(UPDATED ON 10/14/22)
The second-generation Chevrolet Corvair was one of the best cars General Motors has ever built. Its styling was exceptionally clean for the mid-60s, which were dominated by fussy gingerbread designs. Meanwhile, the engineering problems with the first-generation Corvair were fixed to the point that the top-end Corsa model was a potent sporty coupe. Indeed, its fully independent rear suspension and turbocharged engine made it much more technically interesting than the Ford Mustang.
The irony of the 1965 Corvair is that even before it was unveiled, GM had already started the development of a rear-drive competitor to Ford Mustang. This was also before criticisms by safety advocate Ralph Nader (auto editors of Consumer Guide, 2017). The problem, according to Richard M. Langworth and Lan P. Norbye, was that “the Corvair was being clobbered by Ford’s popular Mustang” (1985, p. 261).
Corvair wasn’t as big of a failure as widely assumed
Even the newly redesigned 1965 models did not sell at the stratospheric levels of the Mustang, which reached almost 560,000 units. However, more than 235,500 Corvairs did leave the factory that year — which was higher than any of the traditional compacts.
Also see ‘Lee Iacocca got lucky with the 1964-66 Ford Mustang’
As you can see from the graph below, this is partly because the leading compacts — the Chevy II, Ford Falcon and Plymouth Valiant — experienced major sales declines from previous years. During this same time period the Corvair’s output was remarkably consistent. That’s not an insignificant feat.
In addition, a little-mentioned fact is that the 1965 Corvair’s output was higher than the Camaro’s in its first two years of production — 1967 and 1968. Indeed, the Camaro’s annual volume has topped the 1965 Corvair’s only four times in its entire lifespan.
Since the Camaro was developed because GM didn’t think the Corvair could be a competitive pony car, it should also be noted that it has not been hugely successful either. During the model years that the Camaro has been in production, the Mustang has outsold it by more than 1.8 million units.
Let’s take another cut of the data: Up through 2021, the Camaro has outsold the Mustang 12 times, but model-year sales have never risen higher than 283,000. In contrast, the Mustang has outsold the Camaro 36 times, topped 300,000 units four times and surpassed 472,000 once during the years it has competed against the Camaro.
All of this is not to suggest that the Corvair would have been the better pony for GM to ride. In 1966 output fell by 59 percent, perhaps mostly in response to safety issues raised by Nader. (This may have helped the Mustang reach an astounding 608,000 in sales). Although those safety issues had been addressed in the second-generation Corvair — and Nader made that clear in his book, Unsafe At Any Speed (1966) — the Corvair’s image was arguably too tarnished to salvage.
Could the Corvair have survived?
This is usually where the conversation stops, but let’s add some hypotheticals: What if the first-generation Corvair had been properly engineered from the outset to avoid problems with its handling and Nader focused his critique on other cars? What if GM had continued to invest in the Corvair — and given it further upgrades in a 1967 redesign? Would the Corvair have entered the 1970s with promising future prospects?
The only honest answer is, “Who knows?” That said, this line of questioning does point to an underlying dilemma GM would have faced even in the best of circumstances. Porsche showed how top-notch sports cars could continue to be made with rear engines, but almost everyone else abandoned them.
Also see ‘1953-70 Chevrolet Corvette ads gingerly showed changing gender roles’
In theory, the Corvair could have evolved into a more affordable Porsche — which could have been very cool — but that would have worked against GM’s penchant for maximizing economies of scale through component sharing. As a case in point, over the years the Corvette’s costs have been partially amortized by mostly sharing its power train with other GM cars. That was not as easily done with a rear-engined car.
GM’s continued support for the Corvair would have needed to be grounded in a commitment to championing an exotic technology despite the added cost. That’s not a very GM thing to do. Although the automaker has had bursts of engineering innovation, particularly since the mid-60s the corporate culture has mostly gravitated toward styling and marketing leadership.
How about a Corvair-like coupe with a front engine?
