Other rear-engined cars of the day had similar handling characteristics. A substantial number of VW Beetle drivers rolled their cars, and there was a great piece of film of a certain set of curves on the Washington DC beltway (since straightened and banked) showing car after car spinning out in the rain, including some VWs. Drivers who upgraded to the new, 6-cylinder Porsche 911 (which came out in 1966) found out the hard way that the worst way to deal with what appeared to be excessive speed in a curve was to drop the throttle or . . . heaven forbid, use the brakes. It’s predecessor, the 4-cylinder 356 did not have those characteristics to the same degree.

However, nice the Corvair was or could have been, I have to agree with skor above, that it was a failure commercially because it wasn’t matched to its mission. It’s mission was a volume import-fighter, but it could not be brought in at the price required for that role without seriously compromising certain of its operational characteristics.

As an enthusiast car — a “sports sedan” before the category existed — it might have been pretty interesting and good. But its price would have to have been higher and its sales volume would be correspondingly lower.

The fact that it might appeal to a substantial minority of buyers today, 40+ years later does not mean that it would have had the same appeal in 1965.

Finally, while its fashionable to condemn big pushrod V-8s with 4-barrel carburetors as “stone age,” the fact is, that without computerized engine management systems to make everything work, multi-carb motors, much less turbo’ed multi-carb motors required constant attention to work optimally. So, I have my doubts about the ultimate success of the high-output Corvair engine . . . even without the design flaws that it had.

Personally I am totally in love with my Corvair. She's a heck of a cool car, drives like a Porsche, and beautiful to boot.

I was told by many not to even think about purchasing one because of the whole Ralph Nader thing..I did years of research and came to the conclusion that he is a moron..though there were some issues these were taken care of rather swiftly and she was back and better than ever..but by then the Mustang and Camaro were coming out and my poor little baby was dead in the water before the improved model could be marketed.

I am a sucker for the underdogs and under-appreciated…so I searched for years to find one in decent condition. I have a 66' Monza coupe now, and I even managed to find a NOS 1965 repair manual still in original packaging, a 66' supplement, and I have the original 66' plates as well.

Now to find a mechanic that knows something about my car and I'm set…

It was styled. Every car is, to one extent or another. Look at the front “face” of the Mini; it’s a miniature version of the styling language of most cars of the fifties: the headlights protruding from the rounded fenders, the curved-down hood leading edge, the lower grill., etc.

The Mini was never styled, the 1100 (1962) was.

It’s clear that you don’t understand why the Corvair failed. Actually, most motor-heads have no clue as to how business operates, hence it’s alway those pesky “bean-counters” that keep getting the blame for failure. Just how did this species of Homo-Beancounterus evolve, and how did they takeover the the US auto makers?

In reality, the Corvair failed because it was a victim of poor planing right from the start. The Corvair only needed to copy the Beetle’s qualities, not it’s engineering. By the time GM finished trying to make the Corvair more of a Beetle than the Beetle, IT COST TOO MUCH MONEY TO BE COMPETITIVE IN IT’S TARGET MARKET.

^ Why do people connect the Corvair to the 2002 is beyond me. Well maybe not but…

If you want to know were the BMW line up was influenced try Italy.

Michelotti, Bertone and Frua who were in charge and/or infuenced BMW design.

And they also worked with Alfa Romeo, Maserati and
so on and so on.
And some of the cars they designed or studied had Corvair-esque design feature before the Corvair existed.

As for Europe, we didn’t have just the Mini, but also the Citroen DS, Alfa Romeo Giulietta, MB 300 SL and Ferrari 250, all finalists for the Car Of The Century.

You’ve mixed up several issues in your comment. I disparage the GM bean counters for leaving off the safety enhancing suspension fixes. And I don’t disparage Nader per se; the corporate world always needs Naders as a counterbalance to greed and shortcuts. I tweak him slightly on the Corvair issue because he relied on Ford PR films for his condemnation of the Corvair, and his book came out after GM had fixed the problems.

If by “equivalent”, you mean a reproduction Corvair, you’re mostly right, and of course it could never be built.

But if you mean by “equivalent impact” in its time, it would be hard to imagine what that would be today. The whole point of my article is the huge impact and lasting legacy the Corvair made in its time. It was advanced, sophisticated, beautiful, and like most things in that simpler time, imperfect. I can’t easily imagine an equivalent today.

My sense is that if the U.S. manufacturers came out with the equivalent of the Corvair today, they’d be instantly condemned for building such an an ugly, gutless car.

I am going to look at a Corvair Monza this weekend. I will report back.

That I find hard to believe. My parents had one that was six years old when I got my learner’s permit (w/ 3 on the tree). Clunky, POS.

The 327 Chevy II was, and remains, one of the most underrated muscle cars ever built. Great power-to-weight ratio, decent handling (in a 1960’s sense), and reasonably priced.

I had a 1963 Chevy II as my first car. Unfortunately, no V-8. 230 CID inline-6 and a Powerglide.

Bulletproof car. Drove the wheels off that thing.

Now to link that car with Ralph Nader: It had a steel dashboard, drum brakes, and NO seatbelts (They were optional). The “good” old days…

And you did. The Corvair and that BMW are brother and sister.

Doesn’t it say it all, though? Penny pinching did in a potentially great car, which was both a styling revolution and carried the promise of building a wall against foreign small cars.
The majors are going to have to get off their false assumptions about what kind of cars people really want — which means they are going to have to get rid of their fuddy-duddy keepers of the flame.

Another sad fact is that over the years many of GM’s engineering innovations were released to the market before being properly developed and/or with foolish cost cutting built in which underminded them. Corvairs handling issues, the old Copper Cooled Chevrolet disaster (1923, they recalled all of them!), the Vega linerless aluminum block, the buggy original Cadillac V4-6-8 (which was the first displacement on demand engine), the horrible V-8 diesel of the the 1980s and so on. Why such a large company with so many talented people has such a long history of releasing almost but not quite there products on the market should be a business case study in itself.

Styling wise GM was a real leader in the 1960s. Many of the other vehicles from that era look just horrible, but GM made some of the nicest looking cars ever then. The Corvair will always be a classic design. The regret is that GM didn’t really get it quite right the first time. Counting on underinflated front tires to force a car into understeer is hardly great engineering.

Of course history was repeated with the Fiero many years later, which in V-6 form was also one tail happy beast. In my nearly 30 years of driving only one car ever got away from me, and that was a Fiero which I had borrowed while my car was in the shop. Damp road, slight curve, bump in the road while accelerating from a stop (though still under the speed limit) and whoosh, spin city. Nobody was hurt, but the car was nearly a total loss.

I am curious as to what other cars people consider died a premature death and which, had they survived or simply been more successful, could have been turning points?

To me the Studebaker Avanti springs to mind, but I am hopelessly biased in favour of it. Maybe the Chrysler Airflow?