Corvairs

When I was 15 I bought two cars; a Corvair Corsa with a broken transmission and a 1964 VW Bug with a blown engine. I put the Corvair engine in the bug and it was a pretty fast car from 0-60.
My stepdad was a Corvair fan and hated Ralph Nader. Ironically, he was driving one of them in the '60's when he came over a slight rise in the road and on the other side was a large turtle in the middle of his lane. He swerved to miss it and wound up rolling the car coming to a stop on the roof. His only injury was when he unbuckled his seatbelt and fell on his head.

 

They actually were not known for rolling over, but for spinning out and leaving the road backwards like Porsches... but the general public "understands" they roll over.

With appropriate tire pressures, the actual handling limits of the early swing axle cars far exceeded any other American cars of the day (possible exception Corvette) BUT once that limit was reached (much quicker if the tire pressures were equal all around) you WILL leave the road backwards.

Even with all that, the accident and injury rates for Corvairs were actually lower than their competition. (Nader, at the 1991 Corsa Convention, attributed that to Corvair drivers either being "extremely good" or "extremely lucky".

http://fnader.com/images/CorsaCpe/Nader_in_1962_Corvair_a.JPG

The difference in a 911 and a Corvair is that in the Corvair, once you feel the car coming around, you can react to counter it. By the time you feel it in the 911, you're already committed to a spin.

Bill

 

I knew there was a good checklist otu there somewhere. Finally unearthed in on my friend Steve Serenska's site. (Good overall site about buying Corvairs)

http://www.serenska.com/IdealGarage/html/corvair_pre-purchase_questionn.cfm?cfid=32491&cftoken=75003425

Bill

 

There is beautiful fully restored Corvair Turbo here in the U.K. I really want it. What should I look for and how much should I pay?

 

$13k (U.S. dollars)...