair had, and the Imp and various Skodas had similar issues, was the public's fear of rear engined car, not helped by Ralph Nader and the press, who had axes to grind and books and newspapers to sell respectively, not to mention the pub bores who have to pick a type of car to condemn as unsafe in order to appear dead clever and up to date in front of everyone who didn't realise this car or that was a deathtrap, so all ended up saddled with stories of massive oversteer and going into hedges. When something like that happens, the only way a car company can recover is to do what Mercedes did with the Smart and A Class when the latter was induced to roll over during the 'elk test' by a Swedish magazine, that is to take the cars back into the workshop and bring them back out, claiming that by adding advanced new safety features they had banished the awful safety problems the press were wailing about. Unfortunately Chevorelet failed to shout loudly enough about their campaign to sort the Corvair's supposed problems, thus they were drowned out by Nader (who was a serial auto industry winger who propagated similar stories about a number of cars) and his winging that all Chevette owners would certainly die in an accident unless their mended their ways and bought a front engined car instead.

[Seth]

I can think of a cheaper way to exprerience the handling. Herald on crossplies anyone?

That black one ^^^^ is gorgeous!

[Saru]

Some more pics at GRM here: grassrootsmotorsports.com/news/032006/corvairs-are-way-cool.php
Including a pickup showing the scaryness of the rear suspension.