Ed Huntress wrote:
"John R. Carroll" wrote in
message et...
Ed Huntress wrote:
"John R. Carroll" wrote in
message et...
Ed Huntress wrote:
"Larry Jaques" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 29 Mar 2008 13:41:44 -0400, with neither quill nor qualm,
clare at snyder dot ontario dot canada quickly quoth:

On Sat, 29 Mar 2008 10:00:20 -0400, "Ed Huntress"
wrote:

When I first drove one of those things I'd almost come to a
stop, in neutral, while my brain re-adjusted.


One thing I have dredged up is that Mom's Spyder was a 63 or 64 and
the family wasn't far from Carrier Circle at the time. It was a 210
HP model. I do remember the controversy over the name but as an
aside at the dinner table.

Hmm. I didn't realize the horsepower ever got that high.

I thought so but I wasn't interested in things like that in those days. Not
really anyway.
I just remember my father bringing home some new toy from work every six
months. Some were interesting.
We had an Impala convertible with a four speed and a 409 in it for a while.
The first car I had any real interest in was a Biscayne with a big block,
three on the tree and no other options. My friends made fun of the shifter
as "uncool" until they had either ridden in it or been beaten by it. Hehe.
That car didn't weigh squat and I got to the point where I could shift it
reletavily quickly and without the clutch between first and second gear. You
couldn't downshift a three speed Saginaw into first, however, and that was a
problem with a .308 rear end.

It was a fun
car to drive, but it had one strange quirk: The negative camber was
pretty severe for a road car, and, when you started to turn in one
direction, the car would start to turn in the other direction for
just an instant. It felt like turning a motorcycle by pushing the
handlebars the opposite way.

It was unnerving at first but the decambering was really effective.

I'll bet it was. I still see these old Corvair's on the street fairly often
here in California. They have a real following out here.
I've got a friend that races a 55 and 57 Corvette with these guys:
http://www.hmsausa.com/index.html

I missed the race at Sears point this month but it's pretty cool to see some
of these cars running around at speed.

--

John R. Carroll
www.machiningsolution.com