On Fri, 25 Sep 2015 22:26:02 -0600, rbowman
wrote:

On 09/25/2015 09:39 PM, Uncle Monster wrote:
I always thought the Corvair was a neat little car but I've never driven one and don't recall if I've even been a passenger in one.

My brother had a rental, '60 or '61. At that time it was an utilitarian
economy car, Chevy's answer to the Falcon or Valiant. It had the
powerslide transmission and iirc the shifter was a vertical slide on the
dash sort of like a heater control. It was interesting for its
innovations but I preferred the styling on the Valiant or Falcon as did
the public.

It took a couple of years before it morphed into the sporty Monza
package with a turbo from its plain jane econobox roots. But by then
Ford had morphed the Falcon into the Mustang and Nader had done his
damage. Chevy even shot themselves in the foot with the Chevy II.
Conventional, not bad looking, and you could stuff some very interesting
mills under the hood.

You do have to wonder what would have happened if Chevy had went
straight to the poor man's 356 version instead of an economy car. They
could have also done their homework a little better and realized Beetles
had a bad habit of turning turtle. I wonder why Nader gave them a pass?
The Monza Turbo came out in 1962 and was the first mass produced
turbocharged engine in North America (along with the Oldsmobile
JetFire 215 cu inch aluminum V6)