So if a rear-engined car was not likely to survive at GM under even the best of circumstances, how about a Corvair-like sporty coupe with a front engine? This would have been ridiculously easy for GM to do. The first-generation Corvair shared some of its platform architecture with front-engined compacts from Pontiac, Oldsmobile and Buick.
Of those three, Paul Niedermeyer (2012) found the Pontiac Tempest to be the most interesting:
“Consider its high-performance, four-cylinder engine with four-venturi carburetion; four-wheel independent suspension; four-speed stick shift; perfect 50-50 weight distribution; a light, compact, yet fairly roomy body; decent manual steering; and neutral- to over-steering handling: Those specs parallel those of the all-new 1962 BMW 1500/1800 — or perhaps even a Mercedes or Rover 2000? But there was one thing none of those cars had: A rear transaxle and a totally revolutionary flexible drive shaft. When GM gave its engineering talent the freedom to innovate, the results were often extraordinary. But in true GM fashion, penny-pinching resulted in a 1961 Tempest that, like the Corvair, was flawed from the day of its introduction. Sadly, and unlike the Corvair, the Tempest was never given a chance to sort out its easily fixable blemishes; if it had been, the result could have been even more remarkable than the ’65 Corvair.”
Niedermeyer went on to suggest that the Tempest could had been kept on a compact body loosely shared with the second-generation Corvair and given a fully independent rear suspension as well as Pontiac’s new overhead cam six.
Improvements were definitely needed. Unsafe At Any Speed quoted Road Test magazine, which argued that the pre-1965 Corvair was “probably the worst riding, worst all-around handling car available to the American public with the exception of the original Pontiac Tempest” (Nader, 1966; p. 14).
Consumer Reports wasn’t any more positive. Despite refinements to the Tempest’s rear swing axle, for 1963 the car ranked last among compacts due to “poor” handling and ride. Although the V8 model was criticized for low gas mileage and added weight that “intensifies the Tempest’s handling problems,” the four-cylinder model was given the biggest zinger: “In the opinion of CU’s auto consultants, the Tempest 4 offers a maximum of unpleasant features at the group’s next-to-highest price” (1963, pp. 176-177).
If you are not one to give the views of Consumer Reports much weight, the auto editors of Consumer Guide (2021) noted that the 1961-63 Tempest was “saddled with transaxle durability problems and timing chain woes on the slant-four.” And while the curved drive-shaft “hardly ever caused trouble . . . many critics believed the transaxle Tempests were far too experimental and unproven to be released as they were.”
Why try to improve the Tempest or Corvair when the Mustang’s phenomenal success suggested that styling and raw horsepower rather than advanced technology sold sporty cars?
Niedermeyer (2013) quite rightly lamented that “Americans wanted a Camaro, even if it was the antithesis of the Corvair: lousy brakes, heavy or over-assisted steering, terminal understeer, rear axle hop under acceleration and braking, etc. But it had that long hood and big, cheap V8s.”
The respectable sales of the 1965 Corvair suggest to me at least slightly more cause for optimism that Americans could warm to a sporty coupe with advanced technology such as independent rear suspension and a transaxle. I suspect that sales would have been meaningfully higher with a front engine with a V8 option.
So, just for fun, let’s visualize what a second-generation Corvair might have looked like if the engine was moved up front. The main change to the real 1966 Corvair Corsa coupe (top image) involves stretching the wheelbase ahead of the cowl (bottom image). This is partly to increase the size of the engine compartment but also to give the car better-balanced aesthetics.
One could go hog wild like Ford did with the Mustang, which was given an exceptionally long hood and short deck. However, even back in the day I found the Mustang’s proportions to be too exaggerated. This is why our fake Corvair gives a hat tip to the Mustang while leaning toward a more understated European sensibility.
At least to my eyes, a front-engined Corvair could have looked better than with a rear engine. The latter visually suffered from an overly short hood relative to its deck and roofline. I disagree with the auto editors of Consumer Guide (2017), who have stated that the Corvair looks good from “virtually any angle.”
