"David R.Birch" wrote in message
...

In the summer of '68, I was a pump jockey at Wayne's Standard & U-Haul,
right next to Ernie von Schleidorn's Buick & Pontiac dealership in
Menomonee Falls, Wi.

Our mechanic was Louie, a guy renowned locally as a Corvair whiz. We
usually had 2-3 Corvairs or Corvans parked on the lot, usually with an oil
puddle underneath. Louie knew them inside and out, how to make them run
and how to make them run FAST.

He was always careful driving them into the bays because he didn't know
what he'd find when he had them in the air. The only ones he wouldn't
drive were the convertibles. Too flexible and he didn't trust the
suspension to keep the rubber down and the canvas up. THIS WAS IN THE
STATION LOT WHERE WE NEVER GOT OVER 5 MPH.

Damn.

David

g He's right that the convertible was a flexible flyer. That's what I had.
The passenger bay was inherently weak and the coupe did NOT provide enough
stiffness to overcome it. The convertible was much worse -- it had
reinforcement in the rocker area, but it wasn't enough.

That's one reason I drove the car in only one SCCA drivers' school -- it was
flaky as hell. But your friend overstated the case more than a little. I had
my '63 Fitch Corvair up over 100 mph at Old Bridge and certainly higher at
Lime Rock. It was vague, but no flakier than an out-of-the-box-stock Porsche
Speedster.

It was just a different kind of flakiness. With the Corvair, you would steer
and wait for the car to respond. With the Porsche, you would steer and wait
to see where the car really was going to go. d8-)

--
Ed Huntress