Wounded but still standing, Corvair soldiered on in 1966 with beautiful Italianate styling and a cheerful advertising campaign. Here’s the messaging from Chevrolet for ’66.
In popular car lore, safety activist Ralph Nader murdered the Corvair with his industry-shattering book Unsafe At Any Speed, published on November 30, 1965. But as usual in the Motor City car biz, there’s more to the story. Seven months earlier in April of that year, the Chevrolet division of General Motors had issued an internal memo ordering that the Corvair program was effectively ended. Except for emissions and safety updates, there would be no further investments or development on the innovative rear-engine compact.
The Corvair soldiered on through the 1969, of course, with only trivial changes to the stunning new sheet metal introduced in 1965. And sales continued to dwindle. From 235,000 units produced in 1965, the first model year for the second-gen Corvair, volume plummeted to around 104,000 units for 1966. But Chevrolet had not yet given up completely on the Corvair, as shown in this ’66 television spot using a cheerful hot-air balloon theme, which was also featured in the car’s print ads that year. “Here’s a new way to put your head in the clouds,” croons Joel Aldred, the television voice of Chevrolet. “Corvair for 1966–the only car made in America with the engine in back!” Video below.
I enjoyed the 60 Corvair coupe I had and took a couple long trips with it.I was disappointed that Nader did his harm as the consumer safety advocate. My dad who bought a new 4 door Monza in 1964 and was very pleased with it. Thanks for putting credit where credit is due on this neat piece of Chevrolet history.The second edition body styling was a dramatic change and this car should have stayed around in my estimation. You put it right ..It was a bad wrap to be slugged with and the Nader book was total overkill.
Don’t care for the 1st gen Corvair, but I’ve always liked the 2nd. I would have liked to have seen it continue as a strong alternative to the Mustang and an upgrade from the Bug. I owned a 1967 long ago and it was a fun car but smelled of oil in the passenger compartment. Typical GM quality for the time.
For some reason, Detroit has never been able to understand small cars, and lost the entire automobile market, except pickups, to Japan as a result. Virtually every decent small car with a Detroit badge originated overseas. The Big Three deserve to die for their constant push on bigger and heavier.
Corvairs had a gas heater early on and then went to the manifold heater.I experienced both of these and yes the manifold heaters brought the oil smell into the the car due to the leakage at the valve covers issue due to loosening cap screws until they madified this situation with better ones.
VW and Porsche suffered form the same problems with their heater. For VW the solution came in 1963 when they designed the fresh air heater system with exhaust header heat exchangers which eliminated the problem.
It’s not that The big three didn’t understand small cars. The problem was they had terrible quality control standards. In the link below I have a 1976 Olds Omega, at that time considered a compact sedan. I special ordered the car and mechanically it’s a great car and I still have it, but fit and finish was terrible. At the time I bought it I had been already working for a Japanese car maker for three years and the Olds was a last chance I had given on a American car. The car came with bubbles and sand in the valley’s in the hood, both front doors had a dent, the cowl had a dent. Naturally I wouldn’t accept the car and the sales manager said “what did you expect a Rolls Royce?” I told him no, “I except a fit and finish to equal to a Datsun!” . I explained that we would have never let a car like that get past the factory and if by some extreme chance it did, distribution and auto service at the port of entry would have never let it past their body shop and if all else failed a dealer would never let a customer take delivery of such a car. The dealer fixed the car, however that was my last so called American car. BTW I stayed and retired from that manufacturer after 34 years of service. That Japanese makers cars today that are built here have equal or more U.S. parts in them than cars of the bid three.
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America’s 1st effort to stem the tide of Renault Dauphines and VW beetles were the comparatively large Valiant and Falcon. The Corvair was in the ballpark and could have dominated if it had a few of the upgrades the 2nd gen got, as well as a stronger push from Chevy. They quickly moved it aside for the Chevy II.
The 2nd wave came in 1970. VW was vulnerable by that point but Detroit hadn’t been paying attention to Datsun and Toyota. They seemed to be still competing against the French and English competition that had already fallen by the wayside. The US cars surpassed in power and features but not fit, finis and reliability. I bought a 1971 Vega new. It had positives, but the shifter lever also snapped off in my hand and the engine. Sold it after two years for nearly scrap value and bought a leftover Datsun 510. Also owned an Opel Manta and Toyota Celica in the 70s. Better cars than any US engineering division was putting out.