Don’t take the fake design too literally — I’m not implying that GM should have given the Corvair per se a front engine when it was redesigned in 1965. The most promising option would have been that the Tempest was kept as a compact and both it and the Corvair were redesigned in 1965. The Mustang might not have made such a big of a splash in its first two years if a fully modern, stylish and well-sorted new Corvair and Tempest were on the market.
What if the compact Tempest had been continued?
I am a little perplexed that GM invested in a significant redesign of the Corvair while ditching its Y-Body compacts after only a three-year production run. Continuing to offer a front-engined variant of the Corvair body would presumably have improved its economies of scale.
Also see ‘1965-68 GM big cars: The end of different strokes’
Instead, in 1964 GM upsized the Pontiac Tempest, Oldsmobile F-85 and Buick Special to compete in the fledgling intermediate class. That did result in dramatically improved sales. As a case in point, the Tempest line (including high-end LeMans and GTO models) saw volume increase from roughly 131,000 units in 1963 to a peak of 360,000 in 1966.
Upsizing the Tempest certainly fit in with GM’s general tendency toward making its cars bigger, glitzier and more powerful. However, the automaker also lost a golden opportunity to generate more sporty compact sales, which were clearly on the upswing. Ford might very well have still reaped the biggest sales gains, but at least GM would have been in the running.
Keeping a front-engined compact or upsizing the Y-Body didn’t need to have been an either/or decision. GM could have continued the Tempest as a compact while also giving Pontiac a version of the automaker’s new intermediate platform. The inevitable cannibalization of sales could have been at least partly counterbalanced by squeezing more volume out of GM’s Corvair/Tempest platform architecture.
Continuing to field a compact Tempest would have also given GM some interesting options when it came to body styles. From a practical standpoint, a four-door hardtop would have made a whole lot more sense on a front-engined Tempest than the Corvair. Add a high-end model with bucket seats and GM would have had the first serious American response to a rising tide of European sports sedans.
Some buyers of a second-generation compact Tempest might not have cared if it had independent rear suspension and a transaxle. However, advanced features like that would have immediately given the car cachet with the enthusiast press and — fairly or not — more visibility than the Corvair received because it had a front engine and a V8 option.
This, in turn, could have helped inoculate the Tempest against the inevitable attacks from GM’s bean counters in the late-60s and early-70s. In a very real sense, the longer that GM kept the platform around, the greater its value.
As a case in point, sales of a four-door Tempest might initially have been modest, but by the early-70s it could have started to become meaningful. Just as importantly, the Tempest platform could have been a better basis for the 1976 Cadillac Seville than the crude Chevy Nova’s.
What about a Corvair-based, first-generation Camaro?
Another, perhaps simpler, option would have been for GM to significantly base its the first-generation Camaro off the Corvair. Although the car would have presumably been more expensive to produce than the Mustang, its more sophisticated underpinnings could have given it a tangible reason for charging more for the car.
In addition, the Camaro’s rear transaxle with independent rear suspension could have plausibly been shared with the Corvette. It wasn’t until the C5-generation was unveiled in 1997 that the Corvette gained this technology (Wikipedia, 2021).
Instead, GM punted and Ford’s lowest-common-denominator approach prevailed. It took years for Detroit to catch up with foreign automakers when it came to the roadworthiness of its sporty cars. As evolutionary wrong turns go, GM’s decision to not field a front-engined companion to the second-generation Corvair was a big one.
NOTES:
This is an updated version of a story that was originally posted September 20, 2017 and expanded on Nov. 1, 2019 and Sept. 3, 2021. Production figures are from Gunnell (2002), the auto editors of Consumer Guide (2006), the Camaro and Mustang entries at Wikipedia (2022), and Carsalesbase.com (2022).
Share your reactions to this post with a comment below or a note to the editor.
RE:SOURCES
- Auto editors of Consumer Guide; 2006. Encyclopedia of American Cars. Publications International, Lincolnwood, Ill.
