General Motors originally planned to produce the revolutionary Corvair in both Chevrolet and Pontiac flavors, with the Pontiac version to be called the Polaris.
With its rear-mounted, air-cooled engine, aluminum transaxle, and four-wheel independent suspension, the Corvair was an expensive vehicle to develop and produce. General Motors originally floated a plan to spread the cost by marketing the compact through multiple divisions, namely Chevrolet and Pontiac. The Chevy version was destined to become the Corvair, of course, while the Pontiac would be called the Polaris (though the name Ventura was considered as well). There was even some thought given to an Oldsmobile-badged edition to be called the Sixty-Six, but it didn’t get very far.
Both clay and fiberglass studio models for the Polaris were prepared through 1958 and 1959, working toward a 1961 introduction—one model year after the Corvair’s 1960 launch. One proposal from the GM styling staff, essentially a Corvair with Pontiac badges and a dab of extra trim, didn’t find much favor, so another version with a more Pontiac-like twin-grille front end was worked up (above). However, the rear end treatment was nearly identical to the Corvair but for its oval tail lamps (below).
Pontiac general manager Semon E. “Bunkie” Knudsen pushed back on the plan. He didn’t see a clear way to mesh the Corvair package with the youth-and-performance image he was crafting for his division. For one, there was no practical way to offer a V8. Polaris buyers would be paying a $300 price premium over the Corvair when in his view, he couldn’t offer them value in return.
And there was another objection, reportedly. John Z. DeLorean, then the 34 year-old assistant chief engineer at Pontiac, would later write in his autobiography, On a Clear Day You Can See General Motors, that many GM executives considered the Corvair’s handling characteristics unsafe, and he and Knudsen were among them. According to DeLorean, he ran a three-month campaign, with Knudsen’s approval, to keep the Polaris out of the Pontiac lineup.
GM senior brass ultimately relented and allowed the Pontiac division to back away from the Corvair and move its small car program to the Y-body Senior Compact platform shared by the Oldsmobile F-85 and Buick Special. But there was one condition: Pontiac would be allowed only a minimal development budget. The result was the 1961 Tempest, a car with some novel engineering features in its own right (below). You can check out our features on the Tempest bent-driveshaft system here and the Tempest Trophy slant 4 engine here.
As the Tempest was set to launch in the fall of 1960 as a ’61 MY car, I suspect the general consensus of Pontiac management would also include a concern the Polaris would take away from Tempest sales.
This Polaris connection also helps explain why the decision was made to use a modified Corvair transaxle [both manual and Powerglide] in the Tempest. One thing that came as a surprise was when I bought a Tempest with the Powerglide, and noted the torque converter hanging out the back of the transaxle, spinning out in the open without any cover,
Pontiac Tempest was the stopper to the Polaris proposal, a compromise to absorb some of the cost and volume of the more expensive Corvair components.
Tempest enabled Pontiac General Manager Bunkie Knudsen to openly thwart much of the pressure from Chevrolet General Manager Ed Cole to support Corvair.
However, circumventing Cole was the last straw in an already fractured relationship. Both were competitors for presidency at GM; while at Chevrolet. Cole became alarmed at Pontiac’s growing popularity and sales, and did all he could to stunt their growth.
After following Cole as Chevrolet General Manager in 1961, Knudsen spent most of his time cleaning up the Corvair mess, then dealing with recrimination sent his way for exposing Cole’s failures.
Ultimately, Cole would become president of GM in 1967, leading a frustrated Knudsen to begin entertaining offers for his services, landing at Ford shortly thereafter.
All three GM senior compacts used exactly the same body from the A pillar on back. Only the front clip and taillights and trim were individualized. Designers were good at making them look different, at least from the front, the Buick especially, giving it the same pointy end front quarter panel as the big Buicks that year. Three neat little cars.
The Tempest differed from the F-85 and Buick Special in that it had a transaxle in the rear and swing axles similar to the Corvair, whereas the F-85 and Buick Special had solid axle rear suspensions. If swing axles were so “unsafe”, why did Knudsen and DeLorean green-light the design?
I wonder if the Tempest had a stock front antisway bar? The Corvair didn’t have one stock–it was optional. Apparently the front bar made a difference somewhat in handling.. Though even a front bar didn’t deal completely with the camber change of the rear swing axle and its effect on handling.