It went that way until about 1995. The Americans are now competitive but most knowledge came from their Asian and European divisions. And they are shortchanging the current product in favor of trucks and will be left in the dust again if market mix changes.
Some of us like small cars. Some like nimble cars with adequate power and aren’t interested establishing road dominance. Detroit thinks we only own them because we cant afford better and that we wish we had a bigger penis. That has been Detroit’s mindset since the Fifties.
My last American car was a 1991 Ford Escort wagon. Put together well, reliable, but largely based on the Mazda 323. Drove that ten years and sold it simply because it was as boring to drive as a Corolla.
Europe and Asia ave a greater need for smaller cars and they simply understand and do them better. We still do trucks better but Toyota is fast approaching. We do well with performance at a reasonable price. We used to do styling better, but regulations have castrated everyone.
I purchased used in Terre Haute, IN a 1966 Corvair Corsa convertible with the turbo option in 1969. We enjoyed the car for years until sold to a Corvair enthusiast at Underwood, IA.
The 140 HP 4 carburetor standard version Corsa was really more responsive than the 180 HP turbocharged option but the turbo did boost the power at higher revs. We had several 140 HP Monza coupes w/ 4 speed transmission and they were fun to drive. I attempted to acquire at a Texas auction some years ago a last year 1969 Monza w/4 speed and very low original miles. The hammer price was far higher than the limit I set for myself so that I ended up taking Amtrak back home to Iowa. Corvairs are unique and historic cars despite their being “Unsafe At Any Speed”.
Great comments on the book. It’s said Nader actually motivated Chevrolet to keep the Corvair in production a few more years to prevent the appearance of admitting wrong.
Some very interesting comments above!! I grew up in a GM family- dad had Olds and Pontiacs, mom drove (with Brio) Viva, Cortina, and Datsun 510, then Mazda 323; so in many ways she was more knowlegable than dad. I got into bicycles, moved to Australia and became exposed to a possibly more rounded and aware car culture- they source their rides from all over the world and if it ain’t excellent quality, well it’ll just fall apart on the “roads” here! Knowing nothing of German cars, and because Chevs are uncommon here (to expensive) I had to feign an interest in the locally produced Ford V8’s- early 70’s Falcons- only available with 4 doors, but running a potent 351 shaker set up- well, who wouldn’t be intrigued? Then theres all the European Ford stuff- Cortinas, Escorts and suddenly you realize you’ve become a Blue Oval bloke; its not the end of the world, but you realize that Detroit- much as I love MMCG, was just churning out ‘stuff’ for consumers. But its all good. Happy Motoring; and I dips me lid to anyone undertaking a trip of 1000 kms or more today over dirt tracks in any model year Whippet! …one last bit of nonsense; interesting chap in town here has a 1911 Hupmobile- wears a full face helmet when driving, quite a sight.
Had a discussion recently with a 69 Mustang Mach 1 owner recently. The spring towers have cracked quite badly, worse than he was aware. Wheras an Aussie Falcon is FAR stronger there than the US models.All reinforced and never ever have a problem.
We have had some imported junk, in large numbers though, Vauxhall Vivas masquerading as cars with Holden badges, Chrysler Centura 4. I doubt there is any left as the bodies cracked and the engines were shite.
Cortinas and Escorts, Aussie modded ones were ok. Pommy ones less so.
Though the nostalgia for Jap crap,, very few left now. All rusted away and fell to pieces. I see a few Datto 1600s [510] 70s Corrollas, very occasionally Celicas, the rest are scrap 25 years ago.
Yet still a lot of so called garbage around like Holdens, Falcon, Valiants and even 6cyl Cortinas and Centuras and early toranas as well.
So, in hindsight, WHICH were the better cars?
Had GM played their cards right in the first place with the Corvair, it could have lasted longer. As it is, I loved the second-generation vehicle, and it is gratifying to think it had fantastic suspension. The US car makers, sadly, have had their issues through the years, and now if they put all their eggs in SUVs and trucks, they may get their pants pulled down on them—maybe for the last time. And hey GM, selling off Opel wasn’t a wise move!!!