- ——; 2017. “1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969 Chevrolet Corvair Corsa and Monza.” howstuffworks.com.
- ——; 2021. “1961-1963 Pontiac Tempest.” howstuffworks.com.
- Carsalesbase.com; 2021. U.S. sales of Chevrolet Camaro and Ford Mustang. Accessed Sept. 2.
- Consumer Reports; 1963. “1963 Automobile Ratings.” Published April; pp. 173-184.
- Gunnell, John; 2002. Standard Catalog of American Cars, 1946-1975. Revised 4th Ed. Krause Publications, Iola, WI.
- Langworth, Richard M. and Jan P. Norbye; ; 1985. The Complete History of General Motors 1908-1986. Publications International, Skokie, IL.
- Nader, Ralph; 1966. Unsafe at Any Speed: The Designed-in Dangers of the American Automobile. Simon & Schuster, New York.
- Niedermeyer, Paul; 2012. “Curbside Classic: 1963 Pontiac Tempest LeMans — Pontiac Tries To Build A BMW Before BMW Built Theirs, And Almost Succeeds.” Curbside Classic. Posted Nov. 30.
- ——; 2013. “Curbside Classic: 1966 Chevrolet Corvair Monza — The Best European Car Ever Made In America.” Curbside Classic. Posted July 25.
- Wikipedia; 2021. “Chevrolet Camaro,” “Chevrolet Corvette (C5),” and “Ford Mustang.” Accessed Sept. 2.
ADVERTISING & BROCHURES:
- oldcaradvertising.com: Pontiac Firebird (1967); Pontiac Tempest (1962)
- oldcarbrochures.org: Cadillac Seville (1976); Chevrolet Corvair (1966); Camaro (1971); Ford Mustang (1965); Pontiac LeMans (1963)
Apart from not featuring a front anti-roll bar from the outset, the only over criticism one could level at the Chevrolet Corvair would be its unique Flat-Six engine that owed little to nothing with other more conventional GM engines nor used in non-Corvair based models.
The question is could other GM engines have been adapted to fit conformably at the rear-engine of the Corvair without too much effort (at an earlier point in the car’s development) and without ruining the weight distribution in place of the Flat-Six?
From my limited perspective the better relatively conventional candidates for the rear-engined Corvair would have been something along the lines of the Buick V6 (either as is or in all-alloy) and 215 BOP V8 or all-alloy version of the SBC V8 (e.g. CERV I as looked at for Vega V8) and early (possibly all-alloy) 90-degree V6 variant.
Do like the idea of having the Pontiac Tempest remain a compact and it also potentially opens the door to something like the Pontiac Banshee I (XP-833 project) reaching production.
With regards to the compact Tempest/Corvair platform continuing into the 1970s, would GM have been better off simply replacing it with the similarly sized 1966 GM V platform and using the latter as a basis for the 1976 Cadillac Seville (if not a sub-Seville model with the Opel KAD being used as a more sophisticated starting point)?
It is unfortunate the Corvair Flat-Six was not modular from the beginning as it would have opened up the possibility for giving GM Brazil an early start as well as spawning a family of Flat-Twin/Flat-Four engines to power sub-Corvair rear-engined models (think Flat-Twin powered NSU Prinz 4 up to a Flat-Four engined Corvair-styled VW Type 3).
The Brazilians themselves did look at a Corvair-like automotive project with the IBAP Democrata.
https://driventowrite.com/2020/07/18/a-democrat-crushed-by-a-dictator/
G.M. had a front-engine Corvair…it was the Chevy II, which by the mid-1960s had the small-block V-8 and S.S. trim. The 1965 restyle was approved by Ed Cole and pushed all the way through on the 14th Floor and continued as a thumb in the eye to Ralph Nader. The decade of the Corvair experiment ushered the way for the Vega 2300 experiment !
