Why did the corvair spin out

In short, the Corvair was a complete rethink of the automobile and three years ahead of the Porsche GM bet big on the car with a whole family of body styles, including a sedan, a fetching coupe, convertible, wagon, van and pickup.

If Elon Musk had been behind it, he would have been called a genius. Today, these innovative and interesting cars are classic-car bargains, with values ranging from a few thousand up to 20 grand for nice convertibles. The Corvair was a revelation when compared to the lumbering oafs of the day. A pair of short half shafts connected the wheels to the frame-mounted differential. Only the inboard ends of the shafts could articulate, so as the suspension compressed or extended, the wheels tilted at extreme angles.

This had the effect of dramatically reducing the rubber on the road. In an aggressive turn, the rear end tended to lose traction before the front, causing oversteer, or fishtailing. There was a chance, a slim one, that the outside rear wheel could tuck in under the body and potentially trip the car into a rollover. The same goes for the brakes. The suspension is soft, but compared to my Ford Country Squire, the oldest car in my fleet, the Corvair is a Ferrari. In addition to Koehler, retired Chevrolet engineer Jim Musser is on hand.

Musser spent his career in the research and development department. He worked on improving the Corvair and also prepared the defense for the court cases. I gut-checked my plan with him, and he replied that race drivers of the day actually liked the Corvair.

To make sure my test Corvair was as representative as possible, Coker Tire supplied a set of bias-ply tires, just like the car had in I pick up speed and simulate a slalom course, driving back and forth across the center line. The harder I turn the more the back end feels light. Increasing the speed only exacerbates the effect, to the point where the back end clearly wants to make the turn faster than the front.

To avoid spinning the car, I have to counter-steer almost immediately after initiating the turn. But I could see how the lightly trained driver might get into trouble. Ralph Nader put the smackdown on GM in his book Unsafe at Any Speed, also noting that the Corvair's single-piece steering column could impale the driver in a front collision. Meanwhile, the Corvair had other problems. It leaked oil like a derelict tanker.

Its heating system tended to pump noxious fumes into the cabin. So what if the Corvair liked to spin? I could handle any car ever built. Or so I believed at the time. I was about to get two major lessons: the first was on the Corvair's suspension design. The second was on the importance of maintaining an open mind. My inaugural ride in a Corvair came when my mother bought a used one from someone who was moving overseas in the early s. I think her Corvair was a or ' A few friends remembered Nader's book and questioned my mom about the Corvair's safety, but I assured her there was nothing to worry about.

I took my mom's car for a drive, eager to prove just how wrong Nader had been. But within a few miles, I was questioning my own faith. The Corvair's steering wheel felt strangely light in my hands, as if the front of the car had been filled with helium. I stopped at a gas station and checked the tire pressures, setting them to the exact numbers specified in the manual.

That helped a bit, but the Corvair still felt spooky and vague, like a horse that might have some mental health issues.

But I refused to believe that Nader could be right, so I suppressed my unease and accelerated hard into one of my favourite corners, a smooth right-hander. I felt the Corvair's back end starting to swing, like a chuck wagon starting a fatal slew at the Calgary Stampede. With a sick feeling, I realized that I had set the stage for the kind of textbook crash that Nader had detailed in Unsafe at Any Speed.

With more than 60 per cent of its weight over the back wheels, and swing-axle rear suspension, the Corvair laid a trap for the unwary: If you went into a corner too fast, the disproportionate mass of the rear end acted as a pendulum, rotating the car. As the car pushed sideways, the back end began to rise on its suspension due to "axle jacking," an obscure technical term that gains sudden meaning when you are about to go off the road sideways at more than kilometres an hour.

Your first instinct, of course, is to chop the throttle and slow down, but in this situation, that's like pulling the trigger on a loaded gun, since deceleration transfers weight forward, compounding the developing spin.