AUTO HISTORY
The compact Chevrolet Corvair was the most daring and technically interesting car to come out of Detroit in the 1960s. In an industry devoted to large front-engined, rear-drive cars with solid rear axles and cast iron V8s, Chevrolet's general manager Edward Cole took a daringly different approach with the Corvair.
The Corvair's engine was an aluminum, horizontally opposed (flat), air-cooled sixcylinder. Even more unusual, Chevrolet located it behind the rear axle. A unit construction body-chassis was used and it had four wheel independent coil spring suspension.
With these features Chevrolet had unabashedly copied the German Volkswagen, the most popular import. But Chevrolet didn't stop there. Along with Oldsmobile it would go further than Volkswagen or any other manufacturer and pioneer production car automobile turbocharging.
A turbocharger is a small gas turbine driven by the engine's exhaust flow and used to spin an air compressor that packs more air into the cylinders than they would breathe naturally. This produces "free" horsepower from the exhaust stream. Chevrolet went the turbo route for more power because its configuration precluded fitting the larger displacement engines that could be used by conventionally laid out rivals Ford Falcon and Chrysler (soon to be Plymouth) Valiant.
Cole was convinced he could build a bigger, better "American Volkswagen." The Corvair's 2,743 mm (108 in.) wheelbase was 343 mm (13.5 in) longer than the VW’s, and the Corvair’s 1,111 kg (2,450 lb) weight was 363 kg (800 lb) heavier. While the VW had a small 1.2-litre (72.7 cu in.) 36-horsepower four-cylinder engine, the Corvair’s was a 2.3-litre (140 cu in.) 80-horsepower six.
In spite of its technical novelty, or perhaps because of it, the Corvair was outsold by its main rivals Ford Falcon and Chrysler Valiant. But it appealed to the sporty car market, and to exploit this Chevrolet introduced what it called the Monza version of the Corvair in mid-1960.
The Monza was just a Corvair Deluxe 700 coupe fitted with items like bucket seats, fancier wheel covers, chrome rocker mouldings and vinyl upholstery. But these minor styling changes were enough to alter the Corvair's personality and set it apart from mundane workaday Corvairs. Monza sales took off.
Chevrolet then set out to really pursue the sporty car segment. For 1961 it introduced a four-speed manual transmission, and for 1962 it brought out the Corvair Monza Spyder in coupe or convertible form. The Spyder's most outstanding feature was its exhaust-driven turbocharger.
Chevrolet, therefore, along with Oldsmobile, which had introduced its turbocharged F-85 Jetfire model just a month earlier, made General Motors the world's first manufacturer to offer automobile turbocharging.
The turbo gave the Spyder a big performance boost over other Corvairs. Car Life magazine (8/62) tested a fourspeed manual transmission Spyder and recorded zero to 97 km/h (60 mph) in 10.8 seconds and top speed of 169 km/h (105 mph). In comparison, an earlier test (8/61) of a four-speed naturally aspirated, 98-horsepower Monza recorded zero to 97 (60) in 15.5 seconds and top speed of 148 km/h (92 mph).
In 1965 the Corvair underwent a big change, receiving a beautiful all-new longer, lower and wider body. Underneath it had a significantly improved the rear suspension with Corvette-like fully articulated axles replacing the swing axles. This new rear axle corrected a major engineering criticism of the Corvair.
The Monza was relegated to a mid-pack model and the Corsa became the top-ofthe-line Corvair. The turbocharger was now an option on the Corsa and horsepower was now 180, increased from 150 from an engine now up to 2.7 litres (164 cu in.).
Along with new styling and better suspension for 1965 came something else: a surprise in the form of a book entitled “Unsafe At Any Speed.” In “Unsafe,” a Washington, D.C. consumer advocate and lawyer named Ralph Nader excoriated the auto industry, alleging it was building unsafe cars.
His attack on the Corvair was particularly scathing, saying, among other things, that its swing-axle suspension (as used on the '60 to '64 models) allowed the rear wheels to "tuck under" and cause the Corvair to flip over in relatively low-speed cornering.
Nader's book plus stiff competition from Ford's sporty new Mustang introduced in 1964, sent Corvair sales into rapid decline. It would ultimately be discontinued in 1969. The turbocharger option had ended in 1966.
Turbos would disappear from automobiles for about a decade because it was easier and cheaper to get more power by building a bigger engine. In spite of the ultimate failure of the Corvair in the marketplace, Chevrolet and sister GM Division Oldsmobile paved the way for the now very popular turbocharging, even though at that time the market wasn't quite ready for it.