Mr. Duvall is correct. The Corvair DID have a front engine companion in the Chevy II. I’ll never understand how Ed Cole – the father of the Corvair – kept on getting promoted through the ranks in GM, ending up in the president’s chair in 1967. It must have galled the GM Board to see the Corvair get clobbered in the marketplace by the much simpler and conventional Ford Falcon; thus the full-steam ahead effort to introduce the Chevy II just months after the Corvair was introduced in October 1959.
No, no on the longer hood on the Corvair. Just put the motor up front.
What I find most elusive about the Corvair is despite its trials and tribulations did GM lose money on it?
From October 1959 to May 1969 they sold nearly 1.8 million Corvairs with only one upgrade so on average 180,000 units a year based mostly on its initial development costs, which were substantial but were amortized over 10 years. Numbers like that sound potentially profitable.
So when all the hype, both good and bad, is brushed aside and going strictly by the numbers does anyone know if GM’s Corvair was a success or failure?
Good question, Bill. I have not come across a specific answer, but your analysis makes sense. In the end, the Corvair may very well have been profitable. Of course, the financial picture might look at least somewhat different if you include litigation costs. And GM did not squeeze additional profit from the Corvair platform by spinning off other products, as Ford did with the Falcon platform. Still, the Corvair was not a flop akin to an Edsel or an AMC Pacer. Indeed, one could argue that it sold reasonably well against the Mustang in 1965 if you consider how much the latter car cannibalized the sales of other Fords.
I doubt GM would ever dared to have reported a profit on sales of the Corvair!
But why not go even further ? Has anyone considered a front wheel drive Corvair ?..
It even could be done without significant modification of the drivetrain, as far as I get it – just “reverse” the differential, and it will go “backwards” (but don’t quote me on this…).
A very thought-provoking article, in any case – thank you !
This topic continues to be a very interesting subject for analysis and speculation.
While I give Ed Cole credit for the small-block Chevrolet V-8 and his innovative thinking with the Corvair, I do not understand why Cole and his engineers swung so far for the fences with G.M.’s first attempt at a compact car unless the Corvair was to truly be Chevrolet’s lowest cost base entry platform for the 1960s, like the Ford Falcon was for FoMoCo. Yet in terms of manufacturing costs and the ability to spin off other vehicles, the lowly Falcon served as the basis for the Comet, Mustang and the stretched intermediate Fairlane / Meteor and so forth. To my knowledge, other than the B-O-P senior Y-body compacts (1961-1963), G.M.’s platform was not share with subsidiaries overseas and the Corvair powertrain did not show up in G.M.’s overseas products. (If I am wrong, please correct me.) The problem with the Corvair, other than the lack of sway bars front and rear, in my opinion, was the displacement limitations on the Corvair flat-six. The long-term valve-seat problems could have been solved with further development (Unfortunately, another example of G.M. letting its customers sweat the details.), but the flat-six was not designed to be more than a 2.72-litre engine (164-cu.-in.) in production trim, although there are enthusiasts who have tested the limits with changes in bore, stroke and crankshafts that have achieved 3.3-litres.
What I do not understand is why the G.M. board, now under the thumb of Frederic Garrett Donner, approved a very expensive option for G.M.’s base compact, when Ford and Chrysler went conventional with front-engine, rear-drive, live-axle designs, which were adapted for their foreign markets too. Plus, the market already had in 1959 the Lark and the Rambler American. I appreciate the desire to create “The American V-W”, but What if the Chevy II had hit the market in the falls of 1959 instead of the Corvair? Would a Chevrolet compact along the lines of the Chevy II 100/300/Nova have taken a big chunk out of the Falcon’s 417,000 1960 model year sales (I believe)? Was it that a Chevy II-like compact in 1960 been too much like a Lark? In many ways, the Corvair and the B-O-P senior Y-body compacts were the G.M.’s output of putting into the showrooms cars with features dangled in front of the Motorama audiences years earlier.
In 1968, I drove a 1963 Pontiac Tempest LeMans with an H.O. 326-cu.-in. V-8. The swing-axle had a sway-bar as did the front suspension. The car was very attractive, but was way over-powered and under-braked with the heavy-duty drum brakes. Boy did it burn rubber! The Y-body platform simply was not rigid enough for the bigger engines, which is why the G.M. intermediates introduced in 1964 were the right platform for big V-8s and the features that made G.M. lots of profitable sales. The optimal wheelbase for the American car of the 1960 was 115 / 116 / 117-inches, in my opinion, which I think was the “sweet-spot” for most American automobile buyers.
One side topic is that this essay touches on the facts that General Motors had too many platform options and too many models within its traditional Sloan model hierarchy with far too much overlap in target market segments and very fuzzy focus. No wonder it all became unraveled in the 1970s.
According to GM legend, Chevrolet considered going front wheel drive back in the 1950s, before settling on the rear engine design of the Corvair around 1956 or 1957. But Ed Cole, who was made chief of engineering at Chevrolet in 1952 and general manager in 1956, was a big proponent of rear engine cars. He was the boss, so there was no turning back. Thus the Corvair was born with its engine in the rear. But almost immediately after the Corvair was introduced to the market in October 1960, the brass at Chevrolet quickly decided that it needed another car to compete with the Ford Falcon, which was killing the Corvair in the marketplace. As early as December 1960, Chevy began development of another compact car. It became the Chevy II, which of course, was a conventional front-engine / rear wheel drive car that was cheaper to manufacture. Cole was Chevrolet’s general manager when that decision was made. I always wondered what he thought of this change in direction – and the fact that Chevrolet had not one, but two compact cars in its lineup. Evidently, this didn’t hurt his career at GM because he was promoted again and again
Here’s a work-up (eBay, AACA) that moves the powertrain forward to drive the front wheels, and takes the spare tire with it. The rear of body would be a liftback for expandable cargo space. Narrower 2-pass rear seat between the rear wheel housings would have been a packaging challenge above the rear suspension, and no hardtop would have been possible. The original Corvair’s 3-box notchback proportions would have become 2-box and Beetle-like but lowered and lengthened like an American car. Could have launched as the original Corvair for the 1959 model year. Something to ponder.
https://content.invisioncic.com/r277599/monthly_2022_10/2074864116_1965Corvairrearrwdvsfrontenginefwd.jpg.acf6238992f7a2ad533911de1c4d7860.jpg
It’s the Citation 4-door hatchback before there was ever a Chevy Citation!
The work-up looks like it has been influenced by the Tatra 603X prototype in a good way. It could have had a positive role in developing the styling for the XP-714 project that featured a Corvair-inspired 2-box body before it evolved into the original Viva.
http://vauxpedianet.uk2sitebuilder.com/vauxhall-ha—viva-part-1
Back in the day, someone actually did put the engine up front to create a custom.
http://kustomrama.com/wiki/Reactor
Picture this: A Pontiac version of the 65-69 Corvair with rear transaxle & independant (not swing axle) suspension, and the OHC Pontiac 6 up front
I wonder if a separate sub-brand would have kept the Corvair viable?
Two scenarios: One, the Corvair becomes a true sub-brand like Meteor or Valiant were supposed to acheive. Marketed as “Corvair by Chevrolet”, it would only be at selected Chevrolet dealers in markets targeted at competing with the rising import tide. This would allow room for the Chevy II/Nova to compete against the Falcon and the Valiant compact cars without stepping on each other’s toes. Realistically, the car had all of the variations needed for viability. Coupe with convertible version, sedan, wagon, van and pickup truck versions. Imagine this sub-brand properly managed for growth (like some import brands).
Two: Team up the Corvair and Corvette into their own sub-brand. Maybe re-name the Corvair as the Corvette Corvair (riffing off of the 1954 fastback show car)with the standard Corvette as the Corvette Sting Ray and the higher performance car as the Corvette Grand Sport. The Corvette Corvair would have only been the high performance version of the actual Corvairs, Monza and Spyder, coupes only. It would have been a tidy little sub-brand with high performance technology forward cars. Quite the formidable mix for the times.
Just